 Okay, so it is six o'clock. I'm going to call the June 8 2021 regular meeting of the CV fabric governing board to order. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda. Right. So, Jeremy, we've talked about having a special meeting on Thursday. And the reason for that is that today the final contract agreement for the work orders to the polls inventories has been approved by the vendor. And so I would like to be in a position that the board approves the cruise them and blah, blah, blah, having said that in addition to that on Thursday. I think that, you know, we've got an agenda that's really much longer than any of us I think intolerable more. I'd like to propose that going public at 735 and CV fiber network discussion at eight or five. We moved to Thursday. In the special in the special meeting. I think that'll take some bite out of this and then you can attend to the other things that you need to do. And then it'll give us the time to do both things properly. I think that makes sense. Any, anything else that folks think maybe we should move to Thursday, Jeremy. I think that if I do the math correct, we would need to warn that, like, now, is that right. No, no, we would need to warn about tomorrow. It's not a regular meeting. So this is like an overflow special meeting so this is us putting putting together the meeting so that we can do these contracts that was the original purpose. Of this special meeting that Ray and I were talking about for Thursday. It's just that because this meeting has gotten very, very long. I don't really want to be here until 9pm. I think you the rest of you probably would also not want to be here till 9pm. So let's take a little bit of the pressure off of this and put it on on that on that agenda if the rest of you don't mind. Are there, is there anything else that makes more sense for us to move to Thursday. Yeah, sure. Would we be starting at six on Thursday. I'm flexible. I'm not, I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be at home. So I may be running it from my, from my phone depending on my internet access situation but I'm flexible. If there's a better time for everyone. This would be the time to to say something about it. Would you rather go later earlier. I mean I'm going to be. I don't care. Okay. Michael. So I guess I'll go against the flow. I for one would prefer a long meeting rather than two meetings. In general, in particular, in this particular instance I, I have a conflict for Thursday, but our clean field delegate will able to represent us. But that's that's my preference. I don't scheduling multiple meetings in a week is hard. I'd rather have long ones and get the work done. In general. So the reason that we're holding the Thursday meeting is because we have some last minute contract contractual stuff that we couldn't include that's substantial enough that we couldn't include in the this meeting, like stuff that came yesterday and today, we're having a Thursday meeting. I mean so I understand it may conflict and I, I don't really want I mean I'm not going to be home so like I said this is it's going to be awkward but hopefully, aside from the discussion of the networking plan and otherwise there shouldn't be too too much else. The approval of the contract should be rather straightforward I think. So, so I guess, if it's okay with others my preference is to not move agenda to Thursday and make the Thursday meeting really short, but that's my preference. Okay, so Ray pitched the moving the stuff to Thursday Michael would prefer to keep them the meat in today's meeting and keep Thursdays very short any other preferences one way or the other. Alan. Jeremy what time will the Thursday meeting start I think I missed that. I don't have that set I was just I was going to ask everyone else what their druthers were. We can certainly start. You know, you prefer that. Well, I actually have another meeting on Thursday night it starts at seven. So if we're going to do a CV fiber meeting one, you know 530 or six would be better this time around. It's all the same to me. So I see David giving the thumbs up for that Jeremy. I can't meet before six. Okay, let's let's do for. So that might be an argument for trying to get through as much as we can today. So we don't run out of time. So, so, so tell you what rather than belaboring this and taking another 10 minutes out of our agenda today. So let's plan tentatively that if we are running late and we will I'll take the temperature of the room my room is very hot right now so we'll take the temperature of the room see what everybody feels like when we get to about 805 or 815 and if everybody's flattened then we will offload this stuff to Thursday and we'll start at six because that's what when we would normally start it anyways I think that's going to be making the most sense for everybody right. So assuming we proceed on that particular logic here my preference would be to move the going public to after the CV fiber network plan discussion. Yeah, and that's, and that's doable to say I have that on a list of my notes from when we talked earlier so if we do. If we do end up plowing through this tonight and we're going to we're going to kick the going public because it's going to be somewhat contingent on the other, the other items there as well. Anything else that we should be doing with the agenda. Okay, terrific. Let's move on to public comments and if any of you have anything to say about items that are not on the agenda. That's great I think I would like to. So, David and Chuck will give you a chance to to make your comments in just a second I wanted to give two new faces and opportunity to introduce themselves if they're if they're so inclined. We have Becky from Woodbury and Tabor from Marsh fields. So Becky would you start give us maybe a little intro about yourself. And so we know who you are. I moved here last August from spending 12 years in Colorado, I'm a native Texan, but Colorado became so overrun with people like so where can I go and live in the mountains but not have people, and Vermont was the answer. I looked for 14 months pre COVID, and I said I I'm going to wait until I find just the right place and I found this beautiful home on Greenwood Lake and Woodbury. So I moved here and then I saw an email just a couple months ago that the town needed somebody to represent them on this board and I thought well, I have terrible internet here I'll get on this board and see if I can help nudge something along so thanks for having me I'm going to be kind of learning all the details from from all of you so I appreciate your patience. Alright, thanks very much and I should mention if I haven't mentioned this already to either of you back here Tabor the there is a there are a bunch of like webinars that were put on earlier this year if I haven't sent those to send me send me an email. And I will send you a link with all of those and that's a that's a great way to ramp up Jeremy you have something before never goes. I just want to say first Becky that that's a big part of the reason why a lot of us are on the board I think it's because of terrible internet. So welcome. The other thing that I was wondering is if you'd be willing to give us the spelling of your last name for inclusion in the minutes. Sure, it's browning BRW and I and G. Okay, thank you so much. Sure, thank you. Tabor you're up next. I'm Tabor Allison. I live in Marshfield that may or may not be visible on the screen. I'm a recently appointed alternate to the committee. It sounds like a broken record, but I guess to let everybody know, you know, so this is we're all in good company here about concerns about our internet I work from home and have worked from home. Ever since I took my new job, working for a small nonprofit, which enabled me to move from Concord, Massachusetts. Back in 2011 to Vermont, and I've been living in my current home since 2013. Becky interested that you're from Colorado I moved to Massachusetts from Colorado. Back at the turn of the millennium. So, at some point be interested to know where in Colorado, you were from. But anyway, appreciate being able to participate in this group I was recently appointed by our select board. So, I am interested in getting the link to those webinars. I have a lot of catching up to do john inundated by inbox with oh here's some more background information for you so a lot to catch up on. Great. Well, welcome to both of you. Thanks for putting your hats in the ring we have a lot of moving parts going on right now so you're coming in at a very high high velocity time will say. Okay, so Chuck and David you had a couple other other things Chuck. I just wanted to provide a quick update to the board that I presented to the more town select board last night about a potential appropriation of ARPA funds toward CV fiber. And they were incredibly receptive to the idea. They would not commit to any specific amounts yet because they haven't figured out how much they're going to get and they sort of looked at our calculations and said, well that's nice and I don't blame them. But everybody across the board on the select board is in favor of appropriating some funds toward us. It will likely take a little bit of time. And of course, as many of you know, the league is actually sort of recommending the towns to really take their time and choose slowly on this and of course Karen or in our more town alternate is both highly involved in the league and both highly has the and also highly has the ear of our select board so I'm sure they will be following that guidance of the leagues, but I'm quite certain we should stand to receive some amount of funding from the town of more town. David. I just want to give a couple of updates that are not on the agenda because the committee, the planning and development committee hasn't met yet eight proposals for high level design that came in last Friday. And so we'll be reviewing those in the next few weeks. And then the our draft RFP for an operator manager has gone through, I should, we should be getting the second round from the businesses we're getting from Carol Monroe and Alex Kelly tomorrow. So that committee that group will be meeting on that shortly just want to give everybody update things are moving. Wonderful. Thanks for that David any other updates that aren't stuff that's on the agenda. Okay, great. So let's move on to the consent agenda I move that we approve the consent agenda as presented which includes the approval of the May 11 minutes. Okay, that's seconded by Jeremy any further discussion. Any objections. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thanks everybody treasures report cherry. You're muted. Sorry about that I'm working on a single screen I'm not used to it. Yeah, so let me go quickly through the treasures report because this part is relatively boring and there's some more interesting information that'll be coming up shortly. So we, we have our, I also one other thing I apologize but I did send out a revision earlier because I had copied over wrong table onto the previous report. Minor changes but I apologize. So you can see the bank balances that the savings and the checking Jeremy you have that information I don't need to read it out right. Everybody should have that. Yeah, we have we have at the moment no outstanding invoices, which is, which is quite interesting. But it's not going to stay like that. So our grants and funding update for the administrative grants that we've been working with, we have the PST grant and what you see on that table with $18,053 remaining is exactly the same set of numbers that I sent to Rob fish on the 30th of that Friday was. So this is, this is where we stand with this particular grant. One point that I would, I would like to make here when if anybody is, you know pouring over these numbers, unofficially. We've received information that up to 15% of the total grant amount. So for the $160,000 grant 24,000 can be moved from one category to another which gives us just the right amount of flexibility we need to squeeze every dime out of this grant. I just wanted to, to bring that to folks attention so we will use all $18,000 out of this grant I'm pretty sure for the can I jump in here real quick Jerry. I, we should probably follow up with Rob to make sure that that's the case for this grant. I was specifically talking to him about the other each 315 and the age 360. So it could very well be the case for this as well. But I think I think I should just cross that team dot that dot that I. I agree I hope I said unofficially, we do need to follow up and get that written down somewhere. And then for our general general operating support grants which is an hour and a magam of previous grants from various places over the past two years. We have approximately $30,000 remaining in that so in total at the moment. We have $48,000 $48,000 remaining in our administrative grants, which is working out very well for us. That's a that's a good number to have and I'll take any questions. Anybody. Siobhan, I'm seeing a lot smaller people so if you have your hand up you can just. So the, the questions you're taking are just on this portion of the report right. Because there's some lower down I didn't understand. So we'll get there. I'll ask that. Okay, so we have to two other tables to follow. One, one is the, the budget as we've as we've laid it out from now to the end of the fiscal year. And then the next one is where we are as far as what we've budgeted and what we've spent and and and what is remaining. That hasn't been spent. So, Siobhan, I'm happy to take your question now. So, the first table on the top is what we've, what we've. I'm okay so in the second table what I'm confused by are the over slash under annual budget columns I'm not. I'm not familiar with that enough to understand for sure what that means. So does that mean that we are, we have 27,000 left, or we're over 27,000 over budget. I'm sorry. Neither am I, Siobhan. So the over under columns and that's a really good question. The over under columns. If there's a positive number in there which they all happen to be positive numbers at the moment that means we've under spent. Residual monies from our budget in the amount of year to date. 9,929 and over the over the annual budget. 27,500. Okay, that that that's all I needed to know. I guess that was my question. If they if it were negative that would be bad. So, okay. Well, it would just mean we've overspent or, or, or budgeted a lot and that's right. Right. So, yeah, thank you. I asked it of myself. Okay, any other questions for Jerry. Okay, I'm going to take this down then. All right, thanks for that Jerry. Let's see moving along. Clerks report. Jeremy. Yeah, sure. So the first thing is the invoice from CVRPC for their services for the April 1, 3 April 30 period. That was $372 and 34 cents. And I think that was quite a lot lower than the previous month, because we only had one meeting, obviously for meetings we have the higher that number is going to be. The second thing that I've completed is I have gone through all of the back minutes that I can locate and I have loaded them onto the website. And rather than spam, everyone's emails with everyone was on the public notice list with new email or with emails. Sorry, did not sleep well last night my brain is not working anyways. So rather than spam everyone with draft and then final minutes for I'm just going to be posting them to the website. That's all that's required by the open meeting laws. So going forward, they'll be posted to the website once they're available. One of the things that have been keeping track of town representation and one thing I'd like to point out is that very city Elmore middle sex and Williams town have all not been represented for any of the last four meetings. That's including this meeting so the three meetings prior to this one. And that is all that I had. Are there any questions. Anything for Jeremy. Okay, and speaking of the cities that don't have or towns that don't have representation. This is something that we put on this agenda. And that was something that I opted to delay until a later agenda is getting busy. Do we want to push back on those folks that don't show up and ask select boards city councils to replace them. That's, that's a discussion that we'll have on an agenda to future meeting. Let's see. Yeah, our D would you do us a favor and could you just, could you mute or getting feedback from your line. Okay, hang on. Okay. So there's nothing else for Jeremy let's move on to readoption of CV fiber rules of procedure. Alan, I'll let you drive this one if you like. You muted. Sorry. So we can do this fast if there are questions that'll slow us down the questions are always good. You can think of this document as both an oath and a confession. And the confession follows taking the oath when you realize after reading this all the things that you might not have done right during a committee meeting, or and how you did a vote or whatever. It's a good idea to reread this thing every year we're not going to do it aloud now. But there's a lot of good basic information that just tells you how the organization runs, including whether you can call a question during the meeting in order to limit discussion. You will find the answer to that I think it's one of five five remember. So there are all these small things in there that I think most of us forget about even when we read it. You know, in the middle of winter, I think six months later and certainly a couple of years later we just forget everything that's in there. So I would really suggest that, you know, sometimes just sit down and read the thing. So you at least know what they're what what's there you don't have to remember you just have to know that there is information about something there. I wanted to point out what's changed. They're all noted changes that have been made to the document over time. You know, from the original document, all the changes are noted in notes that are on the bottom of page four, and there is a note on the bottom of page five. Basically the name of the organization change from central Vermont internet to CV fiber officially that is. So we had an addition of a new section recently that most of you probably remember on governing board committees which is section J. That was a that was amended in May of this year. So if there are any questions I'm happy to take them but all we, all we have to do is to promise we're going to read this and remember it's there. So we adopt the rules of procedure as presented by Alan. Second, second, seconded by Siobhan. Any further discussion. Jeremy, I have one comment. Yes. On page one paragraph three second line. It should be a comma after unless you see that Alan. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. It certainly makes sense to have it there. So I think we can do that as a friendly amendment. Appreciate it. Yeah. All right. Anything else. So we are obliged to adopt this by statute or obliged to adopt this every year. So what I will try to do is I will try to add this. After we're electing chairs and vice chairs at the meeting. And already can I ask you to mute again? Thanks. That's just something that it's, it's a nice, it's a nice way if we get in anybody new we can sort of just do this once a year and we don't have to. Don't have to remember, hopefully. Okay, so the motion is out there. There's no further discussion. Are there any objections to adopting the rules of procedure? Okay. I will take that as unanimous approval. Thanks for that. Alan, you still have the floor policy committee. Would you tell us about voting and meetings? Sorry, I thought I was going to be fly for a while. You want. I'm sorry, I actually jumped one, but this actually makes sense to put here anyway. So go ahead. Okay. So you're referring to the vote for vice chair. Is that correct at the last? Yeah, just, just to kind of get everybody filled in as to why we're doing this and why this is an agenda item again. Well, so basically what happened was I had somebody contact me and ask about the process for voting for vice chair at the board meeting back in May. And the question dealt with the nature, the lack of privacy in the voting in that the way we voted, although we were approximating what people think of as a secret ballot when you vote by paper, you know, paper ballot. It wasn't a secret to all of us, but it wasn't secret to the person who had to do the counting, which happened to be Jeremy, because he was able to see names when we all sent our vote to him via chat. So the question was, how can we have a process that's that where secrecy is promised but but doesn't get delivered essentially. I don't think anything was intentional on this but it raised a lot of interesting questions about the difference between virtual meetings and traditional in person meetings, because when I started when I started researching this. I realized that we cannot have secret votes. We're required by state law to have public votes. And for the minutes to reflect when there is a vote. How we voted how each of us voted. So, the question is not a question of privacy the question is, how do we have to vote in the future for vice chair and the answer is, we have to have a roll call vote. Or else it can be unanimous vote as well if it's not a contested election. There can be a unanimous vote the way that Jeremy's been running the meetings by by having without seeing objection the motion passes. But one assumes when two people are running for one position that it's a contested election and it's not unanimous. So therefore you have to have a roll call vote and the vote has to be. It has to be recorded, and it has to appear in the minutes. The policy committee I reported this to the policy committee, and everybody agreed, you know, if that's what it says we have to do that's what we have to do. And there's no, there's no exception that I can see where you can where a public body can vote can vote in in secret as it were. Any questions about the process that we're about to go through. Okay. Thanks Alan I think that was that was completely clear. Okay, to me anyways. Okay, so we did skip an agenda item but we'll come back to that in a moment. So we're going to rerun the election of the chair, as if we were doing it last month so I would entertain any nominations or vice chair. Okay, so Chuck nominates, thanks for that Chuck, are there any other nominations. And Rd, can I ask you to mute again. I think I am muted. Okay, because I can hear myself talking through back through your line. So I don't know if you have it here if you're on speaker or if you have a headset or something headset would be better. I have I can't I have no headset for this. Can you hear me. I can hear you but I can also hear myself when I talk just muted Jeremy. Okay. I don't want to just I mean, I don't really want to mute him because if I mute him I don't have any idea whether if he wants to say something. I have no way of getting that information. If I mute him, he can't unmute himself. That's like an admin privilege. So it's sounding good right now though. So I think we're good. Jeremy, you had something. I was just going to point out I was going to ask Rd to mute because I'm really, really tired and can't focus with the feedback so. Okay. Cool. All right so any other nominations. Yeah, Alan, I would nominate Tom. Okay. All right, Tom, do you accept the nomination. I appreciate the comment there Alan, but no I think I'm glad to see us move forward to the process that is recognized by state law and everything. But as far as I'm concerned we've already had this discussion now it's just making sure we got the eyes and cross the treaty. Okay, good. Thanks Tom. Any other nominations hearing none objections to appointing Siobhan to be the vice chair. I guess there's not really there's not really a