 open up this meeting, it's 6.15, and we'll confirm the open meeting lock and form that we posted the agenda in three places around town on the town website and emailed it to the interested parties and recording in progress. Okay, and as you're just talking about and I'd like to publicly say goodbye to Tom Pierce and thanks for everything you did to this town. Yes, yep. Alright, so we'll start with the also and for public comment we're going to limit public comment to five minutes on the topic and we'll have that at the end of the agenda. So the prior meeting's minutes of November 8th. I didn't see any corrections in there so I'd move to prove those unless you guys have a correction. Nope, I don't. Second that. All in favor? All right, all right. And we have guests here tonight, one in house and one on the on the Zoom. So let's let the physically present person go first and see it to travel farther to come here. That's Angus Kusker and you're speaking here on the two letters of support you requested from the town. You want to speak about that? Yep, so basically we have two different letters. One letter is for a enhancement of recreation, stewardship and asset funds on the state is distributing grant applications for existing trails. So originally an outdoor collective formerly Verosta and from Ammo Bike Association, which is our parent organization, we're applying for funds for existing trails in town. Three being on federal Forest Service Contest Trail, Ol' Gents, Staff Boiler and four on private land in Rochester, Plains Hill, Mars, Brook Connector, Earl's Trail and Alice Trail. So yeah, it's just the the ideas that we've seen, you know, increase you because of the pandemic, you know, this past couple summers. So it's just an opportunity that they're giving out money for trail maintenance. So we're trying to get advantage of that and keep our trail in good shape. So that would be strictly a letter of support for our application that we're planning to submit at the end of this week. And then there's another one for the... Yep, and the the other letter is a formal outdoor recreation, economic collaborative state grant, community program grant. The town of Randolph is applying for this in partnership with Vermont Huts Association. This would develop a new trail in the vicinity of Braintree, Randolph and a little bit East Rochester. It's part of the Bellamont Trail, Pro-Bellamont Trail and a hostel in Randolph Village, so like a hut right in the village. The idea basically you guys know is Bellamont Trail is the connected community. So you know, we have Bellamont Trail up to the top of Randolph Gap. So we've gotten landowner permission basically from Randolph Gap heading east down toward Randolph and Braintree. So the town of Randolph, I should say, is applying and, you know, reach line to our door collective. Simply a partner in that application are not the primary applicant or ministry in the grant or any sort. So this letter is simply to support that application and the Braintree to elect for also submitted a letter to support last week, I believe, or earlier than last week. So yeah, we're just looking for support letter from the town of Rochester and Braintree to support Randolph grant application for a grant application. So I'll use myself from the conversation just to avoid any potential conflict of entrance or appearance of that since I have a bike shop and these are trails so I'll hand it over to you to talk about this. Well I live up in the hollows and so some of the trails that you mentioned are familiar to me. They may not be immediately in my backyard but they're certainly close to my backyard and I welcome with open arms, bring it on. It is so enjoyable to see the people recreating up in the hollows. It's a wonderful place and I love sharing it. So you have my support. Yeah, I don't see any issue with it. Anything we can get to get people enjoying our communities and in support of them I think is a good way to travel. So I'm all for it too Pat. I'm happy with that. Okay, so shall we move to support both ventures? I think we move to support a letter for both in support of both ventures and go from there. And I'll second that. All in favor? All right. All right. You're good. Thank you guys. Thank you. No problem. You want to sign these so he can take them home with him? Yeah, he runs a tight ship so let's keep it going. Yeah, it's a good thing for the community and the surrounding areas too. Thanks for coming down to extrapolate. Do you need a coffee? I was going to say I might run into some coffee. Yeah. The next topic that we were going to talk about is a choice or approval for the location for the town meeting. We're in the interesting opportunity of having two places where we could do that either in the school auditorium or in Pierce Hall where both have history of hosting this meeting. You know with the school in transition here it maybe it will probably be some of the conversation I would think in the meeting about what what's going to transpire with that building. So I kind of think it would make sense to have it in the auditorium just to you know to bring that topic forward. But what are you guys thinking as long as they can heat it? Yeah well as long as we can heat it. We can heat it. We're paying for that now. I'm against it. I think Pierce Hall would be a good shot