 It looks like it's six fifteen and a half almost late For the meeting we have our pre-town meeting and I like to open that up and move right into that and What's your panty All right From budgeting He's right income from finance Staggering jump that might be perceived in some circles as As what In other words, we better write a lot of tickets so we can raise enough money to pay for sure now to speak to Change from what we've had constantly across the console to share They for 12 April and only cost their their own and we paid For our constable so of course the actual sheriff's contractors not that far out of what we were going to do But to say that we're budgeting an expectation Flying jump that high could be perceived as pressure on the legs right a lot of tickets Community that's called judicial fine judicial fine We started with the I can't see We started with the constable last July first and so we now Have a new bill that was from January into February So we were looking at seven eight nine months worth of data and we do average 30 tickets per month So we're not we're basing it on information that we already have information that we Have at hand and do not see where the input the It's not a quota, but is the pattern that's already been established So we plugged in a number that we anticipated as the income would be and then we plugged in what we anticipated would be the expense so to offset each other and there is We have That's what I'm speaking to Okay, so, you know if everyone slows down then I guess we But we do have a lot of different categories where we do have an anticipated income That's how our budget works we anticipate if it comes in more or less than that It's we have to put in we should put in something Robert I'd like to point out that in the past when we had the constables the Availability of their time, but we it was difficult to target when they would be When they would be doing their shifts right now the With the sheriffs, I believe you guys have Targeted in your contract that you are making a preference for Traffic control so the the time at which they are here is much more optimum for controlling and Limiting speeding traffic, so I would anticipate that that would increase radically your Number of tickets To where the contract says that we have contracted for policing services Nancy I Think also in conversations with the deputy that is here coming here to Rochester or one of the two of them They don't only do traffic control. They are I'll stand up to I'm not sure how this happened When they're in town they have notified the state police they're here and oftentimes there are Issues that the state police cannot deal with over here and these deputies go and deal with it case in point An accident on Bethel Mountain the other day his whole day was spent Up there on traffic control in that respect And he certainly wasn't writing any tickets On the current bill that we have on our desk for the January and February There also was an investigation into a larceny. I don't know any of the details. I just know what is itemized on the bill Yeah, I'm going back to the issue of quota. I would just say when we were interviewing Part of all this discussion Interviewing the sheriff and the cohorts at no time did we ever put on them a limit like saying well This is how much money we want to raise to offset this amount of money So there's never never a mention of a quota and it was up to us then to decide what we thought we could generate based as Patty says on a Past experience so bottom line is nobody put any pressure on them at all to say we want this much money from you on two and three They actually When we were negotiating with them they you know, let us know while you tell us what you want Do you want us do you want to be known as a as a town that makes money off of tickets? Or do you want to just coverage and then we you know, we did not say that's what we want you to do I mean what this does reflect on I think is The less than robust service, I think we were getting from our previous constable situation And so that also reflects some of the uptick of the of the income from that Yeah, yeah, so Certainly understand that you're concerned for the contrast that you're seeing no question. I am too but like do just said it It's it's pretty much It's contrasting because there's wasn't a whole lot of enforcement before and now you're seeing where it should have been and it looks Extreme okay, I get that discussion explain It's a good concern absolutely. Yeah, we've got any tickets I will say if you're gonna make a left turn into my right way you can wait to see always check to see who's passing Yes Larry Oh, I thought you were had something Yeah, yeah Is that anything else anybody wants to talk about or we're gonna save it for the town meeting. Oh, I see a hand But I don't see a face Well I was brought to my attention and I noticed that The tennis reserve has been taken off this budget And I wanted to bring up some points to this This to our town The tennis court as you understand is a tremendous asset to the town not only monetarily All the good stuff If you're talking about the tennis court, it's a hundred thousand dollar asset We have to take care of that. That's our responsibility it was built in 12 and So that's eight years. There are little holes going on the Surface of it now water can go into that and then that's the beginning of the end of a hundred thousand dollars So I think we have a responsibility to do something about that That's really very exciting. It's taking off The other thing is you have to realize how many