 on items and not on the agenda or additions have changed us to the agenda. Mark, you wanted two minutes. I'm timing you. Alright. I'm speaking now as a representative of the Curtis Pond Exploratory Group. I just wanted to tell you about something and put something, a marker for you guys to think about that's really interesting. I spent an hour with the Watershed and Flood Protection Program of USDA and NRCS. I was turned on to it by Lakin's people. And they have a lot of money. It's where the infrastructure money is landing. And the bad news is they're just horribly bureaucratic and it takes forever and I don't know if it's a good fit to pay for the dam. The good news is they have a lot of money. They really want to make it work. They're trying to promote their program. They haven't funded any major piece of flood protection infrastructure in Vermont. But the thing I want you to, I don't know, I'll know in a few weeks whether this is even worth pursuing. It's like any other federal program like yours. But anyway, here's the thing. What they were saying is, think broadly. We think about the whole Curtis Pond Watershed and anything inside that watershed that is a physical object that we could build should be part of the project. In other words, any improvement to the island, any improvement to the swimming area, any improvement to the state, but in anything we want. And my problem is, I don't know enough. I'm not sure what we want. I don't want to take time on this agenda. I just wanted to plan with you guys. I think that one of the things we're going to think about, I'm going to keep looking for federal money all over the place for everything I can think of. But that horrible question, what do you want? Suggestion that you meet with the Swim Committee. The Swim Committee. That group is, I mean, for obvious reasons, but also they tend to be people who are highly connected to the pond and Curtis Pond. Great idea. I can give you the names of those. D.C. and Department of Conservation too. Yeah, I'm in touch with Ben Green. You want community. But the state, I mean, everything, it only makes sense that we can use it to pump up the amount of money. I mean, half a million dollars, the cost of the stand was so small that it doesn't even, like, I'm not even sure that it fits on their radar. You have to get the cost up a bit. Well, and don't forget when you're doing all this and thinking about how we're going to spend this money, you know, maybe there's other ways too for the town. Yes, I mean, I think there's a lot of potential for federal money for us. And I think we have to think about what's that difficult question. We're so used to thinking that we don't have money. Well then, there's the question of dream big. Dream big? What will we want? Very good. So the warrants, you know, we asked to have a barrel put out there. There's a barrel out there, but there's nothing in it. There's nothing in the barrel to put anything on the step. Hey, hey. So the warrants, the warrants are circulating. They're done. You're done? Okay, perfect. Thank you. I'm going to drop them in the back. Thank you. Next up is something that we've been talking about doing anyways, which is a financial and banking policy. Let me get to it. I'm just going to pull it up on the screen. There we go. And I just, oh, I printed one off. So it's all on one page. So this is something we've been talking about doing anyways, so this is really great. Did you put up the one that reflects Sanders' change? Yes. Okay, good. This was required by a particular grant, but it doesn't, and so my goal in writing this, because I directed this, was just to put down paper since it's a federal requirement. Well, we do anyway so that Sandra didn't have to do anything more than she's already doing. I ran it by our development people, so does this comply with the grant? Answer, yes. We ran it by Sandra, who today made one edit, and so this is status quo. Right. So this would apply to all financial and banking stuff that we do, not just for that particular grant. So would anybody like to make a motion, or would you allow me to make a motion that we approve the financial and banking policy? I'll second that. There's a further discussion. The only point is that Cliff, when we had a policy that Cliff was drafting, and it probably went into the town hall, he brought forward a format so we could start being somewhat uniform and had a lot of even tracking our policies. I don't think that needs to stand in the way of doing this tonight, but we might want to, well, this is fresh, fine. Actually, we should look at the format, forget about the policy that it was in, and say, yes, we like this, and adopt it, and make the template available so that we all understand what's our policy on policies. Maybe that's actually... You know, one possibility is that if we approve this, we've approved the substance of the policy. We haven't approved the form of the document. We have to sign it. That's our policy. So it could be put in a book. It could be put in a different format. It could be photocopied on. Once it was signed, it could be photocopied on. Once the words are the same, it could be in any form you want it to be later. If you want to take all our policies and put them in one place, one of the organizations that I've worked with, the big problem was, yeah, there were policies. Just know what you knew where they only were. Well, Cliff, as Sharon raised, Cliff did come up with kind of a format, and it would be good to put this in any other future or current policies in that same format. They're all in the same place. They should be on the website so that anybody can go and look them up if they want to. But for tonight's purposes, there's a motion and a second. Are you ready to vote? Yeah. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. All right. I'll send this around for signature. I don't know. I sent this out for the... Are you going to vote tonight? Woo-hoo. I read this in this morning. I was doing some research in the town office, and he said he was coming tonight. Okay. Well, we can do a certificate of highway mileage. We do this every year. This is standard... Standard procedure. Yep. And then the motion that we... is approve the... certificate of highway mileage for the year in February 10, 2022. Yes. And this is what the federally approved mileage. This is how we get reimbursed. Is that we're adopting something that's consistent with the federal... Right. It's like it's... I don't know if you can see. Can you see? No, this has nothing to do with mileage of reimbursement for employees. This is mileage from... for the amount of roads that we have. Oh, okay. All right. Sorry. It's just... These are our roads. Yeah, okay. And we need to get a second. A second. You did it. Yeah. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. I'll send this around for signing. You didn't have to. I guess we signed here. So when Alfred gets here, remind me to ask him about putting some material in that barrel thing. Well, we're waiting for Alfred to hopefully show up. Do you have an update, Rick, on contingency plans? I've got... You know, I've got tests that we need to decide on. I'm just going to put it into a Word document. If he and Toby and I... We've got basically three announcements for some of the contingency lead plans. And then I've got a list of the... Do you have a list? Yeah. Do you also have... Yeah. I've got a site. Yeah. And then we have a list of roads that will be impacted by this because... In the event of... This is what we would like to... In the wet side. And then we'll be... We don't have to have... They're probably important for performers. In the event of severe weather, the mechanical or staff urges these roads will have delayed service. But service will be... Service will be taken... Or service will be renewed as quickly as possible. The road foreman will notify the select board of the details in this Stage 2 operation. We're going to... And potential delays. As is the situation unfolds. So because this is going to vary pretty quickly. So if we can't really set the time here, so I think we will have to post that live on it. I don't understand what you're saying. Well, there would be a... We would be... At the time of the event, we're probably advanced because we'll know what kind of guests coming. And then we'd say we're going to... These roads that we are going to... They're going to get service by 10 o'clock. Instead of 7 o'clock. It will be greater. Something bad. But that way we can predict based on the actual event. And you're going to... And you're looking to... You're looking to add this to the existing winter operations plan. We talked about... Yeah, absolutely. More than that. This is something that we would use as a... Yeah, we'll go into a little bit more detail in the final. But what this is to... This is actually a public announcement that we would have that would probably go... We'd stay on the website. And then we would use this as a framework for whatever form we decide or wherever we tell people. And then that gets customized based on the event and the moment. Really, all the changes is the... Probably the response time for the selected roads. If it selects... Are there can be roads the same all the time? Or is that... Well, they are generally. But if we have a bigger... Let's say we had some kind of an extreme climate. That's going to be a whole lot of... Well, that's a whole different thing. Right. And so they are... That is exactly the winter operations. And that's different. And that will be posted. I have a list here. I mean, we will post it. I think this is good as a start because I know there's that... Just the concept is something that we're kind of rocking our heads around and moving into. But I will say, frankly, it falls short of what I thought we were talking about. And I think we have a little bit of a death get out of jail free card because we do actually have a full staff. If we didn't have a full staff and we had a big event, I have a feeling we would... What we're not doing very well is anticipating an extended period. We're not talking about 10 a.m. when Tucker Road gets plowed. We're talking about Tucker Road gets plowed at 5 p.m. or tomorrow. And I realize we're probably not ready to even accept those scenarios yet. But I think we should... After putting this in place... Did you like a emergency situation? If it was that long? She's talking about something more where we have reduced... We did trust that in this. Right. But we don't have a full staff because we still have an emergency situation. Are you going to have this task for us for this meeting? Sure. But it's not going to have the sort of... Why don't we discuss it when we've got it? Actually, I can try to make something that addresses it a little bit. No, not now. I think it has... It's going to take time and real... I don't know, precision, math, whatever. And I think that this is a good first start. I reminded of the posting from B32. The school was closed because they didn't have staffing. And it said something like pursuant to our plan for this event. So you know that behind that they had a whole... If this happens... A contingency plan. With a lot of detail. So we're not going to get there this year and I'm okay with that as long as we recognize that there's a level of sophistication that is out there for us to get to. Well, I think we are. But be careful because I know in dealing with... after 10 years on the school board a lot of those plans end up in the disaster. It's hogwash. It depends on the events. What we need to do is be... I think we can... Your point's good, right? We've got to be careful not to try and make this too scientific. It's got to be flexible. It's got to be really easy to understand. And that's what... That means we kind of have to scale this as we get an event. I mean these... These things can be very... You will learn and you will see the patterns. We're doing so short what you're proposing, though. It seems to me you are proposing that you are going to add to the winter policy. Right. In a list of streets. You're going to say that in the event of a staff shortage which could occur because of COVID That's in what I read. In the event of a staff shortage or severe weather these are streets that are subject to not being however you want to say it. And we will be posting details about this in the event... You know, in the event such a thing should occur. And that is the same that I said. I'm going to say a rather mechanical or a staff