way to object without another candidate so we have unanimous consent then so thanks everybody and thanks Siobhan for serving in that role. Let's jump back. Let's jump back to what one that I skipped, which was committee appointments and approving committee chairs we had agreed that in addition to say in conjunction with allowing the committees, some flexibility in choosing their own chairs that the governing board would essentially come back and recertify and approve the appointment of those chairs. So, so let's see, we have. That we approve the chair positions for Ray for the finance committee Alan for the policy committee David for the planning and development committee Chuck for the communications committee. And that's that's our four right. Second. Okay, seconded by Jeremy. Any further discussion. It came up at the last executive committee where David wasn't able to make it and I as standing vice chair was able to speak in and be involved. I just didn't know if we have a formal rule around vice chairs of committees. And if that person is not being formally accepted by the board, then should that person be allowed to act in the chair stead, should chair not be there. Well, if I recall what Alan said is that, you know, Robert's rules, which we are, which we're abiding by says that the vice chair can act in the capacity of the chair. We have a statutory requirement though on the executive committee that you have to be a, you have to be a member of the governing board in the first place. So I think as long as those two check boxes are checked. I'd be happy to go in explicitly approve vice chairs as well. Otherwise, I'm not sure that we need to. Does anybody have a strong feeling one way or the other Alan. Yeah, Jeremy Matt and I have been having a conversation back and forth about this. I think we should approve them. There's a question whether a vice chair can serve on the executive committee in lieu of the chair. What I've told Jeremy is I think we're dealing with two separate committees here, and the, the power of the committee to have the vice chair take on the power of the chair when the chair can no longer be there. I would argue extends only to that committee, that it doesn't extend to another committee that by dint of procedure, the vice chair might normally be be able to serve. The committee really is kind of, you know, it's kind of a repository of longevity with the organization it's it's the chairs are largely people who've been who've been around the block for a while. And it's always possible that a vice chair could end up in a position where they have very little knowledge about what is going on and how to vote. I think there ought to be another, another procedure for how a vice chair, how somebody can serve on the executive committee who's not the appointed chair. That's what I'm, that's what I'm suggesting. I guess maybe we could, we could, we could approve. We could approve vice chairs and say something about giving them equal powers, not only for the committee they stay serve on his vice chair but for any other committee to which they, they may, they may serve, or we could change something in the rules if people want to do that. I think there's a bit of a problem here with how the ascension from, from a committee to a more powerful committee could happen. I told Jeremy we have this funny thing at the policy committee last week, or whenever that was two weeks ago, we, there's a young woman who who I'm going to ask in a moment that she be appointed to the, to the policy committee who name is Alexis Julian. And she came to the meeting, I invited her just to see what the policy committee does. After we, we started choosing chair and vice chair and I was nominated and approved for chair. And then when we tried to find a vice chair nobody wanted to do it, until somebody suggested hey why don't we have Julian do it. And for Julian, who, who had now spent a total of 10 minutes at a CV fiber meeting, and did not have vast knowledge of what the organization did. I mean, really nice person and I think should be great. But it struck me as it struck me as sort of an inside joke that maybe the Julian wasn't an inside joke. And if she were to end up on on something like the executive committee she probably wonder what the heck kind of organization is this. So I, I think just because of the nature of how we set up the choosing of the members of the, of the executive committee, we're going to continue to have burps like this. And I think we ought to pay attention to them. Okay. So, right. Yeah, there's a technical bit to this as well and that's the executive committee is made up of delegates. So, and so a vice chair could be an alternate and or could be somebody who just became a volunteer appointee. And that would be an issue. I'm going to make the, the hopefully not radical suggestion that the policy committee takes this and comes up with something semi semi concrete. We love these. I don't think that we're probably ready to approve anything about that tonight. I mean, I agree. Absences from the executive committee are sufficiently rare that I think this is this is probably not something that we're going to have to worry about. You know, so that we have to tap into vice chairs to make me quorum or anything like that. I mean, David was traveling and that that's that's going to happen every now and then but I think we have enough people on the executive committee that that show up for all the meetings that we should be we should be good. I'm thinking. So, Alan, if you want to know on that with the rest of the policy committee, I think maybe follow up with you later on that. That's okay. Sounds like a good bone. Okay. And so we have, we have this, this motion. Any further discussion on the appointment of the, the, or the confirmation of the appointments of the chairs. Okay, any objections. Okay, I'm going to read that is passing unanimously. Thanks for that. There is a committee appointment, at least one that we need to do Alan, would you like to take the helm again. I would nominate Alexis Julian, who is a state employee recent Norwich graduate. She would like to serve on the policy committee and I think she'd be great she has experience in cyber stuff, as well as writing policies actually. So it's it's very interesting set of skills. Second. Okay, that was seconded by Jeremy. Any further discussion on appointing Alexis to the policy committee. Okay, not hearing any commentaries. Are there any objections? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that. Are there any other appointments to committees that we need to sort out now. Okay, not seeing anybody leaping out of their seats. Let's move on to alleged violation of the open meetings law. And we are. Thankfully, we are quite ahead of time. Jeremy. Do we need to approve vice chairs as well, or is it just chairs that are approved. That was that was what I was essentially kicking over to policy. So that. Yeah, so they could come up with something that we want to do. I think it's. I think it's just chairs. So, so for now it's just chairs. If we decide that we need to add to my chairs later, we'll, we'll sort that out later. Okay, so I sent out a, I sent out the email that I got with an alleged violation of the chair's law. Um, we are obliged by statute to address the allegation and the allegation in short was that in a recent executive committee meeting. We went into an executive session to discuss a contract and the complainant claimed that the thing that we were discussing was not in not in fact a contract. My argument is that we, so we were talking about the memorandum of understanding slash contract, which is exactly the way we were talking about it in the executive committee beating we'd been talking about it as a contract before that. And then, so I went to this helpful legal resource that that I know of called Wikipedia, which tells me that memorandum is memoranda of understanding can be contracts and I actually just sort of informally floated this to a couple other people who are more legally savvy than I, and I'm happy to go through the actual things that make an MOU a contract. I don't think that's necessary. The thing that we're that we're discussing the thing that we are hopefully going to be approving tonight that you have seen has all of the features of a contract. It's been reviewed by a lawyer, as if it's a contract, we wanted to use slightly softer language and call it an MOU, mainly because there was some anxiety that like sort of offering a town a contract would be scary or something like that but it's a we're calling it a sort of understanding with elements of, you know, and offer acceptance consideration and this and that's legally binding, you know, agreements that we understand each other about how the funding is going to work so I am very comfortable that the process that we went through at the executive committee meeting was done completely above board and according to the open meetings law and there's a process that if the complainant wishes to escalate this that they are, they are able to avail themselves of that. Does anybody have any questions about that. Just reconfirming contract discussions that the issue isn't that it was a contact discussion so much as premature disclosure of the contents of this thing would harm us in a material way. Is that the actual wording that allows us to go into the executive session. I'm just trying to remind myself about this. So, yes and no one of one of the things that we can go and discuss while finding that premature discussion and so on and so on is, you know, personal matters contracts. But the fact is the statute says contracts. So we're, we were invoking a particular statutory requirement to go into executive session. Statutory carve out that I cited says contracts. Yeah, language that we were using it kind of informally said it was a memorandum of understanding. In fact, this thing was a contract. I'm not, I'm not a lawyer but I thought contract was like the umbrella term and there were there were several types of agreements that fell under contract and mo you would be that that's what you're saying at this. I think that I think the Venn diagram is probably overlapping and separate somewhat, but I don't know that we need to go into the legal, the legal weeds on this, just now but my finding as the person who presided over the meeting and made the motion was that this was a this was all done properly and I'm happy to, there is a process if, if you all don't think that that's the case we can circle back around and there is a feature in statute to remedy this. If you feel like we need to do that. Okay, so I'm hearing acceptance of my justification, and I'm hoping then that that sticks a fork in it and we're done. So, let's move on. Next one is items to add to the operational budget. And there's two things for for this one is the Microsoft suite. And then the other one is an advertising budget. And I think Chuck, you can probably take both of these, can't you. So the first one being the my suite of Microsoft tools. The string of Gmail and Google drives and lots of different email addresses is really starting to be a bit problematic, particularly as we are starting to get under some additional scrutiny and and there could very well be a scenario in which the discovery has to occur in the future and people get to poke around in our emails I'm sure most of you would like that to not be your personal emails. So, you know, we really need to bite the bullet and go ahead and set up emails we're also doing a lot more documents and and sending things around. And this would allow us to centralize our email and document storage. It would also by just purchasing this, we would be able to migrate often go to meetings into Microsoft teams and actually reduce the ongoing go to meeting expense. And so what we are proposing is basically every delegate, every alternate, and a few additional people would receive