 Is there any, it's called a meeting to order. Is there any public comment or additions and changes to the agenda? This meeting is being recorded. All right. I have a comment. Well, Denise's camera. I plugged it in. It doesn't work. You got to activate it probably. Well, the computer said that it did that that it installed it, but it doesn't seem to be working. So I unplugged it. Cliff and I are going to. Do it later so that maybe it's the next time. All right. And I got it. I do have it plugged in or did I did. But if I am. But if I have it plugged in, I can't be a box. What was to be. What would I be? I don't know. All right. Toby. You're up. So the question is we've been working on the final design for. The George road culvert. I actually invited Doug Newton to join us tonight. He's not in the king in the meeting yet. The issue is that to run the issue is that the culvert is so wide that we can't run guard rail because the cover over the guard over the culvert is only about a foot, a foot and a half deep. Which doesn't support the long span that that would be required to put a guard, regular guard rail on the culvert. So the last thing that I had talked with Doug about was. We could use Jersey barriers on either side of the, of the culvert to put up a. Protection for people driving off into the, into the stream. And that's what we wanted to talk to you about whether you would approve of that or not approve of that. And what your thoughts were about having Jersey barriers on that culvert. So yeah, go ahead, John. Is there, is there a waiver ability that we could seek a waiver? I mean, it's only like. Two feet. Two foot drop or three foot drop. No, it's no, it's no, it's like 10 feet. What am I thinking about by the farm? Yep. How could it be 10 feet. It is. I mean, the culvert itself is like six feet tall. And then there's, there's two feet of invert. And then there's a foot and a half of cover over it. So. What do you mean? What is, what is invert? Invert is the, the buried part of the, essentially the culvert has to be buried two feet into the stream. Wow. And then it has to have a six foot opening on top of that. So. So it's six plus. It's six plus one. Yeah. That's why we're bringing this. To the water level. John. So, yeah. So engineering wise. Essentially the design requires guard rail. Yeah, I know that. That's why I was asking if they could, is there an ability to seek a waiver? I mean, personally, I don't think we should be putting with Jersey barriers up as a permanent solution. Well, I didn't think so either. And that's why we're bringing you guys about how. So there has to be some kind of retain. There has to be some kind of. So. So. Yeah. The first approved guard rail over the culvert on both sides. Can you put a Jersey barrier up and then. To kind of hide it. Put up the old, the guard, the regular guard rails. You're not understanding. Denise. So if you have the Jersey barriers up. Can on the facing of the Jersey barriers, you put up. Our normal guard rail standard, the weathered looking guard rails. So that would be a possibility. So late earlier today, Doug called me a back and said, there might be another solution, which would be to pour a concrete base across the. The sides of the culvert. And put the guard rail into that base, but he was going to check whether or not that was Ashta approved. And I haven't heard back from him. I haven't heard from him. I haven't heard from him. I haven't heard from him. I haven't heard from him. I haven't heard from him here to talk about that directly. Would that be part of we have to pay extra for that? Or is that, would that be part of the grant? Well, I mean, there was, there's money in there originally for guard rail. If we have to do Jersey barriers or any other concrete work, it's going to be more, but. You know, when you throw a budget out at a particular project and you either come in over or under. You know, when it goes out to bid, whether the bids will be higher or lower than what we've put in for the grant. I mean, the grant has a, I think it's $160,000. Okay. Toby, what. Toby, what are the, what are the. When you were working with, with Doug, what. What other options. Are there, are there any other options? It sounds like you did, you, you did. You and Doug have done this. Analysis. You looked at the issue. You saw the problem. And. And I mean, Denise's idea is an aesthetic. It addresses the aesthetic issue is, if I understand where you're coming from Denise, but from an engineering standpoint, are there any other options? No, so it either way. So the problem is there's no way to anchor guard rail over top of the culvert because of the long span of the culvert. You know, as it, as, as it is, you know, 12, I don't know the exact dimension. I'd have to look at the plan, but it's too wide to put a single rail across between two posts. The posts don't have any place to be. So we have to do something that would anchor. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the protection over the guard rail. So the first solution was Jersey barrier. Cause that's an accepted barrier that meets the standard of highway accidents. And to prevent, you know, cars going over a bank. The second option that Doug has come up with is a possibility of pouring a concrete base and having a six inch lip. So that's kind of along the lines of what I was suggesting with the, it's still being, being able to somewhat camouflage it with the normal. Guard rails that we're all used to. Yep. It sounds like it. Is it. It sounds like it's not exactly a camouflage. It's a way of anchoring the guard rails. Atypically. Well, if you, if you look at the design drawing that I gave you, the guard rails come up to the edge to the end of the concrete barrier. Then there's two pieces of concrete barrier, Jersey barrier. And then the guard rail picks up on the other end. I think what Denise is talking about is putting metal bar that travels in the same direction. Covering over. It's not structural. It's just covering to that big surface. Right. Right. Well, if you, if you look at the design drawing that I gave you, the guard rails come up to the edge to the end of the concrete barrier. Then there's two pieces of concrete barrier Jersey barrier. And then the guard rail picks up on the other end. And then it's like, you know, there's a big surface of concrete. Yeah. You're still going to see the big lump of concrete sitting there like a Jersey barrier. Yeah. And what Doug's new idea is, as a way of it, I think what, I might be repeating exactly what you said, but laying a concrete base, like on the road or on top of the culvert that would allow you to anchor the. The guard rails. that would be correct. It would be the concrete base poured to hold the post for the regular guardrail. Rose wants to say something. Toby, what about our timing? We have a little bit of leeway or flexibility on the timing for Doug to. Doug Newton to figure this out. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, essentially we were bringing all these, these issues to you so we can look. I mean. The design and most of the stuff is ready to go into a bid package, but it's this piece that we were not comfortable just making that decision on our own and wanting to share with you guys. Since it's an aesthetic. Issue rather than a technical issue. No, you did the, you did the right thing bringing it to us because we all know how much input we get from folks about. Guard rails. It's a pretty big, pretty big issue. So my other question then is Toby, so this would technically probably increase the price. And I still go back to the issue that I raised several weeks ago. You know, the state says, okay, yeah, you got the grant money. Now we have to come up with. How much money. From callous or is it all in kind. And what if we do all this work and the grant money doesn't come through. Well, I've talked with Sean about that issue and Sean. Yeah. Reassures me that that money's already special specified for us. And we're not going to get short changed on that grant amount. So the only thing, the only risk we would run would be an overage of our estimated cost of the production of the, of the work. In most parts. It's a pretty straightforward project. I mean, other than this particular wrinkle, it's just all. It's all covered in our estimate that we put in for the grant to begin with. And that, you know, that estimate was done by Doug, our engineer. Right. I mean, we've used Doug for years and years. So. Right. Now. Who would do this work. Well, whoever went out to whatever contractor won the bid. So, you know, in thinking about all this new guidance for. How would that play into the RFP? Well, not, I mean, I don't think it would make any, any significant difference by the time this goes out to. To bid and. They start work on it. We'd be into July or August, probably at the earliest. And so there'll probably be a lot of relaxed. Issues as far as manpower and. Crews and stuff. Are the crews generally out of state or they in state crews? Depends on who bids. And which bid we, I mean, last time we did a group from Hardwick, we've done. A group from Barry. I mean, a contractor from Barry. We've done, you know, mostly local guys anyways. Okay. It's not as if people are coming from out of state. Okay. Cause there's, you know, I'm just thinking about all the stuff going on. We want to be careful about. Money. And we want to be careful about making sure that. We're following the Bosch. Guidelines, whether it's our own crew or whether it's out of state. Well, that responsibility is on the contractor's part, not ours. If it wasn't, okay. All right. That's their responsibility to work within the guidelines of the state directives. Alfred, did you want to say something? Yeah. I mean, I guess what I would add was that. That's sort of a low traffic road. It's not in the city. It's not in the city. It's not in the city. It's not in the city. I mean, I guess what I would add was that that's sort of a low traffic road. It's not in the village. Like we had in North callus was in the village where people walk and they enjoy that scenic value. There's not as much