people really use the tennis court We have an active active active group. We have Tuesday afternoon Tuesday and Thursday Evening tennis groups round robins. We have Monday and Wednesday round robins Friday we have a clinic Everybody is invited to you come It's very active on top of all the scheduled stuff that we have and we do have a network If anyone is interested in picking up a racket, give me your email because I'll keep you posted as to what's going on and So and on top of the schedule stuff you have people that just say okay, let's go play a game That the courts very often Especially in the morning because it's very hot in the afternoon In the morning you're you're standing there waiting for a court. Those courts are used and on top of the Of that you have to see in the very often there are cars from out of state Well, where's these cars these cars from out of state playing at these people are playing tennis They come here because they're staying at our B&B's our air B&B's our in That's important to this town Not only that people moving in they want their recreation. They want the river. They want the hiking They want they want the tennis courts the tennis courts are very important Now, I don't know whether this is cast and stoned for this year. I suspect it is but We can't let that go. We cannot let that go as a town $100,000 is nothing to sneeze at and that's what they cost So we have a responsibility as a community to keep those tennis courts up That's all I have to say about that So $1,000 When there has been historically Line item for maintenance of the tennis courts Why wouldn't that be under the recreation department and have put that money in there targeted for the That seems logical to be under Right, could be I guess that's a good discussion to have next budget Is also got it's the skate space that got moved to The recreation is part of the park. Yeah part of the park Some of the park line which you could say the tennis could be part of the park also Yeah, that's the catch is just increase the budget that Creation destination that's what I hear about all the time. So it seems like we should prioritize Nancy doing you want to talk a little bit about What we went through looking at all the expenses Attempt to keep the Tennis is not the only reserve fund. No, it's that was not funded That's that's important to point out that tennis is not the only reserve We didn't find Highway reserve fund or the fire department reserve fund and basically this was A crunch year where a few big expenses piled on and we're hoping that next year That this will even out but an attempt to keep the budget from spiking we had to get a little harsh with the The reserved and and that was you know, that was one of them now I suppose it could be Gonna be motion from the floor at the town meeting to add a $1,000 reserve You should know the interest Teamwork right Suppose you could up the Mount raised from taxes by No, you can suggest that you can't see can't yeah That's what we're gonna say about that. Well, I would think if we start doing this then everyone else's reserve fund would also Be affected and we would be getting requests for that too And we'd be right back where we started when we started the budgeting process Yeah, but you'd be getting requests, but the people would be there to vote on it So then the town is participating in the decision That's the item which is what the town meeting is. Is there any money presently in a tennis court reserve fund? $2,200 and 18 cents. Excellent. No, that was as of June 30. Oh, that was I'm sorry Well, what does it cost to research and how is there an estimate on how much we've spent on maintenance over the last $10,000 spent on me Because it hasn't needed it was rebuilt after Irene, so okay that we got lucky There's 2,000 now and we haven't spent very much in a while, but it's possible not an issue for this year's budget Very had something to say then Barbara, I'll let you I know my budget's been caught big time And I mean we've tried for three years getting out of the air pack, which we really need and You know You might hear while you guys ought to do a fundraiser. What's matter with the tennis court doing a fundraiser? You know we get a lot of time the people who use the tennis court use the tennis court for recreation We aren't recreation At all and the guys are not paid Point well-taken Point will take it and I mean you can have it. I know one year We had a big fire on Thanksgiving and half my guys didn't have things That's a point well taken but there is a point for for and For the tennis court because absolutely it means money to this town and that's why we we have a budget That's so restricted. We need more people coming in. We need people that are going to say oh, I want to be in this Lovely place because I can have outdoor living sure and it's ever a separate, you know There's an other side to that and we do need your Your barb barb had her hand up for an animation Just to the point about what we have two thousand dollars and we haven't spent it The reason is To do what we need to do it's gonna cost maybe eight or ten thousand dollars It's not something you could do a dab a little bit here a little bit there with a filler Okay, so we're trying to build up the reserve in order to get the money to fund a decent resurfacing job and not just you know a little bit of band-aid here and a little bit of glue there Mason Following up with Terry there. I have brought forth to this board the concept of allowing To give the tennis courts to a non-profit Rochester tennis club and Let that flourish in that way