an email. Not net domain. Okay, and then we're looking at. Yep, you're back. Okay, what was the last thing people are. CB fiber net domain. That was pretty much all of it. So, yeah, the cost of this will be anywhere in the ballpark of four to $7,000 annually, and the big driver in the disc crap and see there is whether we have certain people on the board who have justification for what are referred to as the thick clients or desktop apps versions of the Microsoft Office suite. Now, there are a lot of us who have access to those tools already and don't mind continuing to use our existing office suite and and you know there are some unfortunate side effects of doing that operationally but speaking, if you don't need it, I would ask that you not ask for it but if you have a legitimate need for one of the desktop apps. That is something we could provision for you so thinking specifically about the project manager, whoever comes into this project management position is, it's going to be a must have to have the desktop apps and sure. And so, you know, we'll, we'll see if they come with their own or not and if they don't then we would fight the bullet and incur that additional charge from them. And the policy committee, I think, would need to come up with some guidelines as to what the rules are around whether somebody is eligible to receive that or not or we could keep it a little more informal if we, if we wanted to. So, I think that would be a good option to ideas but that's it in a nutshell. Everybody would get access to the online versions of the document editors, the online document storage, the Microsoft teams collaboration tool and video conferencing tool. We'd all get your own accounts for teams so you'd be able to spin up your own sets of meetings. None of the shared login stuff that we're dealing with would go to meeting today. Is there an online version for Excel and Word that would be so you don't see you'd still be able to use those tools but you'd be using the web version rather than on your desktop. Okay, correct. And the web versions are no match for the desktop versions admittedly. So you, you're making a motion. Yes, I guess I'll go ahead and make the motion. I would like to move that the board approve an expense up to approximately $7500 actually let me just say up to $7500 for us to provision Microsoft office for the governing board body and a few additional people such as the Treasurer, the PM, the clerk, if the clerk is not an employee and other people at the board's discretion. Second. Okay, so I think Siobhan got the second in there. An alternative motion in there. I see Jeremy have your hand up. Yeah, I was just going to try to merge or make a suggestion to kind of merge those two things. And that language be added to Chuck's motion that it that administration of this be added to the administrative budget that the executive committee handles. Okay. So let's let's get back to that in a second with maybe a formal amendment but Tim. I was just wondering if is this replacing the Google package that you're dealing with now for storage. Yes, Tim. So the Google package we have now is that some folks went and signed up for personal Gmail accounts the free version, and we've done a lot of like inter account document sharing. So the idea is really to step it up into a centralized man and centralized and manage space where we are collaborating on such things, rather than the strung together free Gmail accounts. Okay, just wondering why the Google suite package wasn't considered instead of Microsoft, just not a big fan of Microsoft in general. I understand for what it's worth, no matter which decision we make will have people who are not fans because there are also people who are not fans of Google. That said, the reason we selected Microsoft over Google Microsoft was a little bit more expensive. Google was about equivalent to the entry level price if we did not have access to the desktop apps through Microsoft. There were two key requirements that drove us to choose Microsoft one Microsoft had a better package for government retention policies and as a public body. We are subject to certain retention policies that we need to make not to say that Google doesn't have them about Microsoft has them at slightly cheaper plans. Another facet and most importantly, is that because we cannot really use the online collaboration tools in the way Google intends you to use them without violating open meeting law, we're really subject to sending around downloadable documents. Now, you can do that with Google suite or Google workspace, whatever they're calling it these days, and by creating your document in the Google cloud and then downloading it as a Word document or a PowerPoint and then sending it along. But by having access to the suite desktop clients, it's for the people who need that, it sort of streamlines that because then you're working natively in those formats. Okay, thanks Chuck. Absolutely. And by the way, I actually 100% agree with you I'm personally a much bigger fan of the Google suite. I thought we were entitled to it for free as a, as a nonprofit type. I explored that option. And unfortunately they do not recognize our type of body politic politic. You have to actually be a certified nonprofit per the IRS 503 C rules. All right, so I just want to read David's comment and then turn it over to Tom Allen and then Becky so David says this is the recommendation of the communications committee that there was a rather robust discussion about Google versus Microsoft versus proton mail and other things as well so I mean there was there were other options that were considered but so Tom Allen and then Becky. So in the implementation of this, are we going to be moving over to teams for meetings and, and more general what I'm what I'm concerned about is my only computer is my work computer. And it's already got teams and outlook and all sorts of stuff that I have no idea that is remotely handled for me by somebody else. I'm wondering if I'm going to have to go out and get another computer in order to help keep participating, or if there are options to get around that. Yeah, I know the question tech stuff but no that's fine. The absolute easiest way to get around that is if you ironically spin up a Chrome separate profile in Chrome Chrome lets you create different profiles, but you can actually log into all of the CB fiber tools and access the web mail the web versions, the desktop clients are going to be quite difficult for you to use Alan and then Becky. So I have one computer as well I don't have several. The one time that I have used Microsoft teams. It affected a number of other things including some settings, and the way my account had been set up and so forth. Is that going to happen. When I start using Microsoft teams, it can it be separated from all the other software I use, and I'm either using Microsoft teams and doing everything there. It leaves everything else alone and lets me do it the way I've always done it. And if you leverage only the web based versions. Did you all lose me. We see you now go ahead. Okay. Once again if you leverage exclusively the web based versions of all the tools, then nothing will get impacted whatsoever. Now, I admit that's, that's not super ideal, although that's frankly what you'd be looking at if we use the Google suite as well, because you just be looking at the web based versions of tools as well. That would be the exception of email you can obviously pull it into your own client if you so choose. So, you know, it's not an easy solution short of creating a separate login on your machine which you may or may not have access to do. And so, you know, I acknowledge that that's not, not the best but it seems to be the best for right now for us. Just a quick follow up. Is there going to be training available? Is there online training from Microsoft? They do have online training. Unfortunately, at the tier that we are buying, we don't get a ton of support training or anything of that. We do get support tickets for incidents around outages and things like that of course. But we won't get a ton of in person training. So we'll have to figure it out together a bit. And unfortunately, there are a few of us on the board who are a little more technical that can help aid in that. Yeah, I could do some one on one work. I'm not going to like put together like a bunch of classes or anything like that. But if you're looking to do X, Y and Z, I can certainly walk you through how you started, you know, how you start a teams meeting, how you do document sharing, using Excel through your browser, that sort of thing. That's, you know, straightforward enough to do. Alright, so I've got Becky, Siobhan, then Jeremy. I just learned not to really raise my hand. I was just saying, I have not had good experience with Google and I do use extensive Microsoft products at work. So I'll keep my hand down for now. Okay, Siobhan and then Jeremy. I was just going to ask if we do a group training session, do we have to warn it as a public meeting if there's more than 10 of us? Yep. Cool. Okay, thanks. And also, I think we need the policy committee to put together Alan. We need to put together some policies for how we can work together on things using the tools that we've got. But I think we're going to have to need to see how things can work. And who's going to be our administrator? Are we going to have an administrator? How does that work? Yeah, okay. That's fine. That was it. Yeah, big, big thanks to Chuck for taking that role on too. So Jeremy then Alan. One thought that I had is like for using the desktop teams app, which I don't know about the web based version, but one possibility would be to add like Tom's work email to the meeting list. I think that's a thing that you can do. We can always approve people to, you know, join a meet and we'll have to do that for the public anyway and still recognize that Tom is Tom, even if he's signed in via his work email and not his official CD fiber email. Okay, Alan and then Tom, and then hopefully we can start getting towards a vote. I just want to throw up a red flag. The policy committee is not very good on personnel issues or on tech issues. I think I can honestly say that for us. And I think we want to be careful what areas we're straying into where we might need some help and maybe that's why I was thinking about what kind of training are we going to get. Who gets who gets the whole suite and who doesn't is not really something that a policy, a policy discussion can work out that's really a personnel issue, knowing people skills and knowing their work. So I, I think there has to be a way to figure that stuff out outside of the policy committee I just don't know how that would be handled by us frankly. I don't think about it, but it just strikes me is, there's some work to be done here. Yes, if you want to connect to help shape your thinking on that I'd be happy to kind of advise at least on the technical side of things. It's probably the personnel side that I'm most concerned about, and that's, you know, it goes back to the fact we don't really have. We don't really have an administration, you know we're not like a regular organization who'd have HR people or personnel or whatever. And I think that's kind of what that's kind of what we're talking about here. So let me let me think about that piece that that's the one that's tripping me up right now, maybe something I'll come clear on my next bike ride. Before I hand it over to Tom, if I could just do a straw poll how many of you think you would need to use the thick client just is this even an issue. I mean the show of hands that you would want the full desktop application on your PC. This is this may be a mood conversation. Okay, Tom. Depending if I'm still doing RFP reviews and things like that I don't know if there might come up a case where need to be able to review documents or mid comments stuff might be