traffic down there and there's even less people walking whatnot. So that's kind of why we thought that Jersey barriers might be okay. There are, there is one other option that's not cheap, but we could build the road up to allow for more cover, which would then allow for the posts to be used as usual. But, you know, you'd have to build that road probably four feet in order to, to make that option work. Oh boy. If we do. Go ahead. If we do the, if we do Jersey barriers. I think that's the, the, the first way, not the, not the new today idea, but the, but what you were saying originally Toby. Is there. Thinking again about cost. Ken. With Denise's I aesthetic idea of guardrails. In a lot lining. The. The Jersey barrier. Would that have to be done. Contemporaneously, or could that be done. In the future? In the future. In the future. In the future. In the future. Down the road. No, that can be done in the future. And actually, you know, if, if you didn't care exactly about continuity, you could probably use reuse some guardrail. We already have just, I mean, you just have to put mounts. Onto the Jersey barrier. And we can, you know, find some straight pieces. Lying around behind the shop that we could do that. You know. Yeah. It doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be done in the future. So that's, that's what we're required. But the other guardrail is. That's a function that the town can take on itself at a later date. Then we would want to be very clear. So when we start getting phone calls about the ugly Jersey barriers. That we have a plan to supplement those with. Our traditional guardrails just maybe at a little later date. So that's what we're looking for. Right. Right. I would, I would be in favor of still getting. This reply from Doug Newton to see whether or not the concrete thing would be in compliance. Being the concrete thing with the post with the. Guardrails stuck into them. Yeah. Yeah. John, you wanted to say something. Yeah. So Toby. Just for clarification. My understanding is the Jersey barriers can be placed and they do not need to be pinned in any way. That will be compliant. With the extra codes. Yeah, that's correct. So do you. Another. Another thing I might add is that, you know, if we did use the Jersey barriers, we could always paint them. You know, some, some. You know, you could paint them green or paint them brown or something that's more appealing. Yeah. Good. Have a callous elementary school art project. That's right. That's right. You can, you can also get them poured in different types of aggregate or rough aggregate. So they don't just look like a concrete slab. There's other options. I was like, I was like, I can think of as those ugly things on the interstate, you know. Well, that's what they are. No matter what you say about them. They look like New Jersey. Right. That's where they came from. John, right? They invented them. Yeah. So do we need, do you need us to make a click? Once it says something. I'm just curious about something that wouldn't change the aesthetics, but. Was there any discussion of using a different barrier and F barrier or something like that? Toby. We've looked at other barriers. The, the issue is they, the barriers have to be hooked together securely. And the Jersey barriers are really the only ones that you can put in a row and hook them together and get the standard. There are other sort of eight foot barriers and stuff, but they don't interlock with each other. So they're not, they don't work across that longer span. Okay. Thanks. And we also looked about, you know, doing some impressions or something to dress up the Jersey barrier, but we've talked to the concrete company and that form. They can't do anything with that form. They can only do. You know, some kind of colored or different. Surface. But the shape and the size has to be the regular. Molded size. Well, I like Alfred's idea of probably that. They could possibly be tinted with a color of some sort. And that we could eventually put up the typical rusty. Looking guardrails to kind of. Help with the aesthetic effect because people are going to notice it. There's no way around it. Right. Okay. So, so. I will continue to pursue with Doug the other option and let you know via email as soon as we can, if that's an acceptable way to deal with it. Otherwise. We'll deal with using Jersey barriers, adding guardrail in the future, and maybe coloring it depending on what your choice of colors are. John. So Toby, just again, I just want to make sure I'm understanding everything correctly. So this is, you know, kind of one of the finishing touches. So you can, the project can move forward. Move forward while you're evaluating options. Right. And then. When we get to the point where we're put surfacing over the culvert, that's when we need. Before then we need to know whether we can do the concrete application. And whether that's a can be approved. So the thing is, if we put the RFP out, if we're specifying the cost, the extra costs for jerseys as opposed to guardrail, that has to be in the bid that we put out for people to, to reply to you. So we can change. So what, so what did, what was the grant award? Is it 160 or 180? I'd have to look at it. I think it's 160, but I haven't looked at it. Yeah. I don't know. For some reason I was thinking 180. But yeah, so we would want to know in the RFP. You know, how much more it's going to cost than what we were granted. Right. And then again, we need to be thinking about as we get closer to the end of this fiscal year. You know, what's the money situation look like? Cause this project wouldn't be until next fiscal year. Correct. That's right. It would be in the next fiscal year because we wouldn't start till after July 1st. Okay. And this is a 10 year plan. So we would want to know in the RFP. You know, how much more it's going to cost than what we were granted. Right. And then again, we need to be thinking about as we get closer to the end of the fiscal year. And then again, we need to be thinking about as we get closer to the end of the fiscal year. And this is a 10% match. At least so, yeah. In kind or just. Yeah. It's in kind. So we could as part of the match, maybe we could install the Jersey barriers and that way we could, or whatever the. Finish work is. I'm just speculating. To meet. No, that's true. So essentially if whatever the final total is, if we're in the fiscal year, we can get. Essentially, sometimes we're over sometimes we're under. We did the paving out in the. At the post office in. East Calis and we came in almost $7,000 under. So, yeah. You know, it's just one of those things where you take your best shot at it. And it's hard to tell whether or not you've hit the high or low point in what you've estimated. And by the, and just again, this is, we have to pay the money upfront and then we get reimbursed. That's correct. It's a reimbursement. So just want to keep saying it. We don't know what the fiscal outlook is going to be. Right. And that's, and that's true, whether it's this year or next year. Correct. And that's why I keep saying, you know, yeah, they, they're not going to get reimbursed. They're not going to get reimbursed. They're not going to get reimbursed. They're not going to get reimbursed. They're guaranteed. They guaranteed us the grant and so on and so forth. But there's all you never know what's going to happen at the federal level that the money's not going to come down from there to the state. Well, and even 10% you know, when we're starting to count pennies here. Right. We should be paying attention to that. Yeah. Well, except for the 10% with the. Oh, but it's can be in kind. Right. Right. Okay. Right. We're not going to get reimbursed. We're not going to get reimbursed. For the 180 or 160 or whatever it is. We're screwed. Well, not really. It becomes an issue between us and the state and the contractor and the contractors can have to wait. You know, we don't pay them up front. Right. Toby. Well, it depends. Sometimes we do a 50% down payment. That kind of stuff. I mean, there. It all depends on how we. You know, who we choose as the. Contractor and what they're asking for when, when they sign up. Okay. So you'll get back to us with more information about. The guard rail stuff. When we have people. To pick from for the RFP. Right. Well, I mean, I can. So I'm looking at the grant application. It's $165,000. That's the total that we've asked for for the grant. So we have, we have been, we have been awarded $165,000. But if the total project comes in more based on this new. Barrier thing Jersey barrier stuff. It's going to up the price. Right. But there may be, again, everything is. It's going to up the price. And based on numbers and quantities and. If everything goes super and somebody's selling us the culvert cheaper because they're trying to do, I mean, there's all kinds of factors. Of course. Yeah. Of course. That are unknown. So you can't really predict one way or another. And if we put it, I mean, we put stuff out to bid. And people have come in $20, 30,000 over our estimate. And we've decided not to go ahead because we can't do the same thing. But we're going to go ahead and put it out to bid. Until we get the bids in hand. There's no idea whether or not it's going to be above or below that number. We might get good bids because people are looking for work. There's no way to know until we put it out. So that's, that's the next step is to put it out. Okay. So the select board as a whole. Good with this process. Are we, we're just waiting to hear and then we'll. You'll eventually be looking for a formal vote on some. So essentially right now, the only solution that we have is the concrete barrier right now, the Jersey barrier. If there's an option, we'll, we'll offer it to you. But right now that, that other option doesn't exist yet. Is us waiting to make that. To endorse the Jersey barriers. So you, we've got your back on that. I'm going to hold up the RFP. No, not at all. Okay. So we'll just wait, you know, I'll just, as soon as we get a confirmation, if there's an option, we'll let you know, or if there's no option, we'll