So there's not a tax-based issue It is a municipal It is a municipal thing. It's not it's not a private club. This is not a $100,000 asset that needs that will need help. I would say in the next two years We're gonna be in trouble What do you think of Terry's idea of having the fund result? I'm lucky for him. He's worth a shot. What you could do, I think you could do it. Have it for as long as you can. But if it doesn't work, then what do you do? We've had a good time. Mason, you had something else you wanted to say about that? Quick question. Are the tennis courts insured for flight? They were covered under flight insurance policy for the tennis courts? Not a specific policy for the tennis court. Because maybe we need to relocate them to higher ground. They were rebuilt by the tennis court. You could find the higher ground. That would be bigger expense. Who's serve is it now? I'm gonna sign you up. Yeah. Anything else jump out on anyone from the report? Nancy. Want to discuss recycling? There was a big increase on recycling also. And that's why we separated that out as a separate article to vote on. Whereas when everything is piled in over the years, we tended to put most of the expenses into a couple of votes. But we pulled that out because it's enough money that we thought it's worth discussing. It's a significant step up. And I think everyone values it and not only for the recycling, but for the community aspect. It's another day where you get to mingle with your neighbors and do something positive. But it's also, what was the effect on the tax rate? The amount that was... $20,000 is like two and a half cents. Two and a half cents, yeah. I mean it's significant. So we pulled that out as a separate article to further discussion on that. Harlan? $20,000 a year for services. Is that correct? Yep. $20,400. $20,400. Well, what about like a dumpster kind of set up somewhere? It's also controlled. Is it legal bullshit? Well, the composting and... Just cost-wise. Just cost-wise. That's all I'm throwing out. You know, someplace where you don't have to have an appointment to get in there, you know, I mean it's open like on Saturdays or something, you know? Well, we already pay, on top of that, we pay $13,000 to be part of the... Bethel Royalton Alliance. So that is, you know, you can go there and take your trash and your recycling there at no cost. You know, that's an option. But... They charge for trash. They charge for trash, but they charge for trash here also. So the same way they'll pick up your recycling at no cost at your house? Yeah, if you hire the service to come and take your trash. Right. But it's... But here's the cost because you hired them to do it. Right. Right. That's a good question. The recycling, as I understand, is basically kind of filled based on what our average amount is. It's not so much the amount they pick it. It's just a yearly set fee. And sometimes they get a lot, and sometimes they don't. One of our concerns right now, recycling's gotten really expensive because China stopped taking all of our terribly mixed up recycling. Right. But maybe we can make goals to reduce how much recycling by reducing our uses at town and try to aim to have a significant percentage less. Just out of being aware of how much recycling they take away every year. Which, I mean, the recycling is much better than trash, but depending on your recycling it's not necessarily that much better than trash. So we're all just aware of how much we're bringing the toss out. Well, that's one of the questions that I brought up is what are the guarantees that what we carefully separate out and bring to recycling doesn't end up getting landfill anyway because there's no market for it. That happens quite a bit. So in that sense it's getting your trash taken for free. But it's not real. Not if you factor in the cost of your taxes, your property taxes. No, we talked about this for a long time back and forth. And one of the issues is also the concern that if we pull that service away we probably find a lot more trash alongside the roads and on top of both the mountain road and off of Marshbrook Road, not Dump Road. So that plays into it as an investment in trying to keep our town picked up a little bit. A few years ago it's interesting we made the decision to pull the trash barrels off of the park and let people take out what they brought in. And we haven't really got much pushback on that. There's not that much less trash in the park than there used to be. I mean people would use those barrels as a dumpster and it was, you know, there's the interesting decisions that you have to struggle with on and off. I saw Martha. I was just going to say when the board did do that I'm headed the park committee and I remember being worried, you know, because I thought, oh no, there's going to be trash everywhere. But then I did remember exactly what you said, that sometimes I would see bags of trash that people just dumped up and they couldn't do that anymore. It has not been bad. But what I was going to mention was that composting is the law starting this summer. And for people who don't have a place to compost on their own property, you know, this compost service is very important. I know that's part of the actual price of the whole thing, right? Actually, I think you have to pay for the composting. I don't think that they take that for free. I pay $4 to get back. But they will be, yes, they'll be accepting that here. Have like an extra container or bring it. I didn't know if that was an extra. And that was part of the cost. I believe that's why the cost is going up