important but the other comments about you know how to fix Tom's problem we're working working is using his work computer I think the answer is I could just stop being a freeloader and get my own personal computer. Honestly, I think keeping the stronger firewall between my work life and my volunteer life might be beneficial for all parties rather than me having documents that we want to keep confidential on something that I have no control over the confidentiality of might just be the stronger way to go. I appreciate the thought. And in response to Tim's comment. I don't know is there a Chrome OS app or extension that lets and join the Microsoft stuff I think so, I think there is. I'm not used to the web based variance. Okay, so we have a we have a motion, and I think if we were friendly amending it towards raise motion so that we're essentially adding $7500 to be added to the administrative budget for essentially for the executive committee then to be dispersing this as necessary I'm not sure that it doesn't sound like really that there's going to be many people if any using the thick client the non web version. I think most of us probably have it if we want it. All right, so that motion is out there. Are there any objections to adopting the motion. Okay, I'm not seeing any objections so that motion passes unanimously. Thanks for that truck you want to do part two as well. Yes, sir. So, the next item, the executive committee would like to bring to the attention of this board is we are approaching the point where being able to rapidly respond to some smaller needs around advertising is going to be a good idea and so we would. Thank you Ray. I'll continue with the context but Ray has put the motion in the chat and I'll go ahead and read it for everyone but one of the direct examples of scenarios that came up recently is now that we are going to have people out in the field doing poll audits. We want to go ahead and and provision some magnets for the side of their vehicles that have our logo, so that they are showing that they are truly representatives of CB fiber as they are doing the work that they're doing to help bolster our visibility in the community and ensure that people know that that's where they're part of. And so what we'd really like to do is move to add a line item in the administration budget for advertising in the amount of $2,500. Second. A little additional context, just that the, the point of this is that the executive committee would be able to make the decision as to whether to appropriate these funds for various activities, or, you know, maybe delegate some amounts of that to the communications committee as the executive committee sees fit, but it would allow us to to respond rapidly to things like that it's not a huge amount, and we're not going to spend it unless we have you know good good reason to do so. But that is the idea behind it. Okay, any, any questions about that motion to add the $2,500 for the executive committee to spend on advertising up to $2,500 I should say. Okay, any objections. Okay, motion passes unanimously. Thanks for that. Moving on to the next item, construction budget for the executive committee. Ray, this is yours I think. Yeah, so there was a team. No, no. I mean, I hadn't plugged in motion here. Do you want me to bring up the, the construction budget PDF or. Okay, hold on. Stand by while I kind of get it sized right. And I'm popping into the chat room. So, some, some context for this and that is that we're now going to begin receiving funds for the purposes of actually doing the construction work which is a separate item from the administrative budget that we have. And therefore, we're going to be getting some grant funds, and we need a way to track this. And what I'm looking for is that the governing board to the establishment of a construction budget and authorize the executive committee to administer the budget. And what you see here is an example that Jerry held put together. And you see up there funding sources for example so today right now for example, we have some h315 funding sources for high level design for the four. We have phases one, two and three, as well as a 315 budget for full inventory for phase one. And what you see here in the second chart is you see a breakdown of those three items where there's where there's those particular funding sources so high level design. We have the wet construction a then you have the wet area construction be the funding source. We have more town Roxbury Northfield, for example, where we have some funds $140,000 for this construction effort. Then we have a poll inventory where we receive $225,000 for that. The budget is just below that. And what you see there in addition to construction high level design poll inventory is also project management. The project management position is one of those positions that is in place during the during the construction effort. So operations, I expect we're going to wind up establishing an operations budget downstream and that operation budgets will cover all the aspects of regard to an operator ISP and other expenses and revenue streams for that. So this is kind of it in a nutshell. Again the motion is move the governing board approve the establishment of a production budget and authorize the executive committee to administer the budget. All right, moved by Ray seconded by Siobhan. What do you think these are all and I should point out that these are all for grants that we have either received or will be imminently receiving. So there's no, there's no no additional project tasks in here that would be coming from unfunded. Anything, Siobhan. This all the there's, I'm not seeing anything surprising here this is all stuff we've been discussing for a while right this is. These are all numbers that we've seen and this is just formalizing a structure for it so that we can then do it right. So if the executive committee can actually spend this money rather than coming back to the governing board every time we want to spend a bunch of money so this is the governing board right now delegating the authority for these specific projects. Delegating that authority to the executive committee. Got it. So these will be paying contracts, paying for contracts that we've that we've approved. Okay, seems like we we approve the those expansions with that. Right. Yeah, I guess I'm not clear exactly what this means. Because in my mind what we've now done now is cross this threshold with a very, very significant dollar amounts. What I partly heard is that the expenditure of very large dollar amounts will now be will now be authorized by the executive committee and not the full body. And that troubles me but it may be because I don't quite understand the sequence of activities and we'll get us there. So, I guess I until we have a construction contract. I don't want to hand over the authority to the executive committee to spend that level of dollar amount. When we get a construction contract, which will be a discussion of the entire governing board. At that point it may may make all the sense in the world to have the expenditures under that construction contract be dealt with by the executive committee, but I don't want to do that now. Right. So, all can all construction contracts are awarded by the board. What does the purpose of the construction budget similar to the administration budget is for the purposes of when invoices come in from a contractor. They're going to get paid the process like under the administration budget is to go to the executive committee who approves the approves the payment of the invoice and authorizes the treasure to pay it. So this is the this is purely that administrative function of doing that the actual bits about awarding contracts. So, tonight, for example, will be in the process of a selecting a project manager, for example, we have previously approved the, the grant applications for the other work, for example, for the high level design for the pole inventory. For all this other work is something that the board has already approved that we go for, and we received it. That's a matter of administering to that. Any other any other thoughts on this. So, I guess maybe just to rephrase what Ray saying is that, even though this is being called a construction budget there's not really a, there's not really a construction going on this is all stuff that has come up prior to this. We will be approving the contracts that we're looking to pay as an entire governing board that was those like those contracts that we're looking at for the pole inventory in particular. Those are those one of them just came in today, or they're to both of them come in yesterday. So, so we're going to be looking at approving those on Thursday. Well, we're going to call a special meeting to do that. And we certainly can't disperse any funds until we have a contract contract underway. So I have Phil and then Jeremy. Well, it seems to to. And so a point. When we approve a contract seems like part of that approval would be also approving the executive committee to make appropriate dispersions under that contract. Okay, Jeremy. And that's really implied here. So with the idea, so it's, I think, Ray, what the idea would be is that we would say make a motion to, you know, accept XYZ contract and to pay it out of the construction budget. Is that that isn't a motion this time. This is not a motion about. I understand. I understand that. But when we approve contracts, like for the pole inventory, we would say that this is an item which would be paid out of the construction budget and the executive committee would not be allowed to spend money on contracts that are not put into the construction budget. I mean, it seems like kind of 61 half a dozen of the other whether we approve the construction budget, or whether every time we, you know, maybe from a budget tracking standpoint, it might make more sense, but I don't know. So, so that there is an element to maybe this is what Jerry's going to say there's an element to will still be reporting back every governing board meeting we're still going to see the Treasurer's report, or we're still going to see sort of like a cash flow report one way or the other. But yeah, there's, you know, when we approve these contracts the contracts will have a dollar amount. Terry. Yeah, I really, I don't think they can and Ray have have diverged here on both of what they're what they're presenting. This is this budget is for planning purposes and to allow the executive committee to function. With a with a with a timeline and a projected budget, so that we have these funds, almost in hand close enough in hand to be able to actually put them put them in a in a table and plan against. And that that's what we're presenting here that we anticipate these funds are imminent, the 240 we already have. And with these imminent funds, this is how we plan on moving these funds through the pre construction and construction process that has also been moving on a parallel track through the planning committee and the executive committee in the finance committee with no money. So now that the money is coming to fruition. This is this is the plan of moving forward. I hope I presented that correctly. Alan. Ray, if this were simply called a construction plan rather than a construction budget. Would that still be correct and acceptable. Not my view. And why is that. Well, we've been, we have been told that we're getting these funds. I mean, this isn't, we don't, this isn't on a bet. The funds are coming in. And so what we're trying to do here is organize in the fashion that we can manage it and track it and report back out to it, not just to us but also to the Department of Public Service, which is a requirement. And so this is that effort to organize, manage and track and report. But this is not an appropriation of funds correct. No, this is not an appropriation. Right. And I think that was Ken's concern if I