shortage. Yeah, I know. I mean it's in there. Alright, so let's have something in writing on this at the next meeting if you could please. Yes. Just so we can have something in writing. I mean it's going to take a while. You might have this kind of an event. You might have that kind of an event. So we just... It's going to be a work in progress should I say. I think on going work in progress these things are going to come up that we anticipated. Well I think it's always going to be that that we've got to... Right, we have to be flexible. We do. We're going to generally see these things coming. And you know, we're going to have some idea you know, after we'll have an idea based on his planning experience it's probably going to be the flood or a storm event. You know, you never know if you could have some kind of disaster that we don't anticipate which is all deals are off. That's very nice and what it is. Yeah. We'll have those. Alright, great. Thank you guys for working on that. Okay. Alfred, before I forget there's a barrel. Thank you out there for putting stuff down but there's nothing in the barrel. It's empty, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, I'll get to... Okay, thank you. Maybe you can leave my shovel here if I'm standing here. Well, I'm going to... I got to contact Andy. This is supposed to be... You need a steel shovel. Something so... Ooh, so we can open the door. Yeah. We'll just order a steel shovel. Alright. Alright. Okay. Next up, thanks for coming, Alfred. We wanted to review the material that you're using on the roads this winter. I guess there's been some incidents where people have gotten flat tires because they're slate pieces and we had talked about this a couple of years ago. And not using material that has the slate in it that gets into people's tires. The shoe that we've been using for years. We've been using this on winter roads? I don't recall. I don't recall sand. It's winter sand that we get from McCulloch Russian. Yeah. And then we mix stone with it because the sand that we get doesn't have to be large enough stone. And I don't know if you and anybody's noticed, but we get a lot of freeze and hang now. Yeah, I understand. Those stones are saved in our Easter. Yeah, I understand. They stand up above the rocks and they provide traction. I understand that. Look at those. This is just on my shoes today. So we had a conversation I want to say four years ago. I had two flats on brand new tires for almost new tires within three weeks destroyed my tires. Because these things go in your tire you can't fix them. And those tires were $130 a piece or something. And we had numerous complaints that we kind of myself included this like we remember said, that's the hazard being on the road but we had stacks of complaints that year. People saying their tires are destroyed. I remember a woman on Valentine Road for instance. And so we had a conversation about not using slate anymore and this is not so is this that same material we have not been using? That's the stuff that goes in the sand pot to mix into our winter sand. I know but given our conversation Most of those higher problems that was talked about back then was in the summertime when we used gravel. I stopped using that for top coat gravel. That's a different gravel? That's a different material. That's a different gravel. This stuff is very sharp. It's like a granite that can use crushed granite. Give me a solution. I don't know. Well, we were hoping you could find it. Give me a solution. That's not for a type of stone. That's not for a type of stone. That's not for a type of stone. We simply asked is there another kind of stone that's more rounded than that? That's not available. That's the only stuff that's available. Actually granite is a lot more expensive, right? Crush granite? Crush granite. But it doesn't. Is it sharp as that? No it's not. It's more expensive. It's more expensive. Because this stuff, yes it's sharp. But that sharpness gives you traction. Because if you can see it, it's broken. And it digs in for the ice. And the granite rolls up? The granites just roll up. It breaks up more round. And yes, it'd be easier on tires but you're not going to get the traction out of it. He's right. So it's a tough one. And absolutely, if you start buying granite it's going to cost a lot more money. How much more? It's $2 or $3 more in a yard. What do we pay in a yard? How much more would it be? We buy it by the time. This stuff we buy by the time comes from pike industries. Yeah. And it's like $14 a ton. Does that build a U-pit stuff? No, pike industries. They're in the south of Eastbury. Because they were running the legumes at the pike? No, the legumes stand alone. Legumes are their own company. I thought they feasted out on the pike. Pike has their own quarry. It's over a year from Williamstown. That's where it's spent from. So I feel like we've got to have some sort of stone in that sand Can we try granite and see what it is cost and effectiveness versus this? I guess your sand is mixed for the winter now. That's all done. We're stuck with that. Even if you didn't want it to be stuck with it. Can we next year try granite in one pile? I don't know. I think you brought in material last time. We had a conversation about this. I think it was more for summer granite. The issue was tires didn't flatten. We did the set sieve analysis. Remember that? That was different. Road basis. I don't know. I just think that there's an option that we're saving money for the town at the expense of our residents. Or the town needs to adopt the policy that if someone gets a stone that looks like that in their tire, we pay for their tires. I mean, if we're intentionally putting stuff down, if I put, this is an exaggeration. If I put roofing nails out on the road because it gave good traction, everyone had flat tires and then the town said, well, good traction, but we're ruining everyone's tires. That would not be good policy. That's an extreme, of course we wouldn't do that, but we know that this is causing problems. Certainly not putting this out intentionally. I know that. Of course not. Of course you're not, but now it's coming to our attention. You called me. Yeah, I don't want to speak. I want to make sure the board had a chance to speak first. Yeah. Well, I come down to the town court, so this year of the day, I make three trips. And I've never seen so many stones coming up. My name re-grown down, down George Road, and all that peaking ranch. It's unbelievable. I mean, I got a flat tire, and I've heard a lot of people complain to me about it. I think the town ought to be responsible for flat tires. What if somebody takes that stone, they get a flat tire and they go in and they had a tree and something gets killed, and I know this is being great evil. Well, they're going too fast. Then they're going too fast. Yeah, they can say it, and they can do this. They can't do it. We're putting this stuff all over the main highways to travel. And it's crazy. I saw it the other day. I don't know why, but tonight it looked better because, you know, it was pushed down in, and you did it early in the morning. I know when you come through in the morning. I know when you come back through. I know everything about it. I live on that road. I wonder, I don't know if our VLCT insurance pays for this flat tire length. Well, they should. They don't pay for anything. I had no confidence. I had no confidence. I mean, the numbers are... VLCT is in it. And then they raise our rate. They said that when we met with them. You know, if you've got a truck or a car that's got a 10-point tire, then how many people can afford to buy cars with a 10-point tires? They can't do it, huh? Everyone's got a four-plus. My son brought me that 10-point. I don't worry about that. I didn't have to punch a hole in it. But I didn't cost me nothing. I took my tires up on the hill, K&W, I'd buy tractor tires, trailer tires, wagons, and they'd say, nothing. But I still don't like having brand-new tires to a hole in it, driving down the road. You're lucky they could fix it. Can we let... I'm just going to say, generally, with these kinds of the shales, it's like... We always saw transportation. You saw six to eight times the tire wear as opposed to like the credit. But Alfred is right that you come at an expense of traction. So you're depending... I get what you're saying. I've sliced tires, too, on it. Maybe an experiment is in line. Because that's an extreme cost for people. That's the general wear. That's if you're using it two year round, in which he's not doing. I don't know what that would be for winter use. Because it's nothing like having a gun as an aggregate on your road. In general, if you're using something to grab it, that's more fastened. So it doesn't slice your tire. But the shales and the slates, they're a lot more... They're more damaging. That's why we're... It's worth an experiment. We can't solve this right now, obviously. I don't know. With the liability on the tires it's something we all face. Maybe that's something we pay for. Maybe we try to... find a reasonable solution. You know, that it actually works. We should test it on the road. If it saves us $50,000 in material cost as opposed to grants, to say they're equivalent in terms of traction or nearly equivalent, then we'll just pay for everyone's tires. But if it saves us $3,000, or $1,000, and we're damaging tens of thousands of dollars or maybe $1,000 worth of resin's tires and there are going to be many people who don't know they can come to us. I mean, I just... I agree with that. It costs benefit. I think what we do is let's look and make sure it works. Because he's right, the granite rolls. It rolls more easily, right? That's the problem with it. That's the way it passes. It doesn't. These things embed. And like Alfred said, it's getting nicer and nicer. Just overdue. Alfred? It's actually getting harder to find products, too, nowadays. Sure it is. There's only a few quarries in this area that are in the process of this. Is this a COVID thing or just other stuff? It's just... It's just... There's no one who can get a permit to open a quarry anymore. So it's sort of limited to where you can get this stuff. So to rephrase where we're at with this, what I heard was there's nothing we can do about it this winter. Next season, you're going to check and see what the cost difference is between the granite and the current material to see what makes sense and then we can... We have to see, you know, which, you know, maybe we can just throw some bite and on a road. Can we just test it? Yeah. So is that right, though? Is it down here correctly? But this is maybe a two year thing because Alfred's got to keep moving forward for the next winter. That's why I suggested we do... Mix one pile up. Maybe we use the sharpie stuff again but maybe we mix up one pile with the rounded granite and then see if it's that much different and do the analysis and see if it's worthwhile or not. Can we get that material now to try it? There is a test pile. The hang up for changing and until the pile is already mixed. Yeah. So you're suggesting, John, a test pile. Next year. Next year to see. Side by side. And we can make Lightning Ridge Road the test road. Make it the guinea pig. Well... It gets a lot of traffic. There's a lot of people that go down the road. What's the right... Break his other arm. If we're going to be doing something like that what's the right time for us to be talking about it here so that we put it right back in front of us. I think it's up... Alfred knows when he... Put the sand pile up in the spring as soon as the roads are open. You mix it right then. So we shouldn't have to get any supply now. We've got it all. It's already there. You don't have to go looking anywhere. So how are we going to file it up here to the garage? That's what we're saying. We can't get it here. We can't get it there. No, you don't understand. You're talking right about the idea of using the granite instead of this. There isn't anything open right now to get any of that. It's moot because this stuff's already mixed in with ourselves. I understand that. Well, we're working our way at it. Spilled milk. You know how much about milk? It spills. Can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Right. I like that. Can't do that. Put the toothpaste back in the tube. Anything else on the road materials issue? Is that everybody? Good. I just think we should be talking about it right at the time because I'm not saying that this isn't good, but