in the next year. Well, it's important for us to know how many people in town are using the service. It does look like a social event, you know, with a lot of people that go. But are we, is 70% of the time using it? Or is 10% of the time using the services? We're putting it out there for discussion to see. But it's justified to continue to provide the services. Is everyone that wants it to be an answer? And I think it makes a wonderful fundraiser for the kids. And they don't have the opportunity to do as much fundraising as perhaps they once did. And this makes, this bottle return really provides a good source for them. We even have people like Lizzie sitting out in very, very cold weather. I'm not going to make that a regular thing. With the composting law that's approaching, being created within the village area and trying to potentially look at someone locally developing a composting operation that may be actually, I was going to suggest that myself. I'm not in the village. A lot of communities have composting facilities within their town. I said there's a lot of towns throughout the nation that have composting facilities within a town. It's often managed by a farmer or a group of volunteers. And when composting is done correctly, that's a valuable resource. The cost expense to the town, that if someone else looks at it as a business here. But the issue is they need to meet our town regulations to set up an operation. So it works for everybody. So I don't know if you looked as a board, you haven't yet, but looked into what you would require for someone to set up a business like that. Did I do? I think the person would have to meet state standards. Keep the birds out. It bears. It will increase the population of the town. I bear. Just because it's a lot doesn't mean it's going to be enforced. That's the problem. The law is coming, but I don't think anybody out there is going to enforce it. There's a lot of expectations on the law. There's laws now for trash and they're not being enforced. Eventually they are. Yeah. There's nobody else. I've got a point. So in my day job, I also run a company. So I have some appreciation of what it takes to have employees and a budget and expenses and income. And I'm looking at this little company and we call our town. And you guys are managing about $480,000 in grant money and about $720,000 in tax money. That's a pinch. How the heck do you do it? I'm really astonished, I have to say. And this is a very well run town. I mean I know you guys are counting your paper clips and so forth. And we need air packs and we need to maintain our investment. And we need to buy more gravel. I'm sorry, but we need more gravel. Did you see the gravel budget? Don't stop now. And we need more painting. And that's one of the things that I hear a lot up at Sandy's is, you know, what's wrong with the roads here? And these are the worst roads that we drove all the way from fill in the blank. And my God, you know. I say, well, we're working on it. It's been a rough process here. And they look at me like crazy. So if there's any way we can put some more money into gravel and paving, I'm going to stand for that. And along with the other good suggestions as well. But we need to tie ourselves. We need to tax ourselves a little bit more. This is not the part of what's taxing us that is taking a lot of money. It's really a small amount of money. But there's one thing in here that I thought was a mistake. And I went and wrangled Dune. I think he's coming from the, getting his mail or something. And I said, is this a mistake? I think you have a typo in here. And when you have an organization that's really well run, it's really, it's very legitimate to reward the officers and try to maintain good people and say job well done. And I thought that this was a typo. It says $33,500 to the entire select board for their salary. And I think that's just amazing. What you guys got to put up with. So, and I think we paid $900 for housekeeping. And is that about what you guys made? I'm just saying, no, housekeeping is a hard job. But I'm saying, I think that we should look at, not now, in the future, maybe our select board members better. I just want to be clear. You said $3,000, not $3,000. $3,000? Right. They're almost $3,000. $3,000? I'm sorry. That's what I think. It's right over here. It's right over here. It's right over here. We're so lucky. So what is that about $0.10 an hour? $0.70. Think about the time that you put in. And I bet you it's more time now than it ever was, because of all the regulations. Because I have a sense of that. With my job and nothing with the government. And so. You're here. Kudos. Thank you. Coming out to scale the document. Well, I would like to extend thanks to Larry Strauss, who had the foresight when he left the board to recommend that we hire an assistant to deal with the bulk of the paperwork around all the grants. And that's Joan, who is really that's, I don't know why or how Larry did it all himself, but he did. And it's really a wise move to suggest that we bring in a little help there. She really pulls a lot of weight in terms of the paperwork. But one of the things that I think if someone was really looking for something to do and has some time and had the interest to research of grants, there's money out there to be found if someone can take the time. And Joan spends all her time working on a lot of grants. That's what her focus is, is working on grants, a lot of state grants for most of the road, big road projects we do. Mercifully, Bethel Mountain Road was done at a very minimal expense to the town