understood him correctly, that it, it, it, it appears that it's a document that's appropriating funds for specific purposes. When I think the real, the real, the reality is this is a plan for how the money that let's say has been appropriated and the board has already accepted. This is a plan for how those funds are going to be divvied up in the projects. You see the distinction I'm trying to make. Go ahead. I was just going to say, Jeremy and then I want to circle back around to Ken and see if you have any additional thoughts after hearing the other commentary, Jeremy. So one thought would be to have the construction budget, the value of zero and every time we approve a contract we add that amount to the construction budget and then we can also track. In the budget, you know, like anticipated costs that are not part of the actual budget that the executive committee has the authority to disperse. Ken, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think I just agree with Jeremy's point there that that I would not tonight approve the executive committee to spend amounts of money that are represented by that, that spreadsheet. When we have a contract for construction or in the cases of the poll inventory. That's a time when that contract is approved that I give the executive committee the authority and try to give them the authority to spend upon invoice but when we get to like construction, for example, the executive committee may have to decide to pay an invoice. And I would rather the full body understand the progress of the construction before a smaller body the executive committee approves the invoice. Maybe as we approve a contract part of the contractor a large construction project is a part of the contract is a requirement for the contract or to do progress reports that then make it easier for me to say okay executive committee they're uncomfortable if they're on track but again when we get to these millions of dollars of expenditures. I don't want to delegate my authority to say smaller body can approve the expenditures unless I am very, very confident that the contractual activities are consistent with what we agree we as the large body agreed to in terms of the contract. David then Ray. Two things one we have already received grant authorizations for the money that's shown in these proposed budgets, you can call a budget a plan. It's not an expenditure it's proposed this is what the categories are. This is what the amount we apply for and received. And so we're setting up an accounting system that's where I look at this. Regarding the, an issue of spending money, one of the reasons to have a project manager is to have somebody you can say the contractor fulfilled the obligation that they said they were going to complete. So we got a couple things going on maybe out of sync. And I support putting this, we need a budget. Whether you know where the executive committee. You know, we've already approved the grant applications. We've approved the poll inventory contractors. So this is a way of somehow deciding how do we, how do the poll inventory contractors get paid is it have to come to the whole board every time. And voice is submitted, or is it the executive committee can recommend payment to the contractor. And then it comes to the full board for verification. I don't, you know, in other words. I think there are enough, there will be enough checks, but you know, I could be wrong. I've raised and Tom. Yeah, so right now. I think other than other than the project management funding which shows like 10 grand or something like that. None of those funds are in hand. Right. We don't have any of those funds. So we're not going to be approving payment to anything executive committee. And second thing is that the motion has moved the governing board approved the establishment of, of a construction budget. I'm happy if the, if that bottom document, which laid out construction and the two things and then the poll and then the poll inventory or whatever the design like that we're zeroed out. The idea is to have a construction budget. And then insert things into that budget. And when we insert things into that budget, you can all make a decision about whether or not. As we go through half a million, three quarters of a million dollars and pull inventory is whether you want, once those contracts have been awarded. Whether you want the executive committee on a monthly basis to make payments of those invoices when they come in, which is a kind of a perfunctory administrative, not unimportant. Nothing to spend a board time on. And so I'm willing, I'm willing to say it's the approval of establishment of a construction budget and authorization of the executive committee to administer the budget. That's around that. Okay, Tom. Thank you. The way the motion is written in the chat there. You know, there's two items one is the construction of a budget and the second is the administration of the budget. And are two different things intended by that because it sounds like the folks who are in charge who are pushing for this are suggesting what we want to have as a budget, and the folks who are, you know, hesitant are worried about the administration of that budget. What does it mean here to administer does it mean go out and spend, or does it mean just kind of keep track of and make sure that it's up to date. So would it be the same for you Ray if that second part of the motion was removed if it was just the establishment of the construction budget. I'd be delighted even with that. And so when the polls award comes through, as we will do take the effort on Thursday night to do. And we can say that we approve the work orders, and we authorize the executive committee to administer the, the budget for the poll inventory, or not. And so bring it back. Yeah, I'll stop there. Yeah, I'm just going to ask, ask Ken so if you would rat I'm just trying to make sure I understand where you're coming from you would rather have these sort of big ticket items come back to the entire governing board for approval. And for discussion at a monthly or semi monthly. Okay, very Jeremy. Oh, must must just be Alan then. Did you hear my question Ken. Oh, I can't hear you if you're not. Oh, there's now there's a delay. I am talking and I'm a green light, but I did not I did not hear you until about the last 10 words. Okay, I'm going to I'm going to try this again. There seems to be a two or three second delay for with your, your audio. But my question was, are you, are you hoping to see these big ticket items that the payments of the contractors always come back to the governing board for review before they're paid out. Rather, rather than them getting paid, maybe slightly more expeditiously with the executive committee, am I hearing you correctly. I think you are. I'll just speculate let's say we have a two and a half million dollar contract and they're expecting payment on some sort of schedule. That I would like to be a part of the knowledge that they are adhering to the construction schedule that matches that matches their invoicing schedule, I would like to be a part of that, because it's such big big dollar amount and we are a public body that Yes, that that's what I would like, but I get going back to the earlier observation, I would also agree. Yes, let's establish a construction budget, and then let's use the poll inventory is our first example of what does the contract look like when would they be expecting payments I don't want to get in the way right if they're they're asking for $50,000 and they've done X% of the work that that's fine. I think we need the practice to really adhere because again we're talking some very large dollar amounts, and I think it is our responsibility to really track those as closely as we can. Over time we get better comfort and better process but that's just that's just where I am I just when these big dollar amounts scare me as a public body to not have closer knowledge before writing the checks. Okay, thanks for that Chuck you had your hand up. I retract. So, in the interest of keeping things moving. It seems like we may have some agreement if we strike the last bit of the motion and we just essentially establish this as the budget, and at least for the short term we make make it the practice of bringing this before the entire governing board before we were paying out the big ticket items as are there. Is that okay. Right. So the motion would be moved to the governing board for the establishment of a construction budget period. I don't want to tell thoughts here about what's going to happen in the future with regard to administration. How we're going to deal with that. So let's just put a period there and when the poll awards come through, we can have a discussion about how you want to manage that. And who's going to how the approval process administrations. Okay, any, any thoughts on that does that. Does that make folks generally happy is okay Ken. Excellent. Yes. All right. So I think I think we've just retroactively friendly amended that that motion. Any further discussion any, any other ideas about this. Okay, do we have any objections to this motion then. All right, I see and hear no objections so this motion passes unanimously we have that we have that construction budget. Very good. Yeah, right. Yeah, so this kind of late request for change. It's eight o'clock 730 now. I'd like to do the appointment of the PM. Looks like there's going to be a maybe a series of executive sessions but it's going to be a part of this that I should talk about in public. Before we go into executive session about the PM, and then let me come out of that. And then we see where we are and whether we all have a stomach to go longer. I would still prefer to take all the executive session all at once I don't want to go into executive session and go out and out because then we lose our members of the of the public and orca and such. We can have a quick meta discussion. Right. And if we could have a quick meta discussion then about it looks so we're at 730. We are roughly on schedule but the schedule had us ending at 845 like I said earlier on, I would prefer not to go that late. If folks are still willing if we can move the going public item and the network plan discussion to Thursday, like was originally pitched. I think we will probably be able to finish this by eight if not slightly later than that. Tom. It would be too late to be useful tonight. But I was talking to someone about how they handle executive sessions and manage to go in and out of them with frequency, and their tactic was to have a second meeting. So the first meeting stays live and stays active and whoever wants to stay in it can stay in it while everybody migrates themselves over to the other meeting. And then they come back once they exit executive session. In the future, we could approach something like that rather than trying to navigate. How do we get people to return after we come out of the session. And, and I think that's a that's a great idea what one, I guess, I guess you folks some folks can leave that meeting if they're bandwidth constraint that was going to be my, my main concern. Jeremy. My thought with that is we would then be paying CVRPC to sit and start a blank screen for however long we're in executive section. All right, I'm going to I'm going to make the executive decision here folks is I'm not hearing any sort of any sort of excitement one way or the other. We're going to move the going public discussion and the network plan discussion to Thursday, we will will sort it out then. So I'd like to move on to the next next agenda item the future meeting location. We're going to do a survey we are getting towards the end of the emergency provisions of the pandemic. You got my kind of wrap up discussion of what. Let's see. I just want to see where my. I can't find my old my own email. Anyways, I'll try to do this from memory so there was some rough