to keep those shifts in front of us so that we're not six months later saying what? We all forget. Somebody can put it on her tip. It's also up to Alfred. He knows what we want. It's on him to let us know he's ready to talk about this again with some additional information. It's his responsibility as well. So we should be looking in March or April? Maybe after March. Usually May. But don't you start one thing to see who's got what in March or April? Can you hear Alfred? Yeah, she can hear. Okay, April. We'll come back. You got it. I mean, it is. I mean, you know when you're doing it, you know we want to know. So it's your responsibility. So I understand we can't get enough employees. I'm sure it's right. It's the way it is across the United States. It's not just the United States. I understand. If you pay them enough, the guys that come to the interview, they're not qualified. Who decides they're not qualified? How does Alfred know? Why would you be the only one to qualify if this guy's not qualified to run a truck on the road? He isn't denied anybody to run a truck on the road. Yeah. I think the slut boy needs to decide if this guy qualifies for the job. Alfred's not turned people away. He's not turned anybody away. He just don't have the applicants. Well, we're not paying enough money. Well, we increase the wages. We offer a sign on bonus. We're doing more than a lot of the towns. There are no other towns that I've heard of are doing a sign on bonus. They're not doing that. They're short, big time. It's across the board. It's across. I think for giving a sign on bonus got brought up. I think the South Burlington select board meeting. Really? Yeah, the road commissioner complaining he couldn't get people. And they're like, I don't know what we're doing. He said, well, the town of Cavals has a sign on bonus. I don't think it should be just up to him. He should be involved in it. No, it's just him. You don't understand. We don't have lines of people where Alfred picks. Alfred gets somebody with a CDL if he's lucky. A lot of times they don't have a CDL but they're competent. They run excavators or whatever. So he trains them up. And we get them trained up. And then these guys go, oh, I can work for Jack's construction company. They steal people from us, too. And they're like, oh, I'm going to work for Jack's construction with between Alfred and us in at least half a dozen meetings. We've talked about exactly what you're raising. How are we going to attract more people? Where do we find them? Where could he advertise? How much should we pay? We are really involved. And he hasn't turned anybody away. You guys don't make a decision. I don't think he should be the only one. I think maybe you or you like everybody is muted on my end. Does anybody else have anything to say? Travis, could you please stop talking? It's my fault. I was trying to let someone in and I muted the host. I've messaged her. Let's see if we can... I want to add something here. Doug, I think... I'm not sure if they've received the message. Let me message John and see. But I don't agree with you. The select board has... We have... We have worked... I think we can unmute ourselves. Wait a minute. Hey guys, you know what? Yes, she can. I can't unmute her, though. Okay. We can hear what everybody is saying. Is there a way for people to please mute their mics? We're trying to have a discussion here. Thank you. This is something, Al. This is something even if we had layers of people applying. This is a function. The primary interviewing is something that we have delegated. We have delegated that authority to Alfred. If Alfred had a challenge, if Alfred had a hard time deciding, Alfred might ask us to get involved and support him. But absent that request, that authority is delegated to Alfred. And I think that that's the right way to go. I agree completely. Alfred's got the expertise. He comes to us. He vets through. He knows exactly what he's looking for. We don't know the roommate's piece of this as well as Alfred does. But he comes to us with his selections. We find out who's applied and why he rejected some or why he what his preferences would be and what for what reason. We listen to that. We definitely don't just sign on. He's very good about that with us. Yeah, but it's his expertise. We don't suck a guess. If he has a problem. He's the road commissioner. He's tasked with hiring and employees. And like Rick said, he lets us know even though he doesn't have to. He fills us in on all the background and everything. So we know. We're going to have to meet seeing these guys on the road. We want to make sure we know what's going on. In good process actually. And since we bumped the pay we have seen a better response, right? So we're actually the town is now in the last couple months not having the problems all these other towns are having. We're starting to get people out. We're stealing them back. I think that's what we're talking about. So have you had any new recruits? No. Not far the full time position is still available. We probably should advertise again then. Yeah, I think so. We're getting by because we've got Dana starting. Right, and John Stafford is starting. John starts at 17. We're continuing with the bonus. I think it's great. We will for a new hire. Remember John. We won't get into here. So we'll re-advertise including the bonus. See what we get? Yeah. We still got a position available. Right. If you know somebody, Doug Yeah. You're going to drive? I could. I'm sure you could. I will. I go out and get a cab. I ain't going to take another cab. Well, if you know folks send them out for tour. Yeah. All right, Alfred. Do you have anything else for us? Do you mind? No. We're finally full head of steam with the trucks. In fact, I, tomorrow I believe I will confirm the ordering of the new truck of the new 10-wheeler. We've gotten two different prices for the material of the plow's body, all that stuff there through the roof. We're going to change vendors because of that. Because there's $20,000 difference between the two. And this was this new vendor you wanted to use, right? No. No, this is for the equipment. Oh, okay. That's right. So they won't match. Well, I haven't, I put it out. I told them what I wanted on the trucks. They quoted me numbers. So you'll try to get $20,000. Now, I've always used HB Fairfield. They've always put our trucks together. They aren't in the state no more. They're in New Hampshire, right? They're in New Hampshire. So now I have to drive to New Hampshire to get parts or wait two days for it to be delivered. All of that. And not to mention get the truck rebuilt or put together there. That distance is just not, it's not feasible. So the company that is just less money is in Burlington. So I'm thinking that it's going to be wise to change the switch to them. It's better to keep it local anyways. Right. And they're cheaper. They're the one, they're $20,000. Right. So that is the body stuff. And then the rest of the truck with the motor is coming from that new place, right? No, it's coming from we bought trucks from them before. Charlie boys. Okay. The one that lent us the truck that you're using right now. Oh, okay. Okay. That truck is sent on back last week. Oh, really? Why? Because we got our our own trucks back running. Oh, okay. All right. Good. So we're all up to speed. All the trucks are running. As of right now, yes. It was awesome and a great company. Yeah, Mark has just one unrelated question. As I came into town, I guess today, I saw the speed sign that says your speed is Yeah. It wasn't working. It's probably covered with snow. It's the solar panel covered with snow. Yeah. That's one of the downsides of solar. What? We'll have a talk with Mother Nature about that. Sunshine would be good. So, we've gotten through an ice storm or two ice storms, right? And this one that they're predicting tomorrow for 35 below wind chill, that doesn't affect the roads any, right? No, it actually helps when the tractor is upstanding. Okay. Doug? You know, I haven't seen a state trooper for sure in this town, on the side of the road, or anywhere. I haven't seen it happen. And they drive like billy hell down by my place. And, you know, they've got those fence posts that I put up that you don't like, and I don't like. But you know where they're there? They slow them down. Because they don't go by their 55, 60 mile an hour. I hate that. God, I hate that. Well, hopefully they're not driving like that on the roads they're racing. They drive like billy hell. They drive faster. Sharon walks the road. You know how fast they drive. Well, they go fast on Bain-Camulli Road too, faster than this. Not so like Blaney Road, Blaney Road. We've got two farms. We've got the school. And we can't slow them down. There should be a cop setting there. Now, I pay $22,000 a year property tax. I can't get any of them buttons to stand there. So we're just, you might want to stick around. We're interviewing a gentleman. He's out there in the ether. And he's got a lot of credentials. And he's actually going to talk to us about how to understand it. Some of your ideas about being more than a cop will be in a town cop. So we're going to... I don't want to put two tractors right by the driveway to hide that state trooper guy right there. So they can't see him coming up to the hill. They can't see. But you know when the snow's gone and the leaves are gone, I mean the snow's here, the leaves are gone, they can stand up by the little shrunk cemetery. They can look all the way down by my house by my house. They can look all the way down through and see if there's anybody coming and go like Billy. Well, I'll just tell you I had a respect for you. I never go over 60 past your place. Oh, yeah. Okay. Is there anything else? Or are we... Is Alfred free to go? He is free to go. Doug might want to stick around and listen to this discussion Yeah. Okay. So our interviews are really scheduled for like eight. I see there's a couple of of the candidates here. There's Sam and Ashley and Megan. I thought we weren't going to interview DRB tonight. Yeah, we are. It's on the agenda? And the center said the email chain then? No, I mean that's what we plan to do. Well, we've got ten minutes. Does anybody have a problem in doing the elevator contract while we give this a few more minutes for people to sign on? Is everybody okay with this? This is for the is. And this is for the elevator here. And near as I can figure we would be a limited use limited application. And these they're looking for us to sign on for a period of two or three years. Denise, can you make sure you're unmuted? I think Katie said she asked about being unmuted. I think I'm unmuted. Katie, can you hear me? We can hear you fine now. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So this is the we have to we have to have the elevator inspected that if we don't have it inspected and somebody from the state comes they will close down the town hall. So this is a renewal. We need to pick whether we want two or three years. What's the cost? It is annual annual inspection. So that's yearly resulting in an operational certificate. It's a hundred for us. If we did a two year contract, it's a or three years. 175 a year. To get out of town all fun. Yeah. They've done it before. Right. This is the communist. And we were silenced by it. So why not do it for years? It makes sense to me. We don't have to worry about it for three years. Is that a motion? Is that a motion mark? Yes. I'll second that. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. And I can also let the details up here and send it back. What is it? We are before eight. We are before eight, but I think we think I think we can get started. But I just wanted to say that everyone has sent, I sent around the emails that everybody supplied us with their interests and it's great to have new people interested. I am not going to vote on the members. And I am even thinking that maybe you want to interview tonight. We want to interview tonight. And think about it and vote on it at the next meeting. It's up to us what we want to do. Can I just ask for clarification? Are you not going to vote or are you going to recuse yourself? I don't know. I guess what's the difference. I would like to participate in the interview. So participating in the interview is a level of involvement that if you are tense to be able to say you recuse yourself in participating in the interviews is in my mind not recusing. Well, she just offered not to participate in the interview. No, she said she wasn't going to vote. I'm not going to vote. It's technically No, it's a vote. Go ahead. We have a list of questions that I think we should ask each person the same question so that it's fair and equitable. You sent them around. I guess it comes down to whether Denise believes she has a conflict of interest or not. If she believes she has a conflict then she should recuse herself. If she doesn't believe she has a conflict she can choose not to vote or she can choose to vote. She can choose to participate or she can choose not to participate or there's some variation on that. I think we already went over this with our attorney that there's not a conflict of interest. There's not a financial conflict but we have been down this path before. There's very little financial conflict but if you read the league's materials on conflict there are many conflicts beyond financial and it would be difficult perhaps but the last time we had a big conflict problem it wasn't one we saw coming and we started all to look at the scenarios and say, oh, I can see how we got here. You know, Denise, you participate in the DRB as a member, as an alternate and you crafted the questions and those are questions that when you come up for renewal perhaps we should be asking you and yet you're the one who's crafted the questions. That's the sort of thing to me that we have a five person select board we have the opportunity it's very easy for those of us who are not members of the DRB to have an independent arms length process that is totally separate from the DRB if we had there are many other scenarios that are not this scenario where it could be problematic but there's no reason for this to be an issue I acknowledge it's not a financial conflict but I think that we are in a bad place when the only conflict we think of is when it's financial. I'm not even talking about financial. I didn't say that. My understanding is that this is not uncommon for select board members to be on DRBs or CBAs. That's different than participating in the process where we appoint other people. I understand that it's not a statutory conflict where you're prohibited from being both things but that's different than saying that when you are both things you should participate especially as a select board which is responsible for vetting interviewing candidates participating in that process on a board that you're also on is unnecessary. Mark is here by virtue of all of us vetting him and putting him on your hand he was elected. I thought you were appointed to an open seat I was not appointed you were elected but we appointed a cliff he was appointed and this was my argument what the cliff thing where we had this discussion about do we appoint it to the clerk's position as Judy originally asked us to do and in the end we all decided that gives an advantage as appointed incumbent but nevertheless that is something we could have done to the clerk and that is something we did for Cliff and that provides Cliff an advantage over anybody who would want to challenge him because he's already up to speed and you can say you already got the credentials so I think these things are not uncommon I don't see it as a conflict unless I don't see it as a deep conflict to have someone sitting next to you having a say in their being put there I don't get it because I don't see how there's any benefit to the person the other judges sitting next to them their judges they're looking at a project unless there's a political advantage I still have maybe I'm not picking up on it now I don't see the advantage or even the perception I don't understand it I suppose if I were on the select if I were on the DRB with Denise I'm just this is hypothetical if I were on it with Denise and I know that the select board I'm kind of surprised that you can do both in Vermont apparently you can so it doesn't matter I mean you can be on the reason no but you see it's if if I was on the board with her she said one thing and I disagreed with it I might hesitate to say anything because I know that the select board chooses whether to extend my term so I might feel that Denise has power over me and I shouldn't you know disagree with her because she might not go to reappoint me and that's the only way out of that I guess would be to say well any member of the select board who's also on DRB isn't going to participate in selection of people at all I don't know that's pretty theoretical to that's it like I said I don't plan to vote but I am going to listen to what they have to say but decided it's her decision we can't force it but Sharon wrote up a list of questions and I think if Denise prepared it's up to all of us to then look at this question is there any bias that accrues to Denise or could it be perceived as unimaginable or are they unusual questions for interviews if they're unusual and strange and they're maybe an ulterior possible but if it's how old are you how are you doing why are you interested so let's go Sharon I want to understand because well I would be so much more comfortable if we had a discussion with independent of somebody who's actually wearing both hats you know what there may be a bias in those questions that I'm not even aware of the bias is to have somebody well I don't even want to say it because we've got potential candidates sitting there there's an angle on there that's not well represented when I look at the questions it's not a big deal we can cure it organically it's that firewall of what's going to happen down the road and how is this going to look in some scenario that we can't fully envision somebody just one of you just laid one of them out there's yeah even the questions that were crafted if they leave somebody out and then it becomes well Denise was the original architect of those questions oh well there you go you know this is Denise's angle on it and she can have that angle as a member of the select board but then we are wholly purely as a select board establishing our process for how we want to interview not just the DRV but other candidates for other positions so that should be our process for everything without I don't know without bias without influence having somebody who participates in DRV come in and say okay here's the input that you guys need to have about what's going on in DRV then they leave we have our discussion and it's pure when somebody is in both places and Denise I know feels very personal because you're the person who's here but please don't take it that way I'm it isn't personal but we also don't have to do it as a thing there are a lot of us here we don't need to have the fifth person that should be one of the advantages of having a five person board is it's very easy for somebody to simply remove themselves and say you know what we don't even have to go there we don't even have to do it so so this discussion I think is healthy I think it informs me about Sharon and Mark and Rick's quite on this one opinion on this I'm not soliciting opinion on the same but that informs me but it also informs Denise and she to be fair she doesn't have five brains her brain and her view of the world we all have our view you have your view somewhat different than mine Mark's is different than mine although you both educate me to understand more and Denise can take this in and then this is how you do it I guess I was done in court you ask a judge to recuse and the judge says well what is the conflict and then now Denise has heard us and then she makes a decision it is her decision I will make a decision to recuse and maybe we have people waiting to be that's the process I'm going to ask her questions you can do that you go ahead do you want to ask your opinion before you go besides that is it two sentences it's already done but we're going to be talking about this all right so Denise is recusing yourself I will pull up the emails I printed them two of us are here the two of you are there I see Sam I don't see anybody else but I see Sam Katie this is Sharon when I'm looking at you you're seeing the back of my head so everybody understand that when you're seeing Mike I'm looking at the screen here it's a very weird setup I see Sam who else do we have who is a candidate for the DRB I'm not sure we can see them we can see them let me make it let me make it a full view if I can figure out how to do it I see that Stephanie Kaplan is here who I wonder if she's a member and I see Travis Shores is here for later in the meeting who's waiting for whose name is on the DRB list so Denise Sam Colt is in the room that's right they said they would so if Denise doesn't share your screen then we can can you see them now no but us we the public is seeing this so just don't share your screen I can do that I'd like to get the screen share to work just go on share sit on share up there okay everybody don't need to talk to me all at once okay Sam hi Sam Sam well we're getting hi welcome and thank you for your application this is Sharon and I'm the vice chair of this network while we're getting ourselves organized here can you just introduce yourself for everybody's benefit and also give us your elevator speech on what led you to apply to the DRB in Calis sure hi everybody I'm Sam Colt I am more or less a collision from the time I was nine although I left for 16 years and ran my own business in New York City working with architects and designers there for that entire time installing plaster finishes all over the place so I don't have a an education in design or architecture but I've worked with designers and architectures for the last 25 years and having come back to Calis after living in the city for those years I've been back since 2007 and my husband and I bought the half of the white farmhouse by the blue barn in Maple Corner and so we're here to stay in our all little way and I'm personally very attached to the place and aesthetically obsessed with the place so and I should have actually thought about a pitch I didn't quite realize what this was going to be but I'm here and you know don't need to compete with anybody but would love to be of service to my town so that's me actually I looked at we have a we keep in our folders I don't know if you know where this is but we keep right now and we have two alternate openings so even though we have more than one applicant there's lots and lots of room you mentioned design and architecture and I just want to get clear that your intent is to be applying to the development review board which is different than the design advisory board I am aware that but I think that in development that there's always an architectural and design element and that they can interface cooperatively you know so that's my angle I like how bridges used to be beautiful things that are just infrastructure sometimes can be done in ways that doesn't add cost beauty so that's what I'm doing here I just wanted to make sure that you are on the flight you are expected to be on so to speak have you by the way yes but I might not be qualified so perfectly fine stepping back but I'm glad to be here I want to know more what's going on with my town anyway so I'm happy to be here tonight have you ever been on a commission or a board can you hear me no I think she said hold on so she can hear you can you hear me Sam you can hear yes I can hear you have you ever been on a commission or a board like this before or is this your first time around the only boards I've been on were for my daughters when I was raising them in New York City just the little school board so that's all showing up showing up showing up that was the main thing showing up is a lot of it do you have by the way have you been involved in any way in terms of other than just listening to my neighbors Meg Dawkins and what the process that she went through for about 6,000 years figuring it all out over there that's really about that's about it hearing conversations is pretty much the level that I'm at I printed everything but the questions it seems so I'm at least good with you continuing right now by the way have you ever heard the term quasi-judicial quasi-judicial I've heard that term but you're not that familiar with it right if you end up being on this board you're going to be playing a quasi-judicial role or a judge of types as you would see and so do you have any experience with legal processes no you know I really am here out of curiosity and wondering if there's a way that my natural instincts and experience can dovetail in a way to support my town but I do not have the experience that you're looking