pretty much because it was declared an emergency because of the storm. So we lucked out there. But in the, you know, in the current activities around Rochester and trying to garner more energy from the townspeople to pick a project and work on it, that's, you know, we're actively trying to expand the base of people that are picking up a shovel and then helping to not only just keep the town afloat, but to, you know, inspire it and perk things up a little bit. So thank you all, you other... Volunteer paid. Don't confuse the town roads with the state roads. We could turn a way to figure out to turn recycling into pavement, boy. I can make a decision. Some boys up in Burlington are doing that with the glass. Yeah, the glabbel. Yeah. Martha. I know you were talking about the lower portion of Bethel Mountain Road, but the upper portion... The upper portion is a roller coaster. In the, you know, happening sometime in the next year or two, maybe. Can we fix it a little? It's not a plan. Maybe the frosty... Is it the town or state? It's July or September. It's the frosty. They just need to... Yeah. It's extremely bumpy right now. Yeah. We have a round. Yeah, we'll fix it. We'll ride in models. Yeah. Maybe you can make the signs around here that sound frosty. Yeah. It's frosty. Yeah. How it doesn't. We need it. Okay. It's really the whole road. Frosty road. Frosty road. Put a donation jar on the side of the road. Maybe we'll get some money that way. You know how it's happened. Yeah. Well, some towns do town tax. In addition to their sales tax, they have a town tax, you know, a percentage of things that people buy, and then that is an additional sludge fund that goes into road repair. Right. That's been brought up in some of the budget discussions as something to explore. Most of the towns that do that are much bigger towns, and they actually generate a significant amount of money from that whereas I don't know, you know, it would be something but, you know, I also don't want to drive people away from town. It's like, oh, why go shopping in Rochester is a percentage more expensive. Yeah. Mason? In reference to paving, we all basically know that you really have to go deep to be able to build a base that will handle paving. Paving is too expensive. We ought to think about going to more porous materials, going back to the gravels, and going slower. I mean, at some point, this whole talk about paving and everything else, unless we create whole new concepts, the expense is going to go out the roof. I know down in Warren, they started talking about paving is some real big stuff. It all fell apart because they realized how expensive a lot of that would have taken. And you just wait one year. And the frost eaves, and then you turn around, you got all the expense. So maybe we should be looking at a different material surface. Do you have something to say? I did. I would just also like to say that the Budget Committee could not have accomplished anything in a timely fashion if it had not been for Julie and Becky and Joan. Just providing stuff to us, going out of their way to make sure we had the information that we needed to do to make decisions. We are very fortunate in our little small office that we have such a competent group of women. And they're nice too. With that said, if you turn to the back cover, everyone has their book with them. In the upper corner where it says meeting Monday, March 2nd, change the 6.15 to 7 o'clock. Or you could come early. Is anything else anyone wants to cover? I guess we'll close the pre-town meeting and move on to the regularly scheduled select board meeting, which has been posted in three places on the website. And emailed Harlan. Did you get an email this time? My brother's forwarded it to me, but I'm not getting it from the town. Check your spam crap. Maybe it's Sam. I sent it out to the whole group and then I made sure I added you again. That's weird. The only one I'm getting is one of them. Maybe it's going to spam. Check some of the other folders maybe. If you find it in there, you can mark it as not spam, and that should bring it back into your regular inbox. And there's IT help in the library. Does anyone have any additions to this time? Harlan. That's a good one, of course. You have to ask. Update on legal fees. Anybody else? I think Envision Rochester. Are we going to have some time to speak to you tonight? Sure. So we've got the minutes from the last meeting. With a couple typos in there, but I would move to accept these with the corrections marked on there. And I guess we're all guests here. But Joan is not here. Tony. Got any updates in the library aside from IT help? Yeah. No, I don't have anything new I guess to add. I did want to mention that in this week's seven days there's a great article about libraries in Vermont with a lot of pictures and things. So it's kind of fun to read it. The highway crew is not here. Their update is they are headed to Clark's tomorrow morning to pick up a loaner truck. Not our truck, but a loaner truck. Yeah, that's not them. But the good news is that the 550 with the burned-up transmission is getting turned around like in five days. And that's still under warranty. So the 550 still under warranty? Yes. It's been our policy to off the vehicles after the warranty expires, but the warranty is not on the bigger truck, has not garnered real quick action at Clark's. So anyway, we're getting a loaner truck on that. So the 550 will be back in service? Tomorrow. The transmission came in today. Yeah, it came in today. Tomorrow morning. All right. Distant time for the weather. Yeah. Just