let you know, and you can just give us the go ahead to put out the, put it out to bid. Okay. Alfie. You want Alfred, did you want to say something? No, I was going to chime in when we were talking about the money for the guard rails. When we, when we put an estimate in there, there's already guard money in to pay for the guard rails in the, the original estimate. So it's not like the Jersey barriers is a complete. Overcharge. Yeah. It's, you know, it's going to be, there's money in there for, for some sort of guard rail. So I don't think we're talking about extra money with the, with the Jersey barriers. Well, I guess we'll wait and see what, what news the RFPs bring. And if Doug Newton comes up with a, another solution. Okay. So in addition, in order to get the stream permit, we need temporary easements from landowners because we are outside the right of way where we're doing some work. Who are the landowners? I don't know their name. Alfie might know their name. It's the guy who wants the farmhouse right now. Oh, Mike, that it's. Yeah. And then across the road, Alfie knows who they are. I don't. Dale will failure. Wendy and Dale. Right. So we just, so we need a document to offer them. So we can get a signature on temporary easement. We also need a permanent easement from Bennett. Because there's a little corner of the stream that we'll have to. Harden with stone. That's on his property and outside the right away. So I'm, I'm asking permission to get Jim Barlow to draft those documents for us so we can get them signed in preparation for getting it. Yeah. Yeah. So the temporary easements. We're not taking any of their property. No, it's just permission to do work while we're off them right away. But the bed, it's peace. There is a piece where it would be permanent. That's correct. It's just a small little section on a corner of the stream. That we have to harden the bank because it's such a steep slope that we have to harden. It's just an easement to be able to work on their property. To get machinery and stuff on their property. It's not. So we're not taking any of their property. No, it's just permission to do work while we're off them right away. So we're not taking any of their property. So we're not taking any of their property. So we're not taking any of their property. It's just a small slope that we have to harden it. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like we need Jim to draft up some documents. Yeah. And I'm happy to deal with it. I just need your permission to talk to him. Mine by me. On Rose Sharon. Cliffs of thumbs up Sharon's. Yeah. Time with me. Yeah. You got the go Toby. Okay. Bless you, Katie. Thank you. It's a video. It's a visual. All right. Anything else on that? Or do you want to, or can we move on to the next item? Nope, that's fine. That's all I needed on dirt road. Okay. So you'll stick around to. Yep. Okay. So we had done. We had revised and extended. The state. Stay home. You're on call. Okay. Okay. I remember I said, let's not do it to May 15th. Let's do it to April 30th because I was thinking in something might happen before. Then, and it has. So that apparently crews. Of up to five. Can be on job sites as long as they're able to do social distancing, which is the six foot rule. They have adequate means of. And I just sent it to everybody. A document I cut and pasted. From the Vosha online training guide, some highlights. And I just sent it to everybody. It's in word. But Judy's taking the course. And I think. Barbara did as well. The online course because somebody on site has to be. The safety officer. We don't have staff available to. And we, and we're going to need a checklist. For every day. So I was thinking about. Some kind of a spreadsheet. That in the morning. You know, you check off this at noon, you check off. And when everybody's ready to leave to the home, you check off. So that's kind of the starting of this discussion. Yeah. I'm assuming Toby, that you've probably taken this online thing too. So my question is, um, Alfred. Are you able to take the online training? It's not, it doesn't look very difficult. You have the computer at the garage that I think you could do it on. I mean, you know, if you're in a emergency where you would have a problem with it, it's pretty straightforward. The spreadsheet. I'm thinking that it's rolling around in my head. It's just a pretty simple one with the day's date. Who the safety officer is the initials of the safety officer. Um, You know, these are the things that you check for. Does anybody have any of the following symptoms? Are you able to. You know, um, access to the restroom. Access to cleaning supplies. Um, I'm not quite sure how we're going to get cleaning supplies, because they're in short. Short supply. And then we have the mask issue, which you can wear the cloth masks. And I know that there are several. People in town making the cloth mask. That if everybody had two masks and they took one home at night and washed it. You know, I don't know. I don't know. Or some somehow you wash them and bring them back for use the next day. It's just things like that that we need to put into place. What are folks. What do you think about that? I'll make a spreadsheet. You will. Okay. Is it. So is the idea. To. Plot these points. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you and I can maybe chat about it. Cause I've got some ideas about what the points are. If you want. Uh, why don't, if they're different than what's on this. The fastest thing to do is just go through and highlight what you want in it. And I'll just. Cut and paste and. Make like. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I can make a spreadsheet. Well, all right, then that's great. If you want to do it, that's fine too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to get clear on. I haven't looked at this document. Is there a vision that each of these points is a. Cell on the. Well, we need to have, we need to come up with, and I've got a, you saw the email I sent to. Joel and to the league. Asking them, are there some kind of posters that we can post about. Proper hand washing that we can put in the, some kind of posters or something that we hang up. We don't want to have to go through a checklist every day of, did you wash your hands when he came out before he came out of the bathroom? We don't want to have to do that. So we just, we need to see if we've got a way to get some kind of posters made. And I'm assuming there's got to be something out there or else somebody else has already done it. So we don't need to reinvent the wheel. We don't want to have to go through a checklist. We don't want to have to go through a checklist. We don't want to have to do anything. And I don't have a, I ordered one of those. Handheld thermometers that you just. Put up to somebody's forehead. I ordered it like a month and a half ago and still hasn't come. So I don't see how we're going to be able to take everybody's temperature in one place. It says you have to do the temperature check in another place. It says it's optional. Well, it says where feasible. It doesn't say it's optional. It doesn't say it's optional. Well, but I guess we still have to. Institute that as soon as we do get a thermometer. And where are we going to get. Cleaning supplies. I mean, I've got bleach here, but I don't, I don't know if I have enough bottles with sprayer things to make. I could make up. Some solution, but I don't know if I have enough spray bottles. Well, Barbara was. And I'm assuming that they do have a product and we could order it. Cause it seems like we would need a bottle of hand sanitizer, like in every truck. We want to make sure that the guys don't use the break room. That when they're eating lunch or whatever, they have to have their chairs six feet apart. Those kinds of things. Sharon is what I'm thinking that we would check off each day. Okay. So, yeah. So the things that are like, think a restroom checklist that you see it maple fields kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. This is how you properly wash your hands. Rose. Well, you were talking about it. I just went online to Google images. And I just typed in COVID-19 posters for workplace. And there's a zillion of them and they're all right there. They tell you what to do, how to wash your hands, social distance. All you have to do is hit Google images. Okay. Good. I'll try that. Cause maybe we can just order some or print some off. Yeah. Barbara's really good at doing stuff like that. Judy, would that be okay if Barbara did something like that? That's what I was going to suggest. She's, she's good at finding and printing posters and creating posters. And I think that would be a great thing to just delegate to her. Yeah. Just, just tell her Google images. COVID-19 posters for workplace. They're all right there. Great. Good idea. Rose. Thank you. Okay. So it sounds like we have a plan. The guys are supposed to come back as of April after April 30th. So that would be Friday. May 1st. What, what are your thoughts, Alfred? Well, the one concern that I have is going to be. Time. I mean, if. If they, I mean, they want every surface in the shop cleaned three times a day or three times per shift. Somebody's going to be doing a lot of cleaning. And if it's, I mean, if that is, if that's asked of me. I'm going to be falling behind on some of my regular duties. You know, such as answering the phone, talking to people, you know, looking at projects. Managing. I mean, that's going to be a fair amount of work. I just fear. You know, me falling behind if I'm out there running around with a, with a rag and a squirt bottle. To cover every surface. I mean, and then you got the whole issue with the tools. You know, guys are going to be using tools to work on the trucks and whatnot. I mean, it just, it's going to be a lot of. A lot more work. And I just want everybody to know that. You know, there are going to be some things that are going to fall behind because of it. So let me ask you a couple of questions. Can the guys wear plastic, those, you know, those gloves, like doctors offices use, can they wear those when