for I'm still happy to be here just because I'm asking these questions doesn't mean that we think you're not qualified we just want to know if I could chime in Sam you're qualified already by being a citizen of this town thank you by having a pulse of being alive and being a citizen and interested you're 99% of the way there but the only problem as I see would be if you were to say I've seen this by the way when I live in a different town I'm getting on this board because I don't believe in the process I'm going to swear out the regulations but then I'm going to circumvent and do my best to undermine and sabotage the process then I would vote not to support any candidate with that I'm just telling you we have a training program put together by our attorney and you and every member is required to go through it even age old members were required to there are a number of members who are authors environmentalists summer attorneys in the past they don't have this depth of knowledge in terms of quasi-judicial process they finally retired from the board they got two nice women who you know they were very adept at their jobs on the DR board I get following over John following over John saying you know I think the hardest thing about being besides having to show up all the time and as you know from your school board experience the hardest thing is you're going to be reviewing applications by fellow citizens and there's times when the application just doesn't fit the rules and you have to say no and that's hard it's just emotionally very difficult to sit there and say no to a neighbor and I want to know if you're comfortable with that possibility just knowing that that could happen that's the hardest part yeah frankly that sounds terrible that sounds absolutely terrible it's actually commonplace it's actually commonplace I would need to be mentored through that getting comfortable with that process and speak at length with whoever it is used to do it and get advice hi this is Sharon I'm on the other side of the room from the working computer Sam this is a point where the term is quasi-judicial and the fact of having to say no kind of come together and the training that Mark and John mentioned there is training available we have a training from our town there's also a lot of VLCT materials including trainings the development review board is the quasi-judicial label is really helpful because there's a very clear process and standards that you're applying when you hear a request for a permit or application for development the development review board's role is not just to sit with a blank piece of paper like we are and kind of ask a bunch of questions it's to apply hopefully a very very clear set of standards about what is required for that application to be approved and I think so one of the questions comes then hearing from you your willingness to go through those trainings to put yourself into a mindset of there are standards there are rules I'm not free to just make it up I have to apply the standards so when I say all of that what's your reaction to that that's very useful the fact that it's not just my opinion that that I could stand comfortably next to and behind a set of rules and I think I'm a good communicator so I think that I would have a shot at being able to communicate in a respectful semi-ry away to my neighbors all of whom I respect not even knowing them I think that's a strong suit of mind so if I understand what the rules are and can help somebody explain why they're good for the town I'd be interested in doing that I'm interested in good development and in harmony and in long-standing relationships so those are my strengths Are there any members of the board who have additional questions or comments I don't have a question about experience in writing experience but that's one of the important functions could you guys have a question about writing Have you been involved in a situation where you had to write you know you were producing well I've done a lot of writing I'm a good writer this is nothing you guys but I was always the de facto editor for everybody I've ever known I've been asked by me and applications and stuff like that I I can keep things concise and I don't go on it I'm a good writer Any other questions by members of the board Any questions for us or anything you want to add that we didn't give you a chance to say You know the only question that I do have is I need to know from you folks what is the time commitment because I tend to my life is very full so I don't want to commit to something that I then can't do well so I need to know what I would need to be putting aside in terms of time My staff having been on the DRV many years ago and then Denise you're still here to respond to Sam's question about time commitment When I was on the DRV I was Yeah, you're testifying It was 14 I think 14 years ago it comes to mind based on how old my daughter was at the time So it is a whole other lifetime We had a very that was a period of very active applications and so the time commitment at a very high level is driven by the development for energy in town there's a lot of applications that have to go to the DRV to be approved that the DRV is busier if we're in a dry spell the DRV is less busy so there's certainly ebbs and flows that's got to be true no matter what the time frame Denise would you be willing to just go around time you're an alternate but what's the pace right now of the DRV as an alternate I think I've only served a couple of matters in what period in the last three years maybe so the time commitment Sam probably comes from reviewing the zoning regs to see if the proposed project complies with the zoning regs and usually the board does that you know you would kind of do that ahead of time so you know what questions to ask but the board when it meets after the hearing the board can go into deliberative session and they generally gather around and talk about the criteria to see if it meets the criteria so it depends on the scope of the project most things I think are done in one hearing and then maybe one deliberative session and then somebody is tasked with writing the decision and everybody because it's a quasi-judicial process you can review the decision online it doesn't have to be done in an open meeting it can be done in an executive session and then everybody's sign says okay sounds good and drive down to the top clerk's office but I think Denise I'd like your reaction to this my impression is you know in some cities the DRB meets like weekly or every other week and you know that I was on once on a planning commission and you know I knew that Thursday evenings were not my own and that's not the case here the pace is set by how much activity there is I mean I think right now I'm not sure it seems like I heard there might be like three pending applications but like I said as an alternate I rarely sit so it could be that it won't meet for a month or it could be that it has to meet every week it just depends on what's out there what matters in the time you have to think about is it's not a good idea to just go to a meeting unprepared it's not just the meeting time it's the time you put in to read the applications I mean these people have put in a lot of work and that sometimes takes a bit of time you know to just to prepare so you have to you want to prepare for meetings but I can't tell you how many meetings there are it varies it depends on how many projects there are out there I mean to have a couple of projects in January is sort of different yeah I mean because usually people apply for zoning applications when the weather is nice and they might be ready to build but the zoning administrator is the one who generally sends folks to the DRV saying that it's not something that a zoning administrator can't approve that's why you have to DRV I think well there's also and we do have there are alternates so the nice thing about a seven person right seven person board with three alternates the reason for an alternate is so there's somebody available to step in and it's not it wouldn't be a meeting by meeting it would be a a case by a case by case I am not available on Tuesday night for this hearing therefore I am not involved in this application at all and an alternate is coming in because I'm going to be on vacation and we'll be sitting on that case until it's wrapped up and don't forget the chair is the one who has the alternate to sit so you want the chair now that you're not able to answer your questions now so if I go further thank you guys I appreciate all that information and I will actually need a little bit of time before I know if I could was asked to whether I could legitimately come up with the time that it deserves so and Sam not every building that gets built not every project that comes before the zoning administrator is referred to the DRB DRB generally deals with more complex projects or in the case of the artist art district always church district they every project I guess goes there to DRB well even the town hall is the DRB the town hall that's part of the district but it says and this is not just how it's in there if you don't want to look at our zoning pour over that 90-some on paid 95-page zoning regulation which is developed the town plan is a conceptual kind of visionary document and then the zoning is then developed in implementation of that vision and those are actually regulations they're kind of the law of our town and then what you'll do if you get an application comes in and for whatever reason you're asked can you participate and would you like to participate and as a member of the DRB as in your alternate function you say yes and let's say it's 900 that's the proposal you have to then decide whether that person's your brother-in-law well you got a confident interest you probably shouldn't sit on that it's your call, your decision but recusal that's called recusal if you remove yourself and say I can't sit on that because I feel conflicted or you might have a problem with development of farmland ever and that's legitimate you can say I can't be objective but if you choose to be on if you're asked to choose to be on you have the time you're going to, particularly because you're new you're going to sit down with that application which you received beforehand you're going to go through it and you're going to pull out the zoning rig and you're going to basically do a side by side and see why in fact that application is before DRB what triggered the DRB jurisdiction or extension of the plan are applicable to that application request for a permit and then you can come with a basic knowledge and then at the DRB they have a hearing and the applicant further informs you you ask your questions and at some point the public gets involved and asks their questions and provides their feedback there'll be parties people who have an affected interest neighbors, the joiners and they'll present why they support it or why they think the application needs to be changed in some fashion I do want to say don't worry I don't want you to feel like you have to master the entire zoning code and planning plan this town in the beginning with these things you learn on the job and you learn from your fellow members I've been on this group with this group now for six months and I'm still what? he just said something in this meeting I didn't know that your education is ongoing and there are some yeah it's a good time to be joining there are people with experience and Denise mentioned there are applications in process now I heard a rumor which means Sam there is there will be some opportunity to show up as a member of the public and observe what the process is so take advantage of that I assume it's on the calendar the website or something you can find it where and how to do it before we wrap up Rick I want to ask if you have any other questions if you have any questions Sam anything else you want to ask or add I just want to thank you all and I will give it some thought and I just enjoy being here and appreciate I thank you Sam Sam if you enjoyed being here you'd probably be a great member good energy is a good thing to bring forward and thank you for stepping forward if you decide the DRB is not right for you there are so many other things we need people on the planning commission there are a lot of other opportunities and we really are hoping always but having more people involved for all the reasons we're saying the earlier you start learning the earlier you're that expert passing