to start just to see how it would go and I think that would be good to do but if you know it's up to you guys. I vote no to the school and yes to Pierce Hall. And that's where I stand. I feel just on a practical scale that with covid still present in the community and the hope and wish that we have a conversation about the future of the high school that our normal turnout of what 135 people will probably I'm hoping that that turnout will be much larger due to the fact that we're talking about the future of the high school building at that town meeting. So I'm I'm hoping that we see a couple hundred people and with the possibility of meeting some social distancing I think that I would rather see it in the auditorium. I think we still need that extra space. There's more room in the auditorium than in Pierce Hall. I feel there is. They can't use the balcony. You can't use that yet. So I vote to stay with the auditorium. All right well I guess we'll do it. The auditorium? I appreciate your your point Frank and that's fine. I'm okay with it. Mine is really just numbers. Hopefully. All right everyone come to town meeting. Okay. Don't forget we have Nancy too. Yep okay and yeah Nancy you want to speak to your your proposal your concerns? My concern is the drive that is the entrance and exit for the cemetery for Woodlawn Cemetery is a dangerous egress. If you are leaving the cemetery and turning left on to Route 100 you really have poor poor visibility for traffic traveling northbound and my proposal was that there be a convex mirror placed across the road which would really facilitate visibility. It's just dangerous and I'm hoping that nobody gets hurt there including me. Right did you have a close call or something that brought us to your attention? No but I've had some surprises. You know I'm very cautious when I leave there I turn off my radio I roll down the windows I sit there and I listen and I listen and still sometimes I find myself having to really accelerate out of the lane. So if that's a close call that's a close call. And you had talked with the state about this and then they pushed it back into our court? Exactly because it is a state highway there. Which is why I started there you know and they said they don't do that and directed me back to the town. I spoke with John about this a while ago and he's not too keen on the idea he's afraid it invites vandalism and will be buying mirrors quite often and a solution that he came up with is to eliminate the left-hand turn there and turn to the right go north turn around head south drive around the park or turn around at the schoolyard or and would just alleviate the left-hand turn and put a sign we'd have to put another sign down below the 30 mile an hour to indicate a hidden drive on the right to the northbound traffic on route 100. Yeah people were following the speed limit it probably wouldn't be as much of an issue. Right exactly. So Nancy where does this mirror I'm looking at the photo of Bill Hayes's house where does this mirror go where is it being mounted. I'm not sure exactly and I you know it's not really my decision. Well we have jurisdiction over a certain amount of right of way so if you're going to like put it on his house or one of his trees I think that's outside of the right of way and you're then on private property whereas you don't need our blessing if Bill wants to have a mirror out there and it's outside of the right of way then I don't see where we even have a decision to make. Can you tell me what the right of way is I've had difficulty figuring that out. It's different for a state highway than a town. Town is 25 right the state 35. Oh it's more than that it depends on where it is I think I know it had a up by my cabin it's it's 65 on the right side going west and from the center line and it's 45 I think going to the west on the left side and if you look at Apple Hill up there the white fence that he has were his horses mm-hmm that's in the state right of way up near his house. They have different right of ways in different sections of town for reasons of you know bank sliding and floods and everything else so I don't know what the exact right of way is there but you know we also have a water line buried there underneath the on the on his property across the road there too so I but I don't know what the right of way is Nancy I don't I have not Nancy Nancy yep am I muted or not nope you're not go ahead there's a right of way through town I think it's from bridge to bridge the state right of way and that's an established I would I think it's like 30 feet on each side from the center line from the center line but it's that's simple enough to find right and this would be just before the bridge unless you put it on the guardrail then I'd be concerned about it being of any use at all in the winter when flowers are splattering it with stuff I had envisioned it as being on a pole on what I think yeah I think the house is back kind of far from the road and you talked with the property owner there I did and he he's an agreement that it's a dangerous situation and that would he's in favor of putting a mirror there and if he if he is in favor of doing it and it's outside of the right of way then they could do it themselves I mean we wouldn't have to be involved and we wouldn't have to be responsible for the mirror because that