they're using tools? Of course. And we, we have some there and they, they don't have a problem using them. But it's still. And, you know, and the masks will help also, but it's still, you're still touching things, you know, if you're working in the shop, you're still going to be touching things, even if you're, you know, you've got your glove on and you wipe your nose or you wipe your face. It's still, there's your germinate. And then you go back and touch a wrench, you know what I mean? So, so there's no way to set it up so that each crew member has their own spot to work in with only using tools that they touch. I don't know how that works. Well, I mean, not really. I mean, all the tools that are, they're all in one location, pretty much, and they're all, you know, on that workbench. So it's, it's where we're, everybody goes to when they need a particular wrench. Yeah. So we're going to need a lot of Clorox, pull up, wipe things. Yeah. No, I think the, the, the wipes are definitely going to be handy for this type of thing. But, you know, I don't, I don't know where you can get it. I mean, I've looked for them and some of the, some of them, some of the stores and you can't find them. They're, they're, they're sold out. Yeah. I mean, I have a small supply here, but it's really for home use. But if we could find a way to get some of those Clorox pop-up things, those are fast. You know, I've even just used those to take them with me to like the grocery store and wipe my hands and push the cart with the wipe. Right. Right. So, so the other issue on surfaces is they actually need to be clean before you disinfect them. So I would suggest that we hire a cleaning service to come in and actually do the bathroom, the office and the break room and clean it right down to the T. Because wiping Lysol on a dirty surface doesn't really get to where it needs to get. And, you know, How often do you have to do that, Toby? Would this just be an initial cleaning you're talking about? Well, at least initial and it might be once a week. Because, you know, as the trucks drive in and out, there's a lot of dust that moves around and gets in places. And, you know, it's, I think it's asking a little much of the guys to sort of do a little bit of cleaning. You know, you know, you know, that's the standard they're looking for if we're going back to work in order to have a safe workplace. There's a group. There's a group in East Montpelier. Green home solutions. I've met. Julie Brown is one of the owners and they are. Expanding their workforce and reducing their prices to be available for the sort of work Toby's talking about. I don't know if other. If there's, there's probably others too. Yeah. As our janitorial does the. Deep dive. Stuff as well, but. We need to, we need to have somebody check out. Getting some kind of at least a new one. And initial deep clean. I think Judy said, Judy learned that there's a difference between sanitizing and disinfecting and disinfecting is. Preferred, correct, Judy. Judy disinfecting is the. I think that was somewhat, that was Barbara and I. I'm not sure, you know, when one is required and one. The other isn't. Right. Well, I guess we need to check that out. I, if you want me to check out the place in East Montpelier, what was the name of that place here? It's called green home solutions. I'm on their website now. At the top. They, yeah, they go through level one, general disinfection level two enhanced disinfection. Okay. I can give them a call or contact them on email. See what it would, what the cost would be. And, you know, if they were to do followups like every week or something, what that would be. And get, you know, get back to the board with that. And then Sharon, you're going to develop that checklist. And then we need to probably. Are we going to really want them to come back to work on Friday? That's probably not going to give us enough time to do a disinfecting clean thing. So we might have to extend. I don't know to when, but I could find out when those other cleaning people are available. So we might have to do some kind of. Memo again, once we get some more information. Does that sound satisfactory to everyone? Can we just, I would love to Alfred, are you still there? Are you the one that we hear on another call? That sounds like Toby. Nope. Nope. I'm still here. What do you think? Yeah, just general. How are the guys going to feel about these. These standards and I've. Where. Tell me about the balance between, they really want to get back to work and the. The TD. You know, I don't know. Well, I haven't talked to them this week. I think that, you know, I think the hardest thing about this whole thing is going to be inside the shop. I mean, when we're out on the roads, we're in our separate vehicle, whether it's a truck or the grader or what it is. So each guy can clean that particular vehicle that he's driving. That's not the problem. It's, it's more of the, the bathroom, the break room, the, the tool cabinet, the tool bench and the tools themselves, you know, that's where the, where the problem is going to lie. Plus being, you know, in the shop, sometimes you have to be close to one another to do what you got to do. Okay. First off, they said the break room is off limits. That just puts that as a non issue. If we say you can't use the break room right now. And second, if. I don't know what jobs they would have, but they can't do something where they're closer than six feet. Well, I'm not changing the greater blade. The greater blade is six feet long, six feet or seven feet. Yeah. And you can't just one guy on each end of it. You know what I mean? There's your, your, you're in a little bit and it takes two guys to lift that. Right. But there's 16. That's just one example. I mean, there are others there. We're going to have to, I don't know what jobs they would have, but they can't do something where they're closer than six feet. I mean, that's just one example. I mean, there are others there. We're going to take the wing off the graders. There's their heavy pieces. You got to have two guys. I mean, there's just times where six feet is going to be impossible. Yeah. But that's where the face mask comes in. And that's the extra protection there, but. Yeah. We could also see, we could also see about getting some of those shields so that when they're doing work like that, in addition to the face mask, they have those plastic shield things. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't have a clue where to, where to locate. Where to even search for one of those. So there's some of those, but. Get them that harbor free. Yeah. Okay. Can you check on that Alfred? I can. Yeah. Okay. I think. It is, this is. I think what we all have acknowledged out loud, but we all completely understand because it's true across. The world really, this is a big pain in the butt. It's a big pain in the butt. And the guys are going to have the same experiences everybody else has in there, whatever. Wherever you are, whatever your experiences, it's a pain. So I just want to put that out there that. We know that. They're not alone in the world. Thank you for doing it. Well, and I think, I think the follow up memo about coming back to work, we can acknowledge that. But, you know, in every, in every sector of every. Place that people work, they're having to institute new. Things, you know, people are having to do a little bit of their own cleaning up, you know, making sure they're washing their hands, wiping down surfaces that they've touched. Everybody, if they're doing it right. It's going to experience having to do this extra bit of. Cleaning up the mess with the washers. I just wanted to say something. If I could. Yeah, you know, I, I just wanted to remind everybody that. We're all in this together. Oh, how corny is that. But it's true. But the other thing is, is that you really have to come into this with a level of common sense. And we know that it might take three people to change the greater part of your shoulder. The most important thing is that everybody. Stay well and take care of themselves and don't come to work. If you think you all of a sudden you might feel a little short of breath or, you know, something's just not right. Or, you know, maybe take your temperature at home. If you're just not feeling good. So don't come to work. If you're not feeling good, but just wash your hands. We know that this virus molecule is very, very easy to kill. It's very easy to kill with just soap and water. So, you know, before you eat your sandwich, make sure your hands are clean, you know, and just a whole level of common sense. I mean, I don't think I would go so far as to wear a face shield. I mean the cloth mask or whatever, but I don't think they need a plastic shield or anything like that. Well, I think, I think to be. So we meet OSHA standards. We might want to have them available. So that if people feel the need that they have that resource. Sure. If, if you can, yeah, if you can get them. Yeah. Have a supply. It's a, yep, yep. But, you know, I just don't want everybody to feel like, you know, they have to. Cross every T and dot every I it's really a good dose of common sense. You know, you use a tool. You disinfect it with a wipe and you put it away. Yeah. No, I mean, just kind of, there's no, there's no. Nothing getting around the common sense is what we need to do, but we are required to do these, this checklist every day. Oh yeah. So we just need to make sure that we're providing the proper. Things that people need. So that they feel that their work environment is safe and that we can honestly say that we've met the requirements of the Vosha standard to return to work. Yeah. John. John. So I'm, I'm on eBay right now. I can get them for eight bucks a piece, including shipping. Want me to order a dozen of them or something. Is that the fate? Is that the plastic ones? Yep. Can, yeah, can you get a receipt so you can get reimbursed by the town? Oh yeah. All right. Go for it. If they have available. How many, they might, they'll get broken. I'll get, maybe get, get 10 of them. Well, we've got, we've got four people. Three each would be 12. Well. Yeah. Denise, can we go back to when I'm not, did we wrap that up? You said it might be too soon. I'm thinking Friday might be too soon. I think it's going to depend on when we can. Get a contractor in to do the deep clean. That's why I suggested I would take. My revolving the revolving memo and update it and pass it around to the board and give you the information on when. We could get the place clean. What tell Alfred and Toby know when the place could be cleaned. And go from there. And, but starting with. We're aiming. I think it's fine to say we're aiming for Monday. Yeah. So Alfred, I don't know if you want to wait. You might want to wait until like tomorrow. So I can see if I can get a hold of this cleaning company. And I know SNR janitorial does it too, but they're. I don't know what they're. They had the, we had the twin valley senior center cleaned. And it was. The whole sanitizing thing. And that was like 800 bucks. Yeah. So it's not. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Let me know. Let me know. When they need to get in or whatnot, I can let them in and show them around or whatever I got to do. Yeah. Once I find out they're all yours. And the other thing is you might want to just for the first clean, get whoever is available. And then you can price for later. If somebody is less expensive. Yeah. Yeah. We just need to get it done. You're done. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know how many people that aren't right out straight with this. Well, it opens up a whole new avenue for somebody looking to start a business. Yeah. That's true. Yep. And I'm not interested by the way. No, you better not be. So you're, so you're saying. May 4th. Yeah. Let's shoot for Monday. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've been using to update the guys and tell them about the spreadsheet and that you're going to be taking that. Class that safety officer class online. And I, you can, I mean, what did it take you, Judy? 20 minutes. It's really just reading some. Slides. It took, I don't know, 15 minutes. I know I started reading it thinking it was just information. But I didn't want to be certified. I never, I never did. I didn't do the certificate thing yet, but I probably will cause that now I've read it like three times. So, um, And then once you get done, Alfred, and you print your certificate, we need, you probably want to print two. One for the hang in the town garage. And one to give to, um, Sandra for the human resources stuff. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll give it my best. All right. Let me know if you need any help. Yeah. No, I think I'll be fine. Yeah. I think you, I think Judy sent me the link anyways. So I, it's just a matter of getting it started. Right. And now are the guys, are the guys in the shop this week, or are they kind of just laying low? They've, they have not worked at all this, this last week. I, I went in today this morning to catch up with messages and emails and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I, I haven't talked to the guys. They were, they were, they were off all last week. And I was kind of waiting to see what, uh, how this discussion went tonight before I told them anything. Yeah. Um, but you're going to send them a memo, right? So they'll know. Yeah. I mean, if you taught, if you want to call them and say, that's what we're shooting for. So they're not surprised. They're not surprised. They're not surprised. They're not surprised. They're not surprised. And then let them know, we're going to follow up with a memo that we're going to implement this cleaning thing. And, you know, just have a, just have a conversation with them. And we can follow everything up and writing. And in your conversation, if you, if you come up with anything, that's kind of a, we're worried about this or that, if you can let me know so I can put it in the memo so we can address it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I can. Okay. Yeah. All right. Sounds good. Anything else on this folks? Or do you want to move into. Sandra's report. I'm good. I'm good. Good. All right. Great. Thank you, everyone. This is. Quite the learning experience. Who know, we'd know so much about infectious diseases and droplets and. All that fun stuff and face masks. Oh, the other thing is on. Katie, do you know who else in town's making masks besides you? I just heard from the midwives today who were like, we have so many masks now you all can take a break. So I'm happy to make them for the road crew. Oh, okay. That would be great. We, you know, we'll pay you the. Oh, I don't, I received so many donations of thread and materials from awesome neighbors. I don't need any, I don't need money for it. I'll see you guys better. Let me know what you'll wear for, am I going to, maybe. I was going to say we don't want any polka dots or anything. How about someone's with some pink flowers on them? Trucks. Trucks. No, we're really not fussy. Something dark color would be, would be ideal. Okay. How many. I have some red solo cut material. How many, what, what do we want? At least a couple each Katie. So that's for Toby. Do you need some? No, I'm all set. So we need at least eight Katie so they can. Wash and then let dry and, you know, they might have to change it during the day if they're outside and it gets full of dust and stuff. Yeah. So the other thing, the other thing on that list is that the weather, one of these days is going to be nice. And you'll be able to have the garage doors open, which will help a lot. According to all the stuff I've read. So I'll make eight this week and maybe I'll bring those so that you guys can use them. And then if you have anything you want changed about them before I make another set, you can let me know if there's any. Like changes to be made. Okay. That's not good. So how, how will you get them to me? Hmm. It's going to take me at least a couple of days. They take a while to make. I'll definitely have them for Monday. Does anyone have an idea? I just mean, how are you going to get them to me? I've been picking them up out of Katie's mailbox. The ones I got. Okay. That's fine. Yeah. Why don't I email you when they're ready? I'll see you in a minute. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Just let me know when we're ready and we can figure out how to, how to get them or how for me to get. Yeah. That sounds good. All right. Thank you. Talk about teamwork. Great teamwork. Thank you. You need me and Alfie any longer. Um, I don't think so unless you want to listen to the Treasurer's report. Thanks. Oh, come on. That's exciting. What's the matter with you? I did. I deal with budgets way too often. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We really appreciate it. Okay. Have a good night. All right. Sandra, you're on. Can you hear me? Yeah. We can see you. How are you feeling? Good. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you can hear me. Okay. Good. Good. I'm off. We're good here. We're hold up in Berlin. Yes. Beautiful downtown. No, not downtown uphill Berlin uphill Berlin. Yeah. So the report that I emailed to everyone last week. Is a. As of March 31st, 2020. We're not so sure. Expense wise on target. Revenue wise. We're short. And. We're not so short. In a typical time. That I would. Be especially worried, but. I think we're going to fall. Quite short of budgeted revenues. And I think we're going to fall. I think we're going to fall. Because delinquent taxes at this point are dribbling in a couple thousand dollars a month where they would. Frequently be coming in at $15,000 a month. It's just not happening. So I do. See that we will, it's conceivable that we will. We will not have a deficit. We will not have a deficit. We will not have a deficit. Distinguished from a deficit. We learned that last year. So a loss means that we will. As a town have expended more than we've taken in. In revenues. The reason it is not a loss. Or that I don't. The reason it is not a deficit. Or at least I don't anticipate a deficit at this point. I think we're going to fall. The fiscal year. 20. Which will end June 30th. I think where we're going to see. The hammer fall is fiscal year 21. And. There may be legislation. There is legislation. Being talked about now. The tax rate. For one time only, presumably a select board can take the voted budget. That was approved. And adjusted so that tax. The subsequent tax rate or the tax rate rate for the FY 21 year. Can't would be adjusted downward. The thinking being that then it will be easier for folks to pay taxes. So what I would say is I, I don't know if that piece of legislation is going to pass. But it might be worth. Taking out your town reports and giving them a good look. And having some ideas, whether or not. When you meet next. We very well may have that legislation in place. But I think it's important to have a conversation. Along those lines. What, what would you cut? How would you modify your budget in anticipation of. Revenue shortfalls. So my, my. Sandra, can I interrupt for a second? Is there a percentage that the legislature is looking for? I don't. It's. I don't know. I don't think they would dictate to the municipalities. I think they would leave it up to each municipality. And we could do that according to Jim, when we asked him the other question, we could do that without holding a special town meeting. You can do that if the legislature says you can. Right. Okay. Because the idea would be if you decided to slash your budget by 15, I don't, 10 or 15% say you could pick and choose what it would be that you wouldn't do what projects, what grants, what, what, what line items. And FY 21 and FY 21 is our final 21. We only have two months left in FY 20. Right. So if I 21 is the year that we pay off one of the loans. Hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't answer that right off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure it is. I think that's why. We're paying off a loan and FY 21, we're still paying it off. Right. We're still paying it off. Something. And it's not. You would look at your budget and you would decide