your expertise on is somebody new so thank you for your interest you be in touch I appreciate that very much and if this doesn't work out I will keep my eyes open and heck if any of you guys think of something you think I might be good at let me know I would like to support my town in some way that's wonderful Sam thank you I'm going to go I don't know where the other two folks are they're obviously not here who was the Megan Sullivan Megan Sullivan and Ashley Moore I know Scott wasn't available because he was on the road is Megan not available let me say again they both said that they were available to participate tonight by Zoom they are not there that tells me that they're not there I will follow up with them okay I will I will follow up with them and we will get start from there can you tell let you know if I hear from them now Denise you're the chair you've recused yourself from the interview Sharon in terms of our agenda I think we need to move on yes do we need to reconvene on this Sharon in the executive session you want to wait until you've interviewed all of them well and I also heard that Sam wants a little bit of time to reflect so I think it's I think there's no reason to I think let's let let me reach out what's today the 10th so we meet again on the 24th it would be probably a rushed job to bring people on and see them for these two if they're coming up in January I don't know that there's one that has a hearing on the 13th Stephanie was on Stephanie's on Stephanie Kaplan so you fill us in on the work before you at the DRB so you went up on what the work that you have on your plate currently at the DRB any new projects coming in and how many and all that well right now we have the Connor subdivision application and this Thursday night we're having the conceptual plan review and then that will go on for a while and there may be a preliminary hearing there may be a final year anyway that's a major subdivision that's the only one that I know of and Winchester indicated there's something else that's coming up but she didn't know a lot of details about it that's all I know about is what I'm sorry the sound is not great what did you say we're having the first hearing on Thursday night that's the conceptual hearing it's not the full-blown hearing that right so yeah it's the actual hearing where they're going to be just discussing their application with the DRB and the DRB will be asking questions and the DRB will let them know if there's more information they need that's what I understand the conceptual review is and then they decide whether they want to go ahead and you know hire engineers and do the detailed work to do a full application and that and that can be the period of time between the conceptual conversation and the next meeting can be weeks or months right yeah it could be I think it has to be held with I think it has to be held within six months I think we just yeah so I don't I don't think we have any imperative certainly not for we nothing can happen for Thursday night so let's go let's go back to our regularly scheduled program thank you all right so Travis welcome thank you for you've been on the whole meeting isn't that exciting so you thank you for applying for the position of constable I sent your oh no now I have to go back to screen share share share share share did it share it's starting there it is so I just need to make this need to make this smaller we can see it okay so here is Travis's letter to us I'm expressing his interest in the constable position I think you correct me if I'm wrong Travis you've not met any of the select board so why don't we take a moment to say hello I'm Denise Wheeler Rick you want to say hi hi Travis I'm Rick Keene select board share sharing and select board member I'm Mark Mahaly select board member John Bravan also on select board hi so you said you've spent some time you've talked to Wilson which was a really good thing for you to do you contacted the state and some other entities that you've contacted you want to just kind of introduce yourself to us tell us your where you live what your background is why you're in a position so on and so good well currently I'm kind of your neighbor I live on Bain Tamoli Road we just moved back to Calis my wife and I we first came into this town in 1997 and we went to Goddard College graduated from Goddard College and then years later we had a couple of kids down in Rochester Vermont where we were living there for a long period of time and then I went and did grad study at Dartmouth and then studied at Oxford as well and then got into doing a lot I'm sorry so I'm talking yeah okay so I got into teaching I was a K6 educated while I went on into doing high school work with some kind of behaviorally challenged criminal youth here as well so the huge mental health component piece of my background as well and then from from there you know I was also I kind of split myself in three prong I'm an actively performing musician on one side another side I've been an educational consultant and I've worked and I've supervised grad students at Harvard University and Boston College and I've also even done the completely opposite spectrum and I've even worked forward public works and for highway departments and I've worked as a life guard and you know I was an EMT and call firefighter for my town so civic duty has always been really important to me even since I was a kid I became an Eagle Scout when I was a kid just basically because in my head anyway at that time period the organizations are give more at this point but in my head it was like that was the way I communicated real service to my town and to my local state and national community and so it's always been a really huge part of my life to want to do that so I come from a law enforcement background family both my parents were in law enforcement so I've seen kind of the positives and a lot of the negatives about how law enforcement officers and kind of people of authority abuse that when we're in a I was telling us to Denise as well when we're in a place in time where we have to write Black Lives Matter down our street capital we need to take a hard look at what our policing looks like and the culture of policing and what that actually means and so I could be one of the people who are out there protesting and saying you know defund and abolish and when we have such hard lines drawn in the ground about what that actually means when you have one side screaming on another side to do something and the effectual nature of them and I was a gunner student I grew up like in my knees around activists and I saw what happened and what doesn't happen so I found out mostly you need to put your money right about this so if I want to see a change in the culture of policing and the connection to a community then my perspective is I need to get involved and do that and I need to like pony up and say here's what I can do so being the son of law enforcement being from a place where I understand the polar opposite spectrum and have lived it I bring a lot to this kind of place where I can say alright here's how I can communicate with my community I understand implicit mental health and substance abuse issues that are rampant in our society more than ever now I feel like that my entire life has kind of brought me to a place where I can communicate effectively with a population dealing with a multitude of challenges especially during the global pandemic so there's me in a nutshell and in my spare time I'm a beekeeper so there's us okay that's great you had first of all I'll ask the board if they have any comments or questions and then you had some ideas about looking ahead to the future of things that you might like to check out so let's see if the board has any comments or questions first John you want them to know what music musical instrument he plays I'm sorry I had a step out to see a man that a horse so I miss a little bit of your history sorry about that what is the musical instrument you play I am percussionist I teach and play jazz drums drum set and I also do Haitian Cuban and West African football holy smokes yeah so I don't really have any questions I think what you presented was pretty full in terms of what was in writing and I'm very encouraged my understanding is that you're thinking about improving upon our approach to the position of Constable and I look forward to hearing your ideas for that I just want to also say I've mentioned this to Denise on the phone number days ago that when I lived in Woodbury and even while living here in Calis Woodbury just up the road a good friend of mine Dan Brush came to the Constable position which by the way I held 30 years ago in Woodbury and he went to the training that's done at the State Police Academy and once he completed that the town of Woodbury at the time purchased a used Jeep Cherokee and put a radar detector in it radar gun whatever you call it and he was actually trained up in writing speed tickets on 14 in Woodbury Village and all the speed traps that state police used to well no longer was conducting he picked up that slack and really got that town the speeds to that village that upwards of 50 60 miles an hour and 35 you got about 35 so I thought that was good I know we have a real problem speeding on our back roads and there's a constituent here Doug Lilly who's got a problem speeding on his road so anything you could do toward that end you're interested that would be wonderful well sure part of what I was looking at was how many towns around here actually have active constables and most of them have like what we have we have empty positions and nobody going to fill them part of the reason why is because to do any sort of factual law enforcement you have to have that Academy attendance which a lot of people aren't willing to do or the state police don't let them in that's the other side of it too is that you never really know if you're gonna pass you have to pass a polygraph test and any psychological examination as well not to mention a physical examination and up until recently in written one as well so when we see you know if there's an emergency of any kind like we had you know just recently in October a young man walking across over 14 with a pistol another house got shot a you know it wanted you know assaulting person was named gosh it was Harley breeder when you have when you have people like that around and your response time from state police is at least 20 minutes on a summertime day and what people don't really realize and I was talking to Chief Brian Pete about this too is that the state police they're not even at the middle sex barracks between certain hours of the night on certain days so even if you did call them and you called Sheriff's Department you're gonna wait as much as like half an hour 45 minutes an hour I mean those precious minutes matter and as someone who has served as an EMT I know that part of that that issue of like not just writing speeding tickets and keeping the community safe from traffic perspective which is extremely important and is clearly important to certain citizens of the town like we heard earlier it's those pieces of having a response time of somebody who understands what to do in that situation you have someone having a mental health crisis who are you calling a lot of the EMTs that show up they don't really have that train well enforcement officers today are supposed to it's built into the train and they re-automated a lot of it too so finding a place to fit myself into that narrative of saying hey look you know you can't have mutual aid from Woodbury or Marshfield or East Montpelier because those people don't exist you're looking at Sheriff's Department or state police you got cops up in Hardwick which you know they have a 600 less people in their town they have like six officers full-time now yes they have a commerce section too but the point being that they're not providing mutual aid to our town nor could they actually do that we honestly at this point here in Calis need to have somebody that can show up at least on-site if there's emergency a medical emergency a psychological emergency a domestic disturbance you name the situation somebody there to control the scene maybe while we're waiting the backup officers from other towns but waiting just purely ends off a laissez-faire attitude about it doesn't serve the citizens of this town very well well just so you know we do have well you were on so you heard about the fire department we do have services from East Montpelier