was one of John's concerns was you know they become a target after a while I've seen a lot of them in my travels and they certainly don't last very long in some places and that might be one that would be an issue depending on where it's placed excuse me could I just ask Nancy badness I miss somehow the property owner you spoke with in the location in it in a J in the relationship to the driveway coming out of the wood lawn right we did not specify we didn't actually talk about where it would sit but the property owner you spoke with was was across the street next door I didn't oh he his the property is directly across the road from the driveway okay thank you sorry to bother you okay well if he's so willing to house it on his property and it keeps it out of the right away that will keep it protected from being blasted by the snow plow and from that might be the you know simplest way to just you know pursue that with him okay so what you're saying is that we would need to do a private late yeah without town being involved right well it's on it's basically on private land anyway and we would request that it be outside the the right of way of course right so that's where you anyway right so how exactly do I find out for certain what the right of way is there who do I contact we probably have maps in the town here that would give us the exact yeah right away there we can we can look that up for you Nancy with that yeah alrighty that would be good I appreciate it alright thank you thank you yeah so text my gov dot com it's not a dot gov it's a dot com which means it's a for-profit business some who you guys had looked into that Julie asked me to attend with her yeah and it was a kind of interesting they they put a pitch together for it it would be pretty handy but I they didn't tell us how much it was and I haven't really looked over the proposal I just saw it tonight you've got it on the folder right in front of you so the package price basically to go back and just say what it's it's about reporting it's like it does it reports issues and each department can receive these texts whether it's the highway might have a pothole or an animal there's you know a dog that's running loose and somebody can text it so that the text animal control would receive the text so it just it just reports common issues and then agencies can be involved or and we can set them off just based on how frequent we may have problems with that but the the cost itself I thought you'd seen it no I did so the package price came in and we had to attend the seminar first before they would give us the price and the package price is 2,500 for the first year 3,500 for a thousand dollar implement setup fee which would include setting up all the departments with key words so that residents could text or communicate like like if John if if the road was slippery and somewhere on the hollows and they tried to get a hold of the John or they would call this service and it would automatically get a hold of John instead of going through Julie during the day if me at night yeah or any of us but it's it's a little more costly than I was hoping it would be so I'm not sure we want to I guess it's assuming that everyone in town has a phone they can text with right back to you know yeah well it actually it's not that way they they'd call in and the service would automatically send it to send it to somebody there's no download for the user or the municipality and then like they gave us an example so I texted in select board to the number they provided and then all of a sudden it texted me back a link for the select board to go to the minutes and to work on yeah it was kind of neat how it worked it was easy but the annual cost every year would be twenty five hundred and that includes twenty five thousand text messages a year sounds a little pricey to me a little pricey and totally redundant for what we have in place but right we do seem to get along get in the word right it seems like it would probably be very good in a larger population right do they keep record of the text that you get yep so the user like how we set it up can go in and it keeps everything you can log in and then it keeps all of the information there for you so you would be noted on all the text that go to the animal control and all the types to go to Constable make sure everything is handled and taken care of okay do we know if there's other towns that are using this service and not around here they're they're mainly bigger cities they were saying we're not bigger cities but yeah he said it bigger they take care of populations of 500 or more right but I think it's a little pricey myself yeah I think and you have to commit the when you commit you have to commit for two-year contract we thought it was great until we you know until we saw the price yeah right a little yeah especially at the just beginning the budget process set enough for ready to start yeah I don't really think we need it but that would be interesting to research it a little more and then see who who is using it and get some I mean it's if they're they're based out in Colorado yeah yeah or Utah Utah Utah all right so we'll um we'll um table that one okay thanks for taking the time to do how long was the seminar 15 no probably half hour I'd say at least crazy yeah not wasn't crazy it was kind of neat to see