consensus that coming back. And having meetings in person was probably the right thing to do. There's always going to be a facility for folks to attend remotely. I would definitely not want to take that away from anybody, especially if the roads are unsafe, especially if you do not live terribly close. Things like that, but I think there's something, there's something about having a meeting in person that's rather different than what we're doing here and I think we've done. We've done well enough, given the constraints but I think, given that basically everybody here will be would be vaccinated by the July meeting. I would like to have the July meeting in person. The thing that I would like to hear maybe offline from folks is how you want to navigate accommodating people who want to stay remote. You know me sticking my cell phone in the middle of the room was how we did this before as you might recall, and that is, that's a bad solution. Instead, you know, I don't know that we'll be able to get back into the school but the school's Wi-Fi there may or may not. Well, the school's Wi-Fi may be able to handle, maybe able to handle the bandwidth for, you know, sending up, you know, connecting to a meeting, essentially. I talked to the folks at the Grange that was not going to happen unless we want to share space with the African drumming and dance group. We can go downstairs and have the drumming upstairs perhaps, so that's not going to happen. Chuck. I just want to call out that I've spent over a decade working in hybrid work environments where there are some people on site and predominantly my being remote. And being remote doesn't work well unless you have the dedicated equipment and people who know how to use it to be able to facilitate the in-person portion of those meetings. So the other part that I maybe neglected to mention is that once the emergency order is over, we may not have a choice but to have some physical meeting location. So which means somebody would have to have a physical place where people from the public could meet. And it's not going to be my house. We'll put it that way. I think maybe what I'm asking for until we can settle on a final central location. I will talk to the school soon. Berlin Elementary for those of you who are reasonably new. That's where we were meeting. I don't know that we will be able to get in there. That'll be the summer break, the rules have changed, whatever. If any of you have suggestions and if you'd be willing to reach out and find a location that can comfortably accommodate, you know, 20-ish folks on a regular basis, I definitely love to hear about it. David, I saw your hand. Yeah, I was just a question for Christian at CVRPC. Do you have a meeting room that can handle 20 people? We're not, we're going to be expanding our meeting room, but it'll still not be that big. I can find out where we do our meetings, though, or it did before the pandemic when I was not part of the organization. Michael. So last week, I was in Crosbury Town Hall and they were preparing to do a town meeting. And I noticed a piece of equipment that maybe others are familiar with. I didn't cast the name of it, but I'd be glad to find out that was some kind of camera device that could focus, that was triggered by voice. It could focus on whoever was speaking in the room. So this was a device that allowed a hybrid meeting where there were people in person attending the meeting, yet there were other people on Zoom or some other video conferencing software, able to see each speaker and hear them clearly. And in this room, they also had multiple screens so that the remote people could be seen by the participants in the room. I thought that was a really good hybrid solution. And I don't know how expensive that equipment is, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's fundable under a bunch of different systems and other kinds of funds. So I'd be happy to look into it if that's something the body wants me to pursue. That sounds good. So Tim, is that what you're talking about with the Mevo camera? Is that, is that what Michael's describing? This is similar features, but there's plenty of brands out there. Polycom was the industry standard for many years with cameras that move based on voice. But if you have a permanent installation versus you're just renting space or borrowing space, a different story for different pieces of hardware too. Okay, thanks Tim. So Jerry, then Ken. Yeah, I'd just like to put something out there as somebody who's been working remotely since dial-up. It seems that in the discussion, in-person meeting is the default, and I would like to disagree with that. I think what we've done over the past 16 months or however long it's been with the pandemic, we have moved extremely far, and it's been so much more convenient to be able to do it this way even when we all have crappy internet. It's been more convenient to do it this way than to have to drive in the snow and the sleet and, you know, after having already worked 8, 10 hours to get in the car and drive somewhere. So I would say that if we stay like this until we can provide suitable hybrid meeting where people have a real choice, that's my opinion I don't have a vote. Thanks Jerry. Ken. Yeah, I've used the voice-activated cameras before. They're okay, but I'm curious, can we use ORCA to provide a feed to the remote participants where ORCA does a better job than any of the voice-activated cameras that I've been familiar with? I don't know if ORCA's done live feeds before. The public access channel down in Northfield through TRANS video, they do that sort of like simulcast where they have, yeah, they have the camera operator, and the difference with that though is that people, it's not a two-way, I don't know that ORCA would necessarily be able to provide the two-way communication that we'd really be looking for here. So we would still probably need some supplemental screens or something like that. I think I have Jeremy and Siobhan. There's the Opera House in Plainfield is also a possibility. I know they do rent that out, that's a pretty big space. They don't have any infrastructure as far as I know in terms of even a good internet connection. I'm not sure what the connection is over there, but I can look into that. Another thing is, though, I would echo what Jerry said. I mean, a lot of times I'm struggling to, you know, eat my dinner and just get online, let alone, you know, drive 15, 20 minutes, 45 minutes if, you know, more town ends up being location like Chuck suggested. I just have trouble with that. Fair enough. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. It's fine in the summer. I don't mind it in the summer. It's those drive-in home at nine o'clock on a winter night is wicked. And even though I'm only half an hour from the Berlin school, it's still awful. And that hits, that starts hitting like around October-ish. And so half of the year it's really unpleasant and it's really late and it's uncomfortable, whereas meeting remotely, I just log in, I'm here, and then when I'm off, I'm home. And everything's great. And so I really would prefer a hybrid solution if we can make that work. I'm just concerned we're not going to be able to make that work and still meet the public meeting requirements that we have. And so, you know, I'm not going to refuse to attend, but, you know, I do have preferences. Right. And so, as I should also point out, the old labor hall might be a decent option as well as a central location. I can reach out to some of the folks there. If you have an idea for a place that might work, at least in the short term, July, August, September, please feel free to reach out to them. And if they're open on the second Tuesday of each month, I would say just go ahead and do that, that leg work. I don't think that we'll ever be able to get away from having to have a physical space. And I guess I would ask whoever's willing to do the leg work and find out the cost, the capabilities. You know, let's talk about who's going to go chase that down, because I think we probably can't afford it and we will certainly absolutely positively use it. Chuck. If you've ever been clear, I am not volunteering for that last task. I just want to say that, you know, open meeting law is pretty clear about allowing for hybrid meetings. The key requirement from the opening law perspective is that there must be a physical space where the public can attend, but it does not forgo the ability for the body itself to be operating in a hybrid capacity. That is totally acceptable. So I see a volunteering from Tim. Tim, if you'd be willing to go and find, you know, what does Polycom have? What is the, you know, what are the other options the Mevo and such? So I think we can sort of magnitude reviews and maybe just bring a, if you just do a quick, get a quick analysis and then share it with me, and then we'll just, we'll see if we can move on from there. Maybe have the executive committee take a look at it for a recommendation to the whole board. Yeah, I've bought a lot of these solutions for businesses I've worked for and as a consultant for third parties. So I've been doing this stuff for 20 years or so. So I think I could make a pretty good analysis and give you some choices. All right. That sounds awesome. Thanks for taking that on Tim. I definitely appreciate it. And in the meantime, if you know of a place, especially places that are reasonably central, then yeah, please, please feel empowered to reach out and see if they have the space available and then just let me or your other favorite, you know, executive committee member know. Okay. I'm seeing a couple of private messages. I'll get back around to those in a moment. Okay, so we have two executive sessions to talk about one is the approval of the town ARPA MOU and this is really not approving any particular MOU it's really more approving the framework. The structure of what we're hoping to use as we go into agreements with other towns to to date there's no towns that have a copy of this. We don't have you know we've not in a concrete way, agreed with for any amount of funds. We will do that later. This is, but this is a document that we have agreed, or that we're hoping that we can agree to approve tonight. It has been reviewed by our attorney. So it's been it's gone through that. The question that I have for you is that is there anything in this, well, there's nothing in this contract that that is sensitive, except that we are likely to, we're going to need to negotiate this with each town separately towns are going to put this to their to their town attorneys. So, before we can go into executive session for this one there's the, the obligation that we have to find the premature general public knowledge would put us at a disadvantage. If this contract template was made public knowledge is that going to put CV fiber at a disadvantage. Does anybody have that sense. I see heads shaking I see heads nodding. So, yes, I think it's already here I yes it would definitely put us at a disadvantage. Could you could you tell me why. Well, this is. I think my select board would certainly be uncomfortable. I, my purpose here would be to put my select board at ease to make them comfortable with with the concept. And I think discussing the terms of this contract in executive session would enable us to reach that point of to find that balance that equilibrium that my select board would be comfortable with. I'm not sure that that that's something that that we could discuss openly without subjecting ourselves to serious disadvantage. Okay, thanks Rd. Yeah, so we've talked before about this being a kind of a three step process. One was to send them a letter, you know, make them, you know, getting getting request the invitation to present to the board, and then doing a presentation to the board, and then closing the deal with an agreement. And I think this that work needs to be done first before