on the subject of roads and trucks, the curb that's right outside the parsonage has been taken out and there's huge chunks of asphalt that should probably be removed before the next snow because it will definitely foul up my catch and machine. They're big. They took out the curb. Whoever did it. Just like that. Yeah, I think so. Thank you. Terry, you got anything that you want to report on the utility front? Hydrants. Yeah, it's been frozen in now. Except for the ones the town is dead. I did bring that up to Mike twice. The only ones that got done were the ones the town crew did. And you know, middle of the night, you have a fire that's been broken. For one year I'm going to be able to turn a ranch, only quarter turn or half turn. So, what do you need? Removing snow from the high ground. Davey Donner did that for you? Yeah, he did. He stepped down and shared a few bad things. He did an excellent job. All right. We're on to new business. We have a request for permission from the Vermont Grand Fondo Cycling Roadways on Saturday, June 27th next year. And we'll also notify the Sheriff Department and Ambulance Service for that day. And I move to approve that. Time. And we also have a proposal for the Vermont Senior Games events in Rochester on October the 3rd, and I would move to approve that. Second that, I'll be there. You'll be there? Are you going to be competing? You're a senior. Yeah, all right. I'm being honest. That's not a conflict of interest. You want to want some details on what it's taking place. October? I can give you a hand angle. I think it's in October. No, but where? Oh, yeah, at the school. It's George Molson's George Molson's They're having it. And there's a 5K walk and the cornhole competition. And that's George Molson kind of and doesn't need a signature of the past. Yeah. All righty. And the Envision Rochester. What do you want to give us a little update? Let's see. I'll give a general update. Specifically to the school. All right, so Envision Rochester is a loose affiliation of characters just trying to spur on some interest in making our town keeping our town sustainable. As we've talked about tonight, there are things that we need, that we want that we like and looking for opportunities to get those things for ourselves and for our town for our own quality of life and to attract new folks to our community. So to that end this group calling ourselves Envision Rochester had a few community meetings and asked community members what would be important for you for the community. We came up with 13 different topics broad topics and there were dozens of sub topics underneath of those. So last Thursday we had a community workshop at Pierce Hall and we asked the folks and of these 13 most important topics that would move us forward and move our community forward and what they selected where there were 48 people there at the meeting. They selected arts and events that brings people to the community and gives us quality of life. Education and the school building re-perposing the school building and Robert's going to talk a little bit more about that. Young families, attracting young families to the community and that group will focus their efforts on take care because they believe it's a real need for the community and the fourth was commerce and jobs and there's an agriculture group and an agriculture group so yes so all of those groups are going to meet again in some fashion or another and continue to work towards something that they come up with and Vision Rochester isn't telling them what to do, they don't have to run their ideas through the committee, it's just empowering folks to do things that will help the community and to do it with the intention of having broad community support for whatever they do. We're planning another meeting two months out from last week's meeting where those groups back together they'll tell us what they learned or what they decided or what they're going to do we'll talk about what each group is doing, give them feedback see where maybe they can share resources like the events group might want to share ideas with the school group etc and just try to keep it going we might have an opportunity to get some other small groups like critical mass it's always a capacity town this small getting enough people to come out and pick up the flag and wave it long enough to make something happen so up here are some of the flip charts and notes that the four groups we have three of the five groups three of the five posted up here they're also all going to be posted on the Vision Rochester web page on the White River Valley community calendar which if you haven't seen that folks from Hancock put that together White River Valley community calendar Hancock got all their events on there Vision Rochester check that out and some of this information we've posted on that anybody that was at the meeting there want to add anything else it was very well attended like you mentioned and I was part of one of the groups and I felt it was pretty productive and it was also really positive which I liked so I was part of the school and the education and school group and at this point primarily in the information gathering stage one were just from my standpoint a brief overview we have two buildings each of which has two parts we have the south main portion of the elementary school and then we have the north end of that which encompasses the kitchens and the gymnasium and another classroom and then we have the high school which envisions the west end the auditorium and the shops and the music room and the the homec and then