fire department and Woodbury fire department for you know medical stuff so I just wanted to make sure you know that that's true it's just again you're going to wait for them to get here Travis are you this is Sharon Wynn are you envisioning this as a this this has been historically a part-time position part-time isn't even the right term how would we describe it as needed and as needed as needed position how tell us about how you you know if we move forward and you're the constable and animal control officer whereas Wilson might have described himself as as needed how do you describe yourself well that's part of the thing is like for right now I understand the way that Cal's operates and as needed constable area which you know from the select board's position of as needed that's purely I understand it to be more budgetary than anything else but from a public perspective the constable gets called at all times to do all things and so part of the investiture and my commitment coming forward is saying I'm committing to getting all this training which is going to take several hours you know I think that the initial training is a 80-hour classroom on top of another 50 hours of electives on top of another 60 hours of fto time before I can even have level listen to so there's that again from from the end of the town you know looking at like what my expectations would be is I would love to have the conversation about what this looks like from what the town wants it to be in the future from now I understand the position as it is it's it's a secondary position but that basically when the constable gets called you show up it's just when the constable does show up what can the constable do and and what's the need involving I mean when you're talking about firearms and you're talking about violent people that's a very different scenario than serving process for somebody suing someone over a fence in your hear I mean I don't think our constable Wilson I don't believe ever responded to anything where the movement was going to be faced by somebody with a pointed gun at him so I think that that there's different levels of constable it can be simply what wilson was doing we could take it to the next level but that's going to take time and the board's going to need to understand what that means um and there's no and there's no commitment right now and as I was finishing what I was saying sorry you know I think the board needs to have time to think about where do we want to see this position going anywhere at all so the initial you know if we choose after we've discussed it to appoint you it's going to probably be what it is now and then you could come to us with a plan of how you see this position growing what that would mean um so I think it would be a work in progress that we would have to consider and you're right am I am I correct in assuming that callous has not had the blues vote on barring the constable from operating with law enforcement capacity right now currently the constable is unable to do that if they've received correct I don't think that the town I don't recall that we've ever voted on no the constable duties we've just done them as I didn't think yes I didn't know that was a thing yeah it is a thing you can about to prove it yeah so you know court we uh I think 20 bsa and 13 and 24 bsa the town went ahead and responsibility put it in a town meetings to vote to bar the constable from exercising law enforcement duties if they were like this is I would love to be in a position to offer constable area services at any level so that you know if if it's an as call as needed kind of call situation I'm okay with that if it's hey you know we have somebody violent and you need to show up and you're a certified law enforcement officer I'm okay with that too so I'm not shirking away from the all of the spectrum of what the constable might be doing if the town wants to reevaluate what that means that's incumbent upon the town to vote either way yeah I'm just letting you as the constable area sits today the definitions of so for the cow is constable I am fully willing to assume that position okay so you could you could work with the board depending on what we decide to either grow the position or not and come up with potentially a plan or your vision I guess of what you see and John sure yeah so yeah just kind of add to my understanding of what based on what Wilson Hughes did in his performance of the job as constable he also performed basically animal control officer function whether he was officially was he officially designated as that yes he was officially animal control there are two separate positions so we might ask you to if you would be interested in that and just the formality of us kind of acknowledging that that's one of the roles and responsibilities you would perform importantly because we now have an ordinance talking about enforcement and somebody with kind of law enforcement experience and training and interest and the ability to respond would be a good fit it was a good fit for Wilson he was able to you know cajole some residents who weren't doing well in managing their animals into doing a better job that's really as I know you talked about doing that's an important function I also want to mention you mentioned you have no problem engaging in you know there's somebody who's threatening or acting in a violent way I just want to and I know you know this but when I was a constable and a lot younger than I am now some 35 years younger I responded to a call because at the time the statute I think was different that constable Trentown swore an oath to uphold this this body of law which included all the duties of a sheriff so when you got a call you need to respond and I got a call about going to a domestic at 12 o'clock at night at this trailer and being a not a little bit not so cool to be in Flatlander I did go there and fortunately fortunately to have no knowledge of what I was doing I called state police first and I sat outside for no kidding an hour or what seemed like an hour and I said you know there was screaming else I went to the door and the fella wound up tearing off in his car thankfully and I took the woman to another place where she felt safe for sisters or friends no kidding probably two weeks later that trailer caught fire the guy moved back in or was in there she was no longer and I was also on the fire department in Woodbury and we put out we cordoned off the area to keep the public from getting we're still dousing it this thing was still ablaze the guy pushed through the line the barricade so to speak and went in and said I need to get my stuff and he carried out case after case of ammunition and assault rifles and every kind of gun you can imagine which is not isn't necessarily a problem but two months later after that he got arrested for murdering an old lady in Crestbury so I realized that wasn't cool and but what I wanted to get to and run around all the way is I called state police and asked them why they didn't show up that night and they informed me at the time that their policy was they need to have two police officers attend a a domestic that domestics are the most dangerous situation you can imagine because of all the emotion and volatility and unless they have two officers they're not allowed to go to a domestic and they didn't have two officers available at the time but then so the guy said you're crazy to have gone there and you're lucky and then I found out later what he was talking about as I said so um I would not encourage you to intervene something like that unless you had state police or a sheriff backing you up Travis John mentioned something are you able to are you willing to perform the animal control function well that's on the agenda to talk but I thought it was like two separate things we can wait so I mean it can be combined I did ask Travis when I talked to him briefly on the phone if he would be interested in considering that position as well and he said yeah I mean some they sort of do go together in some ways but I guess um so we can move things along tonight I think that the board should think about this and see um maybe um at the next meeting whether we want to make any appointments or announcements okay and think about this as we're going to do with the DRB candidates um I think there's a I think there's potential here to maybe kick things up a notch but I think we have to do it gradually um so if I can add just one thing about animal control before you move on the thing about animal control is that by law I don't know how Wilson was handling this prior to becoming a certified law enforcement officer but in order to affect any sort of enforcement with animal control today in Vermont you have to be registered humane officer which means you need to go to training with that that's a separate training but if you happen to law enforcement officer the module that covers that to qualify you as a humane officer yeah and when you were just talking about domestic disturbances one of the things I noticed by working in mental health and I'm going to homes here in Vermont for a lot of abused and neglected children and when you see animal abuse you often see abuse to kids or abuse to spouse owners and so animal is usually indicative of what else is going for humans so there is a law enforcement component there that goes hand to hand whether or not you have a backup or not and so if you're responding as an animal control officer to an animal neglect or animal abuse situation you might easily and very quickly find yourself in a law enforcement position and if you're not qualified to handle that you can get hurt so I would think that the person who is involving themselves with animal control has at least the other I mean I was am I correct in assuming that there already is a second animal control officer current in town or is that a longer position? She hasn't resigned but yeah so in my mind she's still appointed until we need to do the reappointments after town meeting. So perhaps another thing that you talked about in most yourselves is to look at how effectively you fund those things to happen because animal control requires equipment and it requires voting facilities by statute by law. There's like not just the reach polls and loopholes for restraining dogs but it's how you safely transport that is regulated by Vermont statute as well as where you keep those animals is regulated by Vermont statute as well. So this looks like whether or not you want to have it happen gradually or not the town has to take a serious look at what they want to have happen really soon because if you want to control there's some things that have to happen to make that happen. I'm not going to put a pitfall in the back of my car that wants to eat the face off. Right okay well thank you so much Travis we'll be back in touch. We want to invite Travis back to our next meeting. Well let's let's not let's see where we're at with stuff when we're putting the agenda together. That crazy meeting that's yeah because that meeting is like our last one before we have to put the town report to bed and all that stuff. We don't want to make sure we have plenty of time that night. All right so thank you Travis we'll be back in touch. Thank you Travis. Great to meet you neighbor. Good to meet you too. Take care. Take care. Another Baincarmolian huh? Yeah. The people on the Baincarmolian road seem to get in trouble a lot don't they? It's a rough neighborhood. I guess. I had no idea that he lived down the road for me and when I thought I looked at his thing I'm like here he's just believed it. Probably under the table right. All right so a couple things about town meeting. Next meeting we're going to have to approve the warning so we need to, Jeremy's been working on it and I attended a VLCT zoom plus I hadn't heard about it the other last week that 172 passed and it's on the governor's desk to sign that gives us back the authority to have an informational meeting and hold town meeting as we did last year where everything was on the Australian ballot. And today yes. How was the attendance of that VLCT informational meeting? I think there was like 50 right? Yeah it was packed. It was quite a few. It wasn't that I think we were really happy with it. Yeah yeah yeah and it went off without a hitch really and he lifted a great job he's willing to help set up basically the same thing and basically now we have practice so it should be a lot easier. And the town has practice so we might give more people. Right so if we