how it worked and all but all right next on the agenda we've got the proposal to the ending of the lease with Simquest and going with McGee for our office printer and scanner and I guess I understand that it's just pretty much same price it may be a tad less expensive but you're feeling it'll be better better service I think the customer service part of it would be really good just having spoke with with their service for probably I guess it's been for the past two years I've been talking with them yeah and not realizing but but the but the lease is coming up in in March so they would handle all of that they would take care of it and there have been some frustrations with this machine also correct yeah yeah and he would set up like the the gentleman who spoke with me said that he would set up preset so like whether lawyers or anybody's in to do copies it just makes it simplified and we've just been I feel like we've created some waste you know just from frustrations of running it and but yeah and it's a little less it's a little bit less than what we're doing this at the end of March or now well the thing is he said that we could put the order in now because he doesn't know how long it'll take to get the machine right now with the way manufacturing is at this time but and he would handle the return of the other machine so there is a small cost to return it but if we ordered if we if you had agreed and ordered now then I feel like that would get us a machine soon he would have us at the on his list that's fine by me yeah I yeah I'm off work sure yeah I don't have an issue with a painful but good in the long run yeah better than what we got at this point go let's do it that brings us to you Joan are you there in the cyber land yes I am I'm here hey I don't really have anything to report this evening though alright you did get some stuff done on the West Hill bridge is that correct yes you saw my email yeah I'll get back to you when I hear something from the Carter family looking for in terms of compensation I'll make them an offer as I said in my email and let them respond to that sounds good okay all right don't have Tony here from the library but did I read in the paper that they've gone back to just picking up your stuff outside not letting people in again I think so yeah they're closed again they're closed again yeah right so that's good to know out there the highway there's everything steady as she goes just waiting for the weather to turn Terry's not here talking about utilities unless he's not on zoom is he nothing I believe that Jeff log in there yes he did yeah what have you got first tonight Jeff hi all well I'm working on the Rochester area climate initiative trying to get a good turnout in the subject area groups that were prioritized by Valley residents at our last meeting the next meeting coming up is December 6th I believe and at the much of today was getting kind of a catalog of all of the agricultural businesses in the area together let's see I did talk with Greenmont power today they still haven't given me a little summary of what they received in their bids for the resiliency zone however two of the eight bidders are talking about utilizing space slightly away from town but North Hall of Farm owns they're looking at the gravel pit and GMP is pretty excited about that they think that with a 3.5 acre generation field they can provide the one megawatt for the community the library the next steps for me would be meeting on Friday December 3rd at 1030 at the library with the Vermont preservation trust to take a look at the exterior cladding and what we need to do with that Frank you had talked about recruiting some local building professionals to help look at the library and other buildings with a mind to the audits that we've received both from the energy efficiency investments in ink as well as black river design way back if that hasn't I'd be happy to start trying to talk to people and get a group together to to meet on that topic if that's has not already started yeah that would be good I think Ray Harvey has volunteered to be on that so that's one person that spoke to me about it um yeah Jeff if you want to take that on that's fine with me and I believe Barb Shenton is also expressed interest in being on that committee that would be good too if Barb would be one the one nice outcome from the the meeting uh it was last week or a couple weeks ago at the Pierce Hall in the prioritization of issues we we picked up seven new recruits for the Valley Energy and Climate Action Committee and recruits that also seemed to want to do some things to do some research and and some digging so that's heartening and I have to apologize I've really blown it here it looks like with respect to strategizing or looking at another way of doing mowing the you know the bids have come in I guess for the mowing and I'm wondering if there's any way to negotiate with the bidders to see if if the mowing could be done with battery electric equipment it's probably a long shot at this point but I'd be willing to to work with any select board member to come up with a list of possible ways to do it it would be would have been better if I had gotten things to folks so it would have been in the bid package well it's definitely worth having the conversation with whoever we go yeah if it was a if it was a