we have the rest of the the east side of that building now the school district has been started on the process of evaluating the buildings to decide which one it wants to be in because it really doesn't want to maintain two buildings but some of the proposals that the engineers have come up with are envisioning spending a lot of money so that they can do it all with one building what really makes the most sense is that the school has all of one building and part of the other and that the tenants of that other building are compatible there are a lot of interest in having space of a municipal type of space that has I mean there's a request from other other groups of the envision Rochester of saying no we would need space for let's say daycare or whatever there's ideas are just starting to flow on what we would do with the rest of that space so there's been ideas from daycare the other is get one less building move all the town offices down to one of the buildings and again it's we're just right at the initial information and idea gathering stage so primarily what I'm here to do is to ask the select board if they're interested in working with us on this I mean we're not asking to represent you we're just asking something that you that you would like to work with us on we're an exploratory group and so we're coming to the select board first and we're going to go to the school board basically get your blessing in doing a kind of community survey to see just even that you do outreach and get brainstorming not that we're going to have all the ideas but to really test the pulse of the community about the interest in repurposing that building and according to Amy Wilt the daughter the school board at this point is much more open to community getting involved there's a lot of information I mean there's lots and lots of issues in which we can gather information there's a lot that's been gathered by the schools but there's more to be gathered such as I mean the heating systems upgrade would be an enormous expense but there's also things like efficiency Vermont and some other organizations that have have done such have provided you know grant money for that sort of thing these the there's a lot of the work from the that they did it from the engineering survey engineering work for the school and you know that can be brought together and shared so we're looking for ideas and gathering ideas but also gathering other information put it together is there any thought about part of it being used as commercial space that is all municipal oriented at this point totally open for all ideas that's the point to do an exploration to really feel out the community and the group itself is very enthusiastic and energetic but we can't work in a vacuum or in a silo we really do need to work with at least the blessing of these boards so that we can go out and get the information and bring the information back and read it and you know see what the determinants are for the possibilities there's also issues such as you know security for the school it should be known to that we don't own that building so we're discussing something that we don't have any control over so I just want that to be to be known we're not decision makers at this point but that's one of the options for ownership that we're exploring because I think the time comes not like to see it go elsewhere the ownership from the feedback but that's what we're going to find out I think it's positive and I do believe that an open discussion about the use of those buildings will bear fruit when we get a lot more people involved it had seemed to me that the school board was operating in the vacuum because they were very focused on just school financing and so I made some suggestions but it's really gone beyond beyond that at this point what the school board is willing now to even explore options for ownership so it feels like a good moment it just makes good sense I would move to break out the holy water and give our blessings to use the exploration having this type of discussion with the school board that's our next meeting and our next meeting will be the school board yep, so be it that's good is that building? I don't know, that'd be something to it's yours 1971 there was active 50 then, wasn't there? yeah, it's not active 50 the year came into being 1977 or 1971 but even in the repurposing process it could still have a strong educational purpose in it without necessarily being under the auspices of public school education we talked about so many things even having adult education and having, you know one of the I was involved in the group that was talking about young families and youth and then the point was put forth very strongly that it's not the lack of jobs that is keeping people from moving here it's the lack of childcare and you know it's all well and great that people can work from home and in cyber commute but if they don't have anyone to take care of young children it's hard to have young families be motivated to that was a real missing link in the services here so that was I think that educational aspect would probably have a long term life in that facility Martha you had something to say I was on that same committee and Asha Lebeja brought that up she's expecting baby number four and she said it's very hard to get good childcare but when I first moved here 35 years ago I needed it we were lucky enough to have dandelion daycare next to the school but that hasn't been around for a number of years and I think that would be a perfect that's just a comment of perfect use for part of that building because