were we need to vote to do that I can't remember Jeremy are you there? He is well he's he's there but I don't know if he's there. Jeremy Watts, Franklin Center. Can you help me remember do we need to vote tonight? We want to vote tonight to hold town meeting the way we did last year with the caveat that if the governor doesn't sign the legislation then we're back right we have to go back to the other way. Is that am I characterizing that right Jeremy? If you did vote to do that tonight that would be really nice. It would help us in our planning. It would help me will my my I could whittle it down to one more instead of two because I've kind of been planning for different scenarios because there's a lot of balls in the air currently. So yeah if you guys want to make the motion and vote tonight that that would be for me it's you know the will of the board that we that you decided that and obviously with everything surging and just seems like it's everywhere again it's becoming more and more difficult to conceptualize the possibility of holding an in-person town meeting despite the fact that we all come back together and be able to like vote from the floor and have those discussions. So Howard I guess we need I just I'll make a motion that town meeting will be held will not be held in person all of the articles that would normally be voted from the floor will be put on the warning and that we will hold an at least one informational meeting prior to town meeting and I think maybe the Saturday before town meeting which is February 26th. Do you need us to specify the date of the informational meeting in the motion tonight? He does because it has to go he wants to put it in the town report right? I'd like to put in the report so that would be helpful yeah just to see if everyone's okay. So is that enough of a is that enough of a motion to oh and part of the motion would be if the governor for some reason does not sign the S172 into law then we would go back to the original plan or we would have to have a different plan for town meeting. Does that cover our basis? We have to we need to pick a date right? February 26th is the Saturday before town meeting. That's a motion I'll second it and I'd like to Yeah and then we can get to your other item after we I wanted to discuss it too. I agree with the motion. I wonder whether we should express our strong intent to vote that way at our next meeting or at a you know a especially called meeting because I this feels like something that there might be people who don't agree. I think we had some of that last year and that we would want a carefully warned possibility for people to show up and say they don't agree. Oh you mean a specific? Well I guess yeah that's true. We can do it last year and if it's if it's by statute but no statute also would allow for us to move town meeting to a later date which we decided against last year. All right. We have it's basically the same thing it's basically the same legislation as last year. Absolutely and I like what we did last year and I am fully in favor. I just don't want to have to explain or defend that we did it without so I think we can let Jeremy know that's our strong right so he could go ahead with the project in the morning but well that's our position pending public input at our next select board meetings what you're saying first we're going to notice in our warning our clear intent that clear intent to open up for discussion to people foreign against that idea. So are we not making a motion now? Is that what you're saying? No we're making a motion. Okay but we'll we'll vote in next meeting but our intent is to do this but and I will say I Can I say one more thing? Yes. The only other thing I would say to you is just just a reminder that the legislation is very clear this is a one-year thing. Right. It says this is not you know it's ducting and the legislature would have to act again to have this happen or the select board would have to literally hold a vote. We're going to Australian ballot which I think obviously would be highly contentious and something that I myself would not support because I like town meetings. Yeah so let's not go there tonight on that issue. Yes. Would you accept a friendly amendment? Yes. That could be prefaced by a statement that while the select board strongly supports town meetings because of the COVID emergency and the special legislation. In person town meetings. In person town meetings. Because of the COVID situation and SB 172's authorization comma and then the rest of you. Yeah. The other thing I think it would be used I agree with that. The other thing that would be useful is for us to I think the minutes from last year were really clear because it feels like just two weeks ago that we had a very detailed conversation. I remember doing math on the size of the school gymnasium and how many people as a practical matter. Yeah we did that. Yeah so no we're just putting us all back into the record that is that the only we after a lot of discussion last year the only practical solution that made sense for Palace is exactly what we're talking about doing again. Right. But but just making sure we you know for anybody I don't know just for the record that we we put all that back right back in for a while and we give people a chance to show up and make whatever. Yeah so I just like that this is not opinion trying to upset the direction we're heading. I have support so far I've heard everyone else the idea of going fully remote for town meeting. That being said I just wanted to open up the idea should we be thinking even all thinking about considering a hybrid where we would have an in-person location i.e. the school or town hall maybe not maybe not town hall school if they allow us or and a remote option or just keep it remote and the reason I ask is I don't know I know we had great participation at the last town meeting but I can tell you everybody on that thing was someone who's pretty adept with computers or uses them on a regular basis and I don't know how many people were excluded or precluded for participating even just to watch because they don't have a computer and they don't have a know how to run a zoom or anything else and I know we offered to help people but at the end of the day that scares people a lot of times. Are you performing raise a good point and I didn't really hear any complaints out the last year but that doesn't mean anything. But are you referring to the information? Yes. I'm talking about he's talking about you're talking about the town meeting he's not talking about the informational meeting but information put aside the informational right my understanding of the Australian ballot is people don't need computers they just come and vote. Yeah I understand that. And they get the town they get that thick town warning and they can read that. That's true that they don't need to participate in but what you're suggesting in my country right is that we just we hold a hybrid town meeting with stuff still being voted from the floor is that what you're talking about? I don't know maybe no mark just convinced me that makes no sense because if we go Australian ballot right really you know what I do feel bad for folks maybe we set up a place where people can come like here or school put up screen where people who don't have a computer can sit and watch the meeting participate in that way. I'm happy to do that because we're still having a town meeting. I think the informational meeting you're talking people a chance to come somewhere if they don't want to participate by computer right right if we can do it right. Yeah I know you know that might I mean one of the things you have to watch with these damn hybrid things is if you do not have a person curating the meeting like she is right right that's right if you do not have people who are remote or second-class citizens that just see this big room they have trouble hearing people if you have a fully zoom session everybody's equal that's what in other words the only way to separate people who can't participate the only way to make a hybrid situation work is if someone is literally operating a camera zooming in on every speaker yeah and you have a really good sound it doesn't it doesn't even work well here because when I was when I was talking to Sam you guys she had your face because you guys literally have a computer over there but what but I might have looking and I don't have the allen's a camera yeah no the allen's a camera but it won't be that way right so I can't see her so so where you're sitting you can kind of take in both and you have that right but I but well I'm looking at the owl so I guess I'm up there and the owl sometimes works and so I'm not I can't see anything going on up there so so that and I we all have experienced several of us have experienced yes being in the zoom and the only person you can hear is is Denise right because it was interesting because we're not there yeah okay I wanted to have the conversation but I but I'm with you I don't think any of things mean it's a bad idea yeah because there are because John's right the alternative is that and what we have a year later that we didn't have a year ago is I hadn't even started getting a vaccine a year ago right they weren't a bit well weren't we starting now not for us but for some my parents got them in January right they were starting so what's the point the point is that we have a little more liberty than we did a year ago because we do have vaccines why we're here right that's why we're here so so the fact that there are people who don't have a computer who who would otherwise be completely shut up might might appreciate a place where they could come in the person we can't have somebody man a camera right um we can hire somebody to do the higher already to do our sound at the town hall anyway so you know I think that's what it is we can we don't have to decide I don't think we do let's let's think about it as long as Jeremy's kind of the direction of one one morning so Jeremy what you have from us is you have a motion with dates and intention you have the currently expressed complete support of the select board Katie's hands up for that one okay Katie I just wanted to make clear I think I heard Mark Mahally make a friendly amendment that I wrote down but I didn't hear if Denise accepted it yes I did thank you I have to accept it too as a maker of the motion and I'm still think the second of the motion right and I'm still thinking about it okay all right are you ready to vote yeah those in favor please say I'm on table no we're not voting oh no we're tabling it that's right okay sorry I will be on the agenda for an instant but intent expressed yes intent has been expressed um John you wanted to talk about adding an item to the warning oh yes did you bring your paper uh I don't know my jeepers I don't have a printer so I here I could you print it out yeah okay thank you Denise so um this is a thumbnail but let's go in some detail um technologies involving and wireless technologies exploding and I know talking to residents around this town and elsewhere both as part of my function as part of the select board my role as a select board member that folks on higher ground along 14 and that side of Calis toward Worcester have been approached by these consulting or these siting companies where they cite cell phone towers not too different than the wi-fi tower there was a carmoli where else everything else and approaching folks and would you like to make some cash you can put a tower on your property and so that that's one thing and we all understand what that is well the technology is evolving on a win or if it's going to come here but this 5g technology requires what and you you would know it's there they look just like the transformers on a pole but they're actually transmitters high energy transmitters that they're set but actually a lower level than a canister generally um and they project down to the street level the road level where we walk and they usually have one every other pole and then someone who is a 5g cell phone walks along and it's called beam technology cell phone communicates if Doug's the only person on the road on the sidewalk in Montpelier site by way of example they communicate and it beams to his cell phone beams through him too high energy radio frequencies very high energy and then as you go from one tower or one pole down a road the next this one turns off and the next one turns on so the person with the cell phone they're making the choice