one-year contract I'm sorry go ahead I was gonna say in terms of making that mandatory for the the contract I don't know for ready to take that that step might really um limit our um we only received one bid anyway is that correct I haven't opened it yet I was gonna do that after this yeah but we only received that one bid is that correct yeah um excuse me um Jeff um did you say wondered if there was a way to do the mowing with what did you say battery operated I was writing as fast as I could yeah with battery electric with an electric mower is an electric mower okay a commercial electric mower commercial yeah we had we had the mow electric event early this year and we had three different brands of commercial mowers there and local area contractors took them and mowed some of the ball fields with them and I think the technology has arrived it's expensive it's an upfront cost but after the upfront cost there's hardly anything for maintenance with these things and uh that's quite different than the care and feeding of gas equipment um if there's only one bid that might make it a little easier to have a discussion with the the bidder and see see how that might work out is there been any any um talk of electric snow removal tools seems like that that's a bigger ask because there is no waste heat in a bucket loader an electric bucket loader I mean we gasoline or diesel vehicles have lots of waste heat and so we just tap into that for climate control in our in our cabs um uh so it yeah I don't think that the technology is uh really there yet on the snow removal side all right well when do you have to make the the excuse me when do you have to make a decision about the bid that for the mowing or are you we um we overlooked putting that on the agenda for tonight so I can open the bid but we would not make the decision I think we're going to add that to our warning to the budget and finance committee meeting that we can do a quick um approval of the bid at the beginning of that meeting so it's properly warned okay if that's something that would be mentioned at the the upcoming select board meeting the next select board meeting or not it could announce the results of the previous meeting we'll be reading minutes from those yeah we'll be reading the minutes from the meeting so yeah I mean I just wonder because I don't go to your budget and finance meetings and I thought if people wanted to know about it and I could report it if it was in the next okay thank you sorry to interrupt I will meet myself yeah no no worries Martha yep yeah yeah yeah in that it's a three-year contract that that makes me um hope that uh there could be some negotiation and possibly uh move to that kind of equipment yep well um I guess yeah we'd have that conversation with him when we get on to that you know okay I'll I'll flesh out some possible approaches for you guys to poke holes in and uh straighten me out with and we'll see if there's anything that I can do that'll help make this slide okay okay and we have a commitment to the town I'll do the homework I didn't do but we have we have a commitment to the town to um investigate climate change with every decision we make so um I I keep bringing that up over and over again because I remember that the town asked us to do that so we will continue through even in a three-year contract to emphasize that it would be the town's wishes the voters of the town to to consider climate change and if this is the consideration that works the best we could suggest it so it's you know we we can continue to chip away at it Jeff okay okay sounds good and again my apologies for bringing this in late um smoother if we'd had the conversation I'd done it uh before you put it out to bed that's for sure I was and it wasn't uh I was I was informed but I still let it fall behind it's all good yeah thanks for your your energy we appreciate your your um attention to all this all right so um is that is that it for you Jeff yep he's muted he's muted all right he's gone away yep that's it that's that's your question um we do we did receive one bid for the mowing trimming and snow removal um for the town properties which was from four season property management and excavation from Stockbridge Vermont and he's um had got a bid of ten thousand two hundred dollars per year to be paid monthly from May to October for the three-year contract and he is also bid um eighteen thousand dollars per year to be paid monthly for the snow removal November to April for the three-year contract so like I said since we did not warn this we can't make a decision either way on this tonight but we'll revisit this um at the beginning of the budget and finance committee meeting which is appropriate because we're talking about money at that meeting anyway okay and that was um John Gorton there's uh four seasons property management to be continued to be continued um geez anything you got a hand up over there yep go ahead Jeff yep when is the budget and planning meeting Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday at three this week Wednesday this week Wednesday at three just before turkey comes out thank you yeah yeah all right um we don't play that um no one else has anything to talk about tonight I'd move to go into executive session to um to have a little talk about um employee vacation time and thank you all for coming