if you would trim it in some way. Yeah. Yeah. I think we were going to finish paying off something before we were doing. And it was big. Yeah. Before we did FY 22. So. And I don't remember what that. I don't remember off the top of my head either. And it is not any information that I have at hand. It would be in your, it would be in our budget. I'm pretty, I'm pretty sure it was the loan that we, the loan, one of the loans we took out for. One of the loans. I'm pretty sure it's FY 21. I think we're remembering correctly, Sharon. But it, the fact that you're paying it off, it's still. Right. So in FY 22, you won't have it, but I'm not, I'm not sure I follow that. I'm just thinking out loud. That's all. Okay. I think the question. No, I think the question, if I can connect the dots is when in the next fiscal year, do we pay it off? No, I'd have to look. Right. No, of course you, of course you don't know right now, but that might be, that's the question. That's coming to mind. If, if we knew when we were budgeting this year, that by next year's budgeting, we would have that loan paid off. And the question is when. Right. Because that. But you still, you still have to have, you still have to have the money in the budget to pay it off. I guess what Sandra is saying. Right. And we would have budgeted only to pay it off. But we would have to pay it off. And we would have to pay it off. And we would have to pay it off. But it doesn't, it doesn't free anything up in this fiscal year. Or the next one. That's right. It's, it's not going to free anything up in this fiscal year. Or the next one. I got it. Yeah. I just need to interrupt for a minute. Doug Newton is on and we've kind of already talked about all the guard. The Jersey barriers and all that. And Toby was going to connect with Doug. Does anybody want to ask him anything while he's here? Or should we let him get on with his evening? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Doug. I think Toby is going to be in touch. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thanks for joining us. You can stay if you want. I know I'm all set. Thanks. Good to see you. Good to see you. Take care. You too. Thanks. And also I see Bill Powell's on. Good evening all. Good evening, Bill. How are you? Thank you. Did you have anything in particular you wanted to talk to us about? No, thanks for asking me. So I'm just lurking. Okay. You're just, you have your board. You're, you have your board and this is a way to have your entertainment. Multi tasking actually. Thank you. Okay. All right. Sorry. Go ahead, Sandra. So where I see. That we're, we can't, it's, it's an, we're in uncharted territory. I don't think I have to say that. I think we all know that. I think I would like to preface my remarks with that. We have a lot of payments that come due early in the fiscal year. And that, and that is what I'm hoping is that we will have a sufficient fund balance to pull us through that. And we do. And we have because we do. We do have a fund balance. That it is likely that that will not will, it will sustain us through the end of this year. And there will be fund balance left over to get. Your first tax payment. The first tax payment, however. Would appear to be delayed. And we do not know how delayed that will be. We do not know how that will be. And we do not know how that will be. We're not going as as close to a normal schedule as possible. But they also have limitations. They have limitations to access our office. They have limitations and the ability to inspect. Their, factors coming into play that do not are not we cannot predict at this point in time when we will have an educational tax rate. I am hopeful that we will be able to get our bills out by the end of September and what I don't know is what our collection is going to look like at that point. Yeah it could be so and that's and that's the tough part and that's where the you as a board are going to have to be thinking about what you may or may not whether or not you're going to want to adjust your budget going into FY 21 if you have legislative authority and if you don't have legislative authority I would say you still need to be thinking about that yeah because I suspect we are going to not collect the taxes to cover the budget that is proposed for FY 21 and that you know and that snowballs into our you know what do we do how do we not attack sale our neighbors we don't want to do that the the tricky piece here and I say this with respect to our community is that there are a number of folks or let's say parcels on our delinquent tax list that are repeats and they go back years and that's they're there and they're always there and they end up finishing up their tax obligation before the end of that particular fiscal year but I don't know how this particular situation will affect any one of those folks remember our delinquent tax situation is not the result of COVID-19 our taxes these taxes were due on November 15th so as and as I said there are a lot of repeat parcels on that list and it very well may be that a certain percentage and I don't know what that would be I wouldn't even take a stab at it it may be that a certain percentage of those repeaters are still going to be able to pay they're just on a different fiscal timeline then then our tax due dates so I really see FY 21 as the place where we're gonna feel the pinch the earlier we can get our tax bills out the better we'll know more after that collection process exactly where we are and I don't think I'm saying anything different than any other treasurer is saying to their select board at this point in time yeah well it yeah I mean and that's why we really need to think about things that we do renovations or painting or anything like that we really need to take a close look at that I I would very much recommend that you each you know you each go home you take a look in your town reports and and you just take a look at them refresh yourselves you take a look at your special articles there are some large ones and think about if you have legislative authority to trim the amount of expenses that you're going to be dividing by the grand list what what might you think we could forego entirely for FY 21 the other piece might be what could we put off until we see what our tax collection result really looks like by November 15th right I had a nice conversation with Scott Bassage today he brought me up to speed on the two CLG grants one for East Callas and that is a second CLG grant and one for Adam and he estimates first of all the funds are federal funds the reimbursements and they are separately set aside they can't be spent or invaded by the state of Vermont so he feels confident that we will be reimbursed the money will be there he's thinking that we'll have $6,000 in grant expenses before June 30th so that's that's really not that that's this fiscal year so that's this fiscal year it looks like the George Road grant is going to be quite significant but that's gonna hit in the summer of fiscal year 21 so early and we're gonna have to figure out how to fund that and we're gonna have to see that it is possible and and I just don't know but it is possible that we will we would need to take a significant tax anticipation note in order to in order to fund that I don't know what condition our fund balance will be in at at that in in July or August well the federal government the whole federal government piece makes me a little nervous it's kind of hard to know what exactly could happen they you know they can say all they want that this money is going to be there but how do I mean we have no guarantee I guess we just have to take a chance well as Toby said you're gonna have to see what the RFPs come back as he's got a hundred and sixty five thousand dollars and a promise the town has to kick up 16 five I think that would be the way it would work on as a match typically mostly in labor or in equipment usage so that's not really any more money out of pocket than already is in the budget but where where what we have to be cognizant of is that we're gonna have to pay the contractor they're not gonna I could be wrong but I don't imagine they're gonna wait nine months until we're reimbursed or six months I know they're not they can't well they can't they have to pay their employees more over up to this point in time all grants that I have seen require proof of payment before we can apply for reimbursement so once again we're gonna be paying those contractors before we can ask for reimbursement we're gonna have to see how it plays out right we have 250 thousand dollars left in our general fund balance you know we're gonna that is gonna be the source of funds for that particular project well I'd like to select board to we don't have to do it right now is mull it over in your head you know is it worth taking the chance on doing this project on George Road there's another project a grant project that we don't have to it's through CVRPC it's the one that we've been working on with Pam D. Andrea the East Calus Moscow Woods project we don't have to come up with any money for that our crew and use of our equipment will go towards helping CVRPC match the grant and money so that's a project that doesn't know there's no money out of our pocket it's just use of equipment and staff time well these are these are the questions that the board would be you know might consider asking themselves over the next couple of weeks as we see what latitude the legislature legislature is going to extend to municipalities do we know when they're taking up that legislation oh and John has a question it's ongoing right now I don't know go ahead John so thank you Sandra that's really informative and you know as bad as things may be right now if they're going to get worse they're going to get worse down the road and worse might mean the state pulls in its belts and says we live with the roads we have and we make do and we slow down and hit potholes on route 14 all right that's what we're doing now and I I could see this kind of money that we're that's been a it's already been awarded to us it's just held an escrow right that