 I'm kick it off here. So as chair of the Rochester Select Board, I find that due to the state of emergency declared by Governor Scott as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and pursuant to addendum six to executive order 01-20 and act 92, this body is authorized to meet electronically. In accordance with act 92, there is no physical location to observe and listen contemporaneously to this meeting. However, in accordance with the temporary amendments to the open meeting law, I confirm that we are providing public access to the meeting using the Zoom platform and find access to this particular meeting either on the posted warnings through town through the town website or by requesting a specific information from the town clerk. And basically that's the scoop. So I'm going to hand it over to Dan as we open up this special informational meeting and that might of the form our meeting will take this year. Take it away, Dan. Thanks, dude. Good evening. If you don't know me, my name's Dan McKinley I'm the elected town moderator, at least until March 1st. We'll see. Am I running unopposed? I haven't seen the ballot yet. It's usually a long list of nominations. You're unopposed as near as I can tell. Okay. Oh, there's the ballot. So I'm going to kick it off by reading the public hearing, public informational hearing notice. Legal voters of the town of Rochester hereby notified and warranted the select board for the town will hold two public informational hearings Monday, February 22, 6 p.m. and Thursday, February 25, 6 p.m. The purpose of these public informational hearings is to review articles 11 through 13 as presented on the 2021 town of Rochester annual meeting warning. These public informational hearings will be conducted remotely via Zoom for information on how to participate and connect. You've already figured that out. Procedures for remote Zoom meeting were in the town report. Voting on all articles presented on the morning, including the election of officers will take place by Australian ballot on Monday, March 1st, 2021. Information on the annual meeting and the Australian ballot voting. Please see the warning and notice the voters posted here with Pages 78 town report. A couple of housekeeping things. I would request that you keep your microphone on mute just so we don't get background noise and then turn it on when you're ready to speak. Try and recognize folks as you put your hand up at the bottom of your screen. There is a reactions button. If you click on that, there's a hand raise function. So you can put your hand up or you can wave. Literally put your hand up and wave. With this number of people, we have 20 participants up. Somebody in the waiting room. We'll do our best to not talk over each other and be courteous. So this is primarily informational. Really, we're hoping not to get into a lot of dialogue and the yays and nays and the merit of the individual articles, but more for information so people understand what the articles are and what they're voting on. So please feel free to ask clarifying questions on any of these topics. We'll take them in the order of the articles are in the town report in the morning. And I'll start off with article 11. Shall the term of the town clerk be changed to three years effective town meeting March 7, 2022 and pursuant to state law? Any questions or comments on that? Seeing none, hearing none. Move on to the second one, article 12. Read shall the term of the town treasurer be changed to three years effective town meeting March 7, 2022 pursuant to state law? Any questions, comments on that one? Seeing none, we're moving right along. Article 13, shall the voters optimize payment of real and property, real and personal property taxes in four installments with two dates, Monday, August 16th, Monday, November 15th, Monday, February 14th and Monday, May 16th, 22, 2022 by delivery to the tax collector before 4 p.m. on those dates. Any questions, comments on that one? Hey, article 14. Shall the voters authorize total highway and general fund expenditures of $1,095,646 of which $766,833 shall be raised by taxes. Questions, comments? I see one of the phones lighting up. Whoever ends in 3327, did you wanna jump in there? Nope, okay. If you're on a phone and you don't have a reaction button, you can just holler out and we'll make sure you're able to speak. Okay, we'll go on to article 15 if there's nothing on article 14. Article 15 reads shall the voters appropriate $45,625 towards operating expenses of the Rochester Public Library? You have to look at it, but. Okay, hearing any questions, on 15, let's go to article 16. Shall the voters appropriate $69,479 to provide ambulance service from White River Valley Ambulance? Questions, comments? Very none, we'll move on. Yes? Yeah, I'd like to know why there isn't an article for the Granville First response. Okay, I forgot to mention at the beginning, please identify yourself if we can't see you, if we don't have your name. So whoever speaking, identify yourself and. Okay, Salvina Harvey. Oh, hi, can someone address Nancy, you wanna take that? In the first response, if you look in your budget, you'll find that they are part of the budget. Where, on what page, please? One second. Page 31, wine under general town expenses, 107, 1030, 960, 000. Oh, I see it, yeah. What's the, it's on your town, okay? Oh, Granville First response. Okay, we see it, okay. Thank you. You're welcome, thank you. Yeah, just wanted to make sure they're included. All right, thanks, Salvina. Yeah, thank you. Any other questions on that article 16 on the White River Valley Ambulance? Okay, none, we'll move on to article 17. Shall the voters, excuse me, vote to appropriate $20,400 to continue funding the fast trash and recycling program receipt of recyclables and trash with residents paying for trash per bag from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022. Move on to article 18. Shall the voters vote to appropriate 8,000 to continue funding the Town Buildings Reserve Fund? Article 19. Shall the voters vote to appropriate $1,000 to continue funding the Tennis Court Reserve Fund? We will move on. Article 20. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $3,000 to the Central Vermont Council on Aging? Requestions? Go to article 21. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $2,000, excuse me, dinner's ready. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $2,066 to the Clara Martin Center? Move on to article 22. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $100 to Greenland Medical 23? Shall the voters vote to appropriate the sum of $9,849 to the Quintown Senior Center? No questions. We'll move to article 24. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $250 to the Orange County Parent Child Center? No questions? Moving on to article 25. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $250 to Safe Line, Inc. No questions, no comments. Moving on to article 26. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the sum of $1,300 to Tri Valley Transit Formerly Stagecoach? No questions on that one. We'll move to article 27. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $100 to Vermont Rural Fire Hydrant? Do you wanna ask anything about the partnership? Okay, nothing on article 27. We'll move to article 28. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $4,800 to the Visiting Nurse Association? No questions, no comments. We'll move to article 29. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $875 to White River Partnership? No questions, no comments. We'll go to article 30. Shall the voters vote to appropriate the requested sum of $250 to Women's Safe? Seeing none, go to article 31. Shall the town of Rochester be required to inform its residents when sources of radiation, such as that from cell towers and 5G antennas, are being proposed for installation within its town limits? Any questions, no comments? Well, this is Deb Moore, and for the sake of the few people that are there, I guess I'd like to read my little explanatory statement again. What happened with that? Okay. So this article 31 should be considered a right to know question for improving communication between our town government and its citizens whenever a telecom industry giant submits a proposal for new wireless infrastructure to be deployed in Rochester. Why? There's a time factor involved for citizens to have any agency concerning placement of cell towers and small cell antennas in our community. Our town government has the legal right to make decisions about the placement of wireless infrastructure, and those of us who petition want that right to be respected and facilitated by our town officers. We are not a special interest group. Concern about impacts of wireless infrastructure is public interest, shared by many. In just a few days during a week of severe cold weather and a mid-Vanuary pandemic, over 50 registered voters in Rochester signed our petition. Our belief is that a citizen should have the right to know and the right to have a say about what goes up in our neighborhoods. Aesthetic impacts can affect property values, and with the new small cell antennas, thousands of studies document serious health impacts to humans as well as birds, bees, and trees. We don't need another health crisis. What we do need is internet connectivity that follows well-thought-out safety standards. Thank you. Thanks, Deb. Mark, Alexander? Yes, I just wanted to bring up something that somebody asked about in the Monday meeting. There was some confusion about the term 5G because a lot of home routers, home wireless routers now advertise having the so-called 5G feature. Turns out this has absolutely nothing to do with the 5G that's used by the new cellular phone technology. In home routers, it refers to a Wi-Fi standard that is based on the five gigahertz frequency. So I just wanted to clear that because some people were, one person was worried that because they had a 5G router at home, they were worried that maybe somehow this article concerned them, and it turned out there's actually no connection that way. There was another, somebody else asked about the fact that the public utilities commission has to approve new wireless installations, and it turns out that some installations are called de-minimus installations, which means that they're, are modifications to existing wireless towers. So for example, if AT&T were to decide to upgrade the tower and then it's in the Federated Church to add 5G support, it's possible that they would be able to get approval from the PUC without any public input. So in cases like that, it is important for the residents of the town to know about these projects because otherwise they could possibly be approved by the PUC without any public input. So it's important for us to have some say in that process too. Thank you. Thanks, Mark. Anyone else have questions, comments? One article, 31. Seeing none, hearing none. I think that wraps up our information, all the information, hearing. Do you wanna take it from here, close the hearing? Yep, yep, we'll, I guess we'll declare the hearing closed, and that was all that we had on the agenda for tonight. So we'll thank you all. Wait, one more minute please. A minute please, I ask, this is how being a Harvey, I ask the question of who found the petition for article 31, please. A group of people from Rochester, and we had over 50 signatures for it. Okay, so you can, there's a record of that. There's a record of that. Oh sure. Okay, all right, thank you. Yep, okay. Thank you. Thank you. You bet. Okay, sorry, I didn't need to cut off questions there, and anyone else, where we close? Okay. Okay, let's try this again. Thank you Dan for moderating this, and thank you all for coming out, and I guess we won't see you in the school auditorium, but we'll all join together in voting our preferences for the issues to be decided at the town meeting. So keep warm, and we'll see you around town. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good evening everyone. Thank you for having me.