parents bringing their kids to school bring the other ones over there too so because we do I'm glad to hear that you're thinking about using part of the other building not just getting rid of it because we've got the gym and cafeteria in one building but in the other one we've got the auditorium which the players have put a lot of money into especially after I read and all the other things that are important to our town there are parts in both buildings that are important can we have is the one planet program available to expand their offerings for daycare that's a good question that's a great question I don't know that's a good question the buildings were like given to the supervisor reunion right maintenance on them responsibility and supervisor right no the school district a merge school district that's not supervisory well okay I got my term screwed up they own it where it was previously it wasn't the towns it was the Rochester school district now that's merged with a Rochester Stockbridge school district so they together own that building as well as the Stockbridge school okay I mean like say like a new roof who puts that the combined district it just seems like I just read something where there's like a lot of work that's got to be done maintenance work on the building to reuse them all the buildings so if we move all our stuff we start moving into the building and the town uses more and more of it are we more liable for maintenance on that I just wanted the bottom line on it all well we all would want that that's what exploration is going to produce this information that that will then play out there and people will be making decisions it's a town process that's the way we see it and as other towns have also gone through this losing some of their elementary schools there's also other other towns are doing things with their buildings that we may be able to reach out and find out what they're what they did get for grants and how they went about it how they're using them there's also legal issues of if the school owns one building but part of another does it piece it out or can it have a joint ownership of part of the building and then there's maintenance issues and future and such and also issues if you're getting a grant which covers both entities it's simpler if it's a municipal school combination but I mean we're also talking if you have a daycare maybe it's an independent daycare space that's leased out right all these they can get real complex so that's why we need to gather a lot of information well it's exciting that there's people animated and energized over working on some of these projects 21st century farm raising concept it's our town that's pulled together and what do we want to do with it which is very much the premise of the working communities grant that Vic and I are representing Rochester so you know that we won the planning grant stage and now we'll be meeting with the feds for like three all day meetings to sort of work out funding and it's a process too but it's all kind of connected the same sort of idea that's very much directed towards economic development and especially sort of addressing more marginal populations but the idea of sustaining the communities is very core to it we seem to be succeeding people are moving into the town I think affordable housing is probably the main drive I hear everyone talking about everything except the one Tullan, the charity shop ultimately you have to be able to afford it and young families can afford $150,000, $175,000 and that's what they're looking for and the closer we can get to that to that mark for people the closer the more people that comes before they care for the people here Robert again it's somewhat related I just had a question because you dealt with us so much with FEMA and such are there grants available for community resiliency in terms of being able to survive more storm events one of the issues for the school is there are some things that could be done to mitigate it not through FEMA but there can be money out there for mitigation you have to go up a different avenue but there can be some money out there but not through FEMA to be continued I hope guys find a book the book actually actually no but Nancy and I did spend some time downstairs and we found some other things but we didn't find the book that you're referring to which one we found a bunch of audio tapes documenting select board minutes and school board minutes to go back 20 years I think 1999 was the last one I saw we're talking nothing to do with that but that's what we found about those third tapes I'm afraid I haven't had time I will be I will I don't think we've been advised that it's back there yet right it's not back there yet so these are tapes that had been used then to transcribe notes out of so there nothing really that needs holding on to them I think you can all go away they were in storage down below the other kindling you had asked about the update on the legal fees and I don't believe there's anything that's changed since the last time you asked that at 3133 1998 over the past three years you look in the budget what did we put in the budget for legal fees 15 not that amount now we're being optimistic that we can get clear of this 15 is what comes tomorrow so I'm pretty sure 15 is it going to stop now? or what? find out I can't answer that I don't know so anything that anyone else wants to say I think that pretty much covers our agenda tonight and we'll see you guys next week for the full group thank you for coming out with a preview of the town meeting and we'll see you next week