I think it we need to get this done it's no big deal taking out a note it's not that expensive take out a note I think we do it and it's it gets a hundred it's it's free in the end if we pay a few hundred bucks in interest what a deal I think we'd be remiss not to seize this particularly in light of what is potentially impending I think it's it's it's would be foolish to do otherwise because next year that money may not be there in the feds have other priorities they're gonna fund the state AOTs based on a different formulary given in going to a depression there's a lot of shenanigans going on down in Congress Mitch McConnell's talking about no longer or not doing anything to gonna help the north the northeastern states out he's playing politics that's not where the votes come for from generally for the Republican Party so this is gonna get ugly and I really think that if there's money set aside for us with our name on it that we should utilize it that culvert is really problematic it's it floods the road washes out all the time and if we can get that baby fixed that would be really important to our infrastructure okay and also wasn't wasn't Mitch McConnell the one who said states should file for bankruptcy yeah just just to be clear John I am not lobbying one way or another I am just setting out information I'm happy not to have to make any decisions but I don't want to come back to you folks and you be surprised or be unprepared so the purpose my because it had I I was just about to say we're gonna come through this and we really have to operate a pardon the expression you've heard it over and over I'm sure we don't want to operate in fear we want to operate in love and we want to understand that we're gonna come through this and and go on my I'm only delivering information and and that's all and then all I'm asking the board to take that information and act on it as as you see fit to serve your constituency so what I'm asking the board to do is just to think about it yeah that's right right can we can we schedule Denise I don't you must keep a tracking sheet of things to talk about but can we specifically put this on the agenda I mean our memories are not it wasn't very long ago that we were in a very deep dive on budget and we had an actual list of things that we could take out to meet our numbers for the for next year so I'd like to go back and recreate that list before I lose the notes or forget about it yeah we can put it on for next I usually keep a list of things to put on for the next agenda so this can be one of them well and in I guess in conclusion just be reminded as we had permission not to have to buy that chipper if you can't adjust your but if the legislature does not give municipalities the authority to adjust their budgets you your tax rate would reflect what was approved at town meeting but you can decide what you're going to spend as the information becomes available to you so again these are things you might say well what could we put off what what might might we want to put off just in case we're really looking at a four or five hundred thousand dollars shortfall yeah I mean it's all it's all good advice we really have to be really really careful and some of this stuff might be painful and you know we need to be thinking about our taxpayers and how they've been hit by this their jobs their income their health we have a huge responsibility here that's all I'm asking alright anything else anything else for Sandra Judy thank you you want anything you want to weigh in on Judy just in terms of the budget I'm just wondering if there will be people asking for abatements next year you know probably and so that it's not just balancing the budget from our view but anticipating people who've lost their jobs or whatever coming to us asking not to pay and us having to decide that so less painful if we've already made the cuts ahead of time well and I've already thought about we could have a huge abatement request out there right the abatement in fact could we may see requests for abatement of the FY 19 delinquent taxes that are currently outstanding so we're at about 94 thousand dollars so when we come to the end of the fiscal year what we do is we say you pay up in 30 days or your parcel is turned over to the attorney for a collection which may include a tax sale and that generally shakes loose a very large percentage of whatever is outstanding and it may be at that juncture that we would see requests for abatement and not only at that juncture but then again for the FY 21 tax effort right um yeah I mean people that are delinquent in FY 19 or 20 it's not a result of the COVID but it still might be affecting their ability to pay now exactly because these taxes were due in 2019 in November but their ability to pay by June 30th which a large percentage of them are kind of on that schedule it certainly certainly could be affected by COVID 19 so right what what we're hoping or what what I am hoping in my forecasting is to avoid a deficit by FY 22 because that would require us either it let's say the deficit is $50,000 we'd have to pop that right into the budget or we'd have to take yet another deficit loan and by FY 22 I do believe we have paid off our deficit loan well that's the one I'm thinking about and then I think Sandra Sharon I are thinking about that same loan but we on it John had one John did you want to say something I thought I saw your yeah yeah well just a clarification Sandra said you I think she's an FY 20 not FY 19 taxes no I'm an FY 19 so we're in our second year of late taxes no yet you are so you are correct I should have said FY 20 right because they were due in November and that's okay I'm sorry I misspoke we were two years behind tax years behind I would really be scared I didn't realize that okay we are not we had $6,000 outstanding and to end FY 19 so what what I would hope to see is that we don't have two deficit loan payments and in FY 22 or whatever we we really want to hope not to have our budget reflect that just for the for our taxpayers sake so we're gonna have to just you guys will have to pay attention yep and I think I think we're paying attention yeah yeah all right anything else for Sandra or are we ready to let her get on with our evening thank you very much yeah thank you Sandra nicely done thank you Sandra thank you Sandra you're welcome if you have questions for me such as what are we gonna be paying off or what are the big things coming up I invite you all to send me those questions and I can either write answers for your next meeting or let's next meeting and have the answers for you right and if anybody has a question like that it would be good to get it to Sandra so we can all have the same information and know the same questions and know the same answers Denise on this topic of budget does any but I think we had a note or an email from Jim about what the legislature is considering I just quickly pulled up the bill to look at it the one that I found allows us to adjust the tax rate but I didn't see it allowed just to adjust the budget remember remember we remember we had the question about the chipper and in Barlow said you're not asked if you decide not to spend the money basically there's no harm because we're okay so but if we were trying to increase the budget without a vote you can't do that that's kind of my non legal terminology well you would if you adjusted the tax rate so the budget as it the proposed budget that was voted on a town meeting for FY 21 is going to result in x tax rate if your tax rate below that you'd have to do it well it would be a good idea to do it because you knew exactly what it was you were not going to pay there would be a process behind the numbers that the auditors would be looking for you just wouldn't slash it by two cents and say well we'll figure it out later no Denise answered Denise answered my question we have we already have the authority to reduce the budget if we choose to and the legislation is to match our is to is to add a companion ability to reduce the tax rate to match a budget that we create right because we talked about not purchasing the chipper and Jim that was fine because it's not increasing the tax it wouldn't increase the tax rate nobody's going to complain if it's decreased right okay that's that that totally answers it and it was moved today to the house for from the Senate that way say say that again Sharon it went from the house from the Senate to the house today they suspended all rules in the Senate sent it over to the house so it could happen quickly let's hope yeah John well and maybe it was done and not the holy legal fashion Waterbury cut its tax rate by four five cents already so and then did they have a plan of what they were what services they were cutting to come up with that I don't know it was just a DEV snippet you know that Waterbury got reevaluated the upcoming fiscal year's budget and they made some cuts which resulted in a five percent decrease in the tax rate in impending tax rate the bill the bill number FYI for people who like to play at home is S 3 4 4 S 3 4 S S is in Senate yeah um 3 4 4 okay all right am I give it a quick look later all right anything else for Sandra thank you Sandra thank you have a good evening you too all right um town hall RFP oh Judy's still here Cliff yeah you all saw the we talked about the town hall RFP you saw where Cliff added some language I know if everybody had a chance to look at I did put it in the folder let me bring it up here and that was no don't let's forget don't forget we asked originally we put in the warning 30,000 and the voters graciously up that to 50,000 you'll remember at town meeting so the original RFP what I did I'm gonna share it here with everybody I just added some language you can see it there in red that gives us an hour we can go ahead and solicit offers and bids and but ultimately we'll decide based on this language you know if we're going to go ahead and move forward with the project and and we can certainly modify the language some more I did also share this with the friends of town hall and the town hall restoration committee there were there was no objections people seemed to understand why we're having to move forward this way I also reiterated the language at the end of the document and you click the one the one minor edit I would make is that awarding the contract and commencing the project will be at the sole discretion whether maybe we need to say whether whether to award the contract and commence the project I can I can work something like words miss something like that into it no problem and so if that is acceptable to everybody with understanding that I'll make that additional edit are we okay with moving forward with issuing RFP we would we have site already identified a few companies we want to stop around to and we would follow our usual process of publishing it in the paper and the VLCT Bolton board you know that makes me think I wonder if we could put something like this in if we decide to send out the RFP on the George road project we could ask to have something like this put in that same RFP so what do folks think do we want to go ahead and send this out with this caveat as amended as proposed tonight with the amended right which would you say I miss Sharon what you wanted to add could you say again please that where Cliff added the red please know so my revision would say please note that due to circumstances related to the COVID-19 pandemic whether to award the contract or commence the project will be at the sole discretion of this callous select board whether to award or commence right so so with that edit I make a motion that we authorize release of the RFP I'll second that Cliff are you good with the revised language or do you want Sharon to send it to you know I'm good okay any any other comments or questions on the RFP thoughts concerns sounds good okay let's take a vote Cliff hi Sharon hi Rose hi John hi and I'm an eye we just have to do a roll call vote so that's why we're doing this all right the motion passes um okay anything on it cliff you want to enlighten us about I know you've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes and yes a couple of things one informational we did receive a call at the town office resident who's very frustrated because they've been battling with the consolidated communications for a couple of years trying to get an improved internet service and they were asking if there was anything we could do to help because they've got kids at home who need a decent internet connection to be able to do their zoom lessons and whatnot that gave us cause to go back to Rob fish who was the gentleman who had informed us that there was an option for having commercial grade internet Wi-Fi hotspots installed at towns that needed it so I think him again to see where the status was on all of that and he said it's possible that they may be able to push one through the goose rather quickly for us so I'll work with the Denise and also with Nick to give them the other pieces of information they need so that we can see if we can get this thing turned on sooner rather than later one of the questions they had was if there was any other legislative actions that we have to take that would slow down their ability to implement this system we previously agreed that it was something we wanted to do and that we would go with the talus talus town garage so I just wanted to throw it out there again in case there was any other concerns or questions no I could do it if they could do it quickly that would be great because there's a lot of people that are now homeschooling that you know between that and their jobs they just don't have the internet of capability right and this would be the free one right yes and East Calis as one of the areas were identified where there was fewer hot spots available for the public there are also some other options that Rob fish told me that they could look into for us Verizon has something they're offering with mobile hotspots and whatnot we'll keep everyone informed as as it progresses yeah and so we can do another update at our next meeting yep anything else on it yes the other thing is is last time around we discussed having this slingshot connection between the town hall and the town office that would give us another backup system because our backups aren't with the limited bandwidth we have at the town office our backups that occur in the evening aren't always going through 100 percent sometimes it's only 80 percent sometimes we get lucky and it does get the hundred percent but we really need to have this extra layer of backup to ensure that we have done reform due diligence on maintaining the data that we're required to maintain and this is a security issue right it is a bit of a security issue and there is a liability that the town could face if there was something horrendous happened like if we got hacked and we got locked out of our system the backup is what us allows us to avoid having to pay the ransom so and that's the roughly two thousand dollar twenty two hundred dollars is the bid price that we got from rbt there is it turns out a possibility that we will qualify for assistance as a in a form of a grant that will cover about a thousand dollars worth of that sounder looked into that for us vlct says it's kind of new ground for them to offer these grants for the it security but they didn't see anything on the surface that made it look like the project wasn't wouldn't qualify so go ahead so i was going to see john's got his thumbs up does that mean you want to make a motion john my connections unstable like my brain um yeah i'll move that we uh move forward with that project and fund it at twenty two hundred dollars or what i don't know if it's exactly twenty two but it's well up to twenty two hundred dollars or in the ballpark yeah it's dollars and understanding we might receive some grant money how about you say based on the quote from rbtek right that was twenty two hundred dollars wasn't it it's just shy of twenty two hundred dollars if you want to give me a minute i'll get you the exact amount and that we apply for the grant as from vlct is that what you said the the vlct grant if we qualify for it would be up to a thousand dollars not guaranteed that's going to happen but that's that's what it could ultimately be the total quote from rbtek is two thousand one hundred sixty four dollars katey can you read back the motion yes um john bray bant moved that the town moved forward with the project and funded based on the quote from rbtek two thousand one hundred sixty four dollars with the understanding the town apply to the grant from vlct for the for the grant from vlct for up to a thousand dollars does that work john for you it doesn't matter we just apply for the grant and we'll see what we get yeah okay so that's the rose yeah i think in the motion or just point of clarification you need to make sure that you get the project what it encompasses what cliff said it's for backup or whatever yeah cliff can probably send you the correct wording of what what the project is called you don't want me to call it the slingshot project call it the wi-fi bridge and local backup project are you seconding the motion cliff if we're okay with the language of the motion i am definitely seconding it okay are you ready to vote cliff hi sharon hi rose hi john hi and i'm an eye so it's unanimous okay thank you thank you everyone um i just wanted to make sure everybody got the note about um and this is under um just my update that we have that we were supposed to have a quarterly meeting in april with the fire department that got canceled as everybody knows and it's been tentatively rescheduled for thursday june 11th at seven and that is only like 15 days before the end of the fiscal year so we're kind of counting on them and depending on them to stay on budget or just if you can put that on your calendar and plan to attend if you can okay um i'd like the board i don't know if you if you're ready to review minutes but i'd like the board to go into executive session if there's no other business or old business to discuss personnel matters yeah i'd like to go into oh okay never mind i was gonna make a funny but bill powell shined out oh can i can i say can i make a suggestion on minutes yes um the minutes are available online if everybody can go in and read them and make their suggestions then three of us can convene for 15 minutes at some point to approve them yeah would you be able to do that sharon i'd be happy to do that just not tonight no not tonight okay let's plan to do something like that but everybody needs to let let the group know that you've read them and so that we can get a small group ready to approve them because usually you can go into the sometimes in the top of the minutes i'll put in a comment with my name looks good so if anybody can do that and just go in and do that then we can get three together to approve well what i was saying is everybody go in and make your edits everyone know you've done it and then yeah that's what i'm talking about because everybody can go in and say john can go in and put his name in looks good to me sharon you know we can all do that so we know everybody has looked at them denise all i'm saying is i don't want to have to keep going in to look at them to see if everybody's done it if they could just send an email and say they did it well yeah that would that would help um i don't know how to have a do-by-date yeah my date no he's saying do-by-date um can we say by next monday it works for me so to be clear it's the minutes from february they're all in the folder for tonight john i'm i'm looking at okay tonight's folder okay right yeah if you go into tonight's folder review them put a comment i'm looking at it yeah okay yep sounds good all right um i'm gonna i'm gonna chime out okay thank you judy yep thank you thank you all judy thank you okay we need orca to oh we lost bill too bye bill we need orca to disconnect orca they can only communicate um because i can i can go ahead and uh excuse them from the meeting no they're still there so we need a motion to go into executive session per um one vsa section three one three a three please that's a motion at eight forty