just sending a contract to some making this a public document. Everyone's going to start talking about that without having had the background context and back and forth with the delegate or Jeremy whoever's doing the presentation advance. And my view of the world is, I think this would be harmful to our efforts to prematurely to disclose this format. And my view of the world on this is that, and this would be where I'm coming from with regard to emotion, for example. This would be the new the governing board approved the draft MOU as the basis for negotiating an agreement with terms for the contribution of our performance to accelerate the development of a high speed affordable CD5 with new network. So this is just basis by putting details out there. The threads can be pulled apart on this before you get started. Okay, fill in then Jeremy. Debating the terms of an agreement publicly would be very awkward because we could easily get into areas that that would put us to a disadvantage before we get to a final agreement. So, thanks for Jeremy. So, say we entered into a contract with some town, we are using this template as a base with that contract and become public. Yep. So, I don't know. I'm convinced then that your point Ray is is very valid because if people are looking at the contract that we had with XYZ town, you know, they'll start talking about that. You know, I don't know I'm not maybe being very articulate but they can talk about the contract because something is going to be public coming out of this. Jeremy, I guess this is actually a point of order. What, what is the question that we have before us is it to review and approve the language of the contract or the MOU, or is it to discuss whether it's a good idea for us to be going after ARPA funds from towns. So, the, the thing that are looking to imminently discuss perhaps an executive session is, is that we use this template. If we use this, this draft MOU contract whatever that we use that as a starting point for our contracts with with the towns should they decide to share their ARPA funds. But it's not, we're not agreeing to sign this contract with any particular towns stat. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, it does because actually the very first time I've now gone to my select board three times. The first time that I went I was asked whether I had a proposal for them, which is kind of what this MOU would would do. And they were anxious to see something in writing. I don't see anything in this writing that is in any way proprietary, or the revelation of this could put us have a substantial disadvantage. I think it's pretty clear to a lot of people that we're, we're trying to work with our towns to get some share of the ARPA funds that's coming to each one of them. I don't think that's a big secret. And even if it were a secret I'm not sure it would be a protected one. This is federal dollars. Anybody who wants eventually to know where the money has, where any ARPA money has ended up they're going to be able to get these contracts I mean they'd be entitled to them. But we're not even doing that now we're not talking about negotiating a contract or or changing something for a specific town. We're just looking at the very specific language of kind of plain vanilla document to my mind. Yeah, I, you know, me, I guess at this point I come from private sector and tend to err on the side of secrecy by default because I'm new to this. But I, I don't see anything here that I think would hinder and in fact, I think if we could point to this and say look every time we're starting from the same base point the same basis, you know, the same starting point and of course certain towns will want certain concessions perhaps to get us the amounts we're hoping for. And if that's that so be it. And of course that contract would be, you know, confidential until I guess signed, you know, with the town at which point it becomes public record anyway. I just I don't see anything here that that really concerns me about going out to the public. So we have half and half ish here. Any other, any other thoughts. Yeah, I just wanted to say that this is all it's, I'm inclined I'm leaning more towards the this isn't something we need to protect because it's a generic template that's worded in a specific way. And the idea is we're going to give it to all of our member towns to, to, or at least all the ones who are willing to talk to us about this and willing to entertain this. And it's not revealing anything about where we're planning to go. But we say we've got this generic template that this is what we're going to ask for ARPA funds from that that's that's where I'm running into I don't see why that's an issue. Okay, David. So this is not the document I bring to the town first, we better tell the town, what we're doing and why we need money and then you guys interested and then his later on if they approve something, we go for it. We don't need an agreement until they have an understanding of what we're trying to accomplish. And maybe they want to participate. I've already done that first part though. Well, not everybody has Shabon. Yeah, okay. So this, this would be like the second last step. So I think as long as we can be completely clear that this, that this is like a second last step that we need to make sure that we have some conversation first. I think probably the way to get through this is for us to have the motion and then approve it or defeat it on its merits and we'll go from there. So we may not then need to do we need to discuss this in executive session. Yeah, just to play this out if we have the motion as Ray proposed in the chat. We have the document, we might probably will get a public records request for it at some point. We provide it to the requester. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good argument in my mind. I think we just go ahead and go forward with this motion as as is without bothering with the executive session for this topic. Okay, so I see, I'll see Ray's motion and I'll take that as a second. Okay. Yes. Okay, Alan. I don't approve it but I won't go into that unless we really want to, you know, things like commas and estes and stuff. Yeah, just just send those send those to me I'll change that I'll change the template. It's absolutely nothing substantive. Is there anything so we have the motion. Is there anything substantive. I did get some other feedback about similar. Is there anything substantive that we should look at in this template. I move the motion. So our rules are procedure don't allow us to do that but nice try David. Oh death worries my sting. Okay, so we have the motion it was seconded. I'm not hearing any further discussion. Are there any objections to. Oh, I see. Yeah, Jerry. I'm just getting I'm still getting a ton of feedback from already. Okay, I just muted him I will I will unmute him when we're done with this. Okay. So the motion is to find that premature public disclosure of this would know the last thing that Ray posted. Ray for the purpose of people listening to this only audio what could you reread it please. Certainly move the governing board approved the drafts CD fiber town MOU is the basis for negotiating an agreement with towns for their contribution of our funds to accelerate the development of a high speed affordable CD fiber. Seconded. Okay. So that was the that was the motion Ray had made before Chuck seconded it. I'm going to assume that we're all good with this unless I'm hearing objections. Not hearing the objections no, no executive session necessary motion passes unanimously. Thanks for that was actually are less painful. I did hear something from already was that an objection from already. I muted him so that he could he could object if he needed to, but it was still a bit of feedback there and those feedback. Okay. Okay. So town ARPA MOU template. We're good to go. Moving on to the, the next one, the appointment of the project manager, there is. The executive committee met about this and had a had an endorsement of so this executive committee was going to endorse the recommendation of the reviewers of the project managers, the project manager candidates. Because this is a personnel issue this is the place where we ought to go to executive committee or executive session rather, I'm sorry. So, because so person and I'm going to paste this into the chat before I make the motion this time. I'm going to say pursuant to one VSA section 313 a three, I move that we enter executive session to discuss the appointment employment or evaluation of a public officer or employee. And we will make this hiring the actual hiring contracting decision out of executive session. Okay. Thanks. So that was seconded by Jeremy and to be and to be clear, this is about the project manager. The project manager candidates. I'm going to pull myself out. Okay, thanks Jerry Christian I'm sorry. Did you post did you post that into the chat. Sorry I didn't see it come up. Oops. You know what I was, I did not it did not end up where it should have gone so that was the, the one VSA that was the reference there. Thanks for catching that Christian. Okay. So, any objections to going to executive session for this topic. Hearing none, the motion passes unanimously. I'm going to ask. Let's see. Anybody who is an alternate, or not a board member to please go thanks for everybody for showing up. Definitely appreciate your, your time. Tabor, you are serving as the active. As the delegate from Marshfield in John's absence. So I would request that you, you can definitely stick around. I saw a hand up a fill. Yes, I believe I'm the voting member for very town as well. Yes, indeed. That's true. And Michael. Question why do alternates need to step out. Because the alternates are not voting members in this, in this matter and Alan, I swear that we had this conversation. Yeah, we did. So, and alternate can stay there if the alternate is the evening substitute for the delicate, in other words is acting as the voting delicate. The alternate is just hanging around, and the delegate is there and is going to be part of the executive session. The alternate has to have a specific reason to be there like the person has information that's important to the discussion. You can't just say, oh, you're here you're part of the organization come on in. Otherwise you'd have to open it up to everybody. You have to have a specific reason why somebody other than people who are supposed to be at the executive session, or an attorney. Or anybody who has important information to give. They can't be in. I found the statutory language and actually posted it to the chat. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Michael. I have a question. Would Michael be a person that would consider to have important input. You know, given his knowledge of the, you know, the fiber market in selecting a project manager. I actually think that that is a circumstance where yes, he probably would qualify as somebody who has important information to give with this. Does anyone make a motion I move that Michael be allowed to join us in executive session because of the his experience on the topic. Okay, so we will need to kind of retroactively change that will to change our previous motion because we're in executive session. Right now, we can do executive session. Because we're recording recordings on an orcas on. Okay, I declared us an executive session and asked everybody to start leaving I haven't kicked orca or stop the recording yet because we had not gone through all of the, all of the necessary steps to make sure that we knew everybody who's going to be leaving was going to be leaving. So we can retroactively say that we want to keep Michael on to to keep them in if there's no objections let's just go and say that that was the motion if there are no objections and we will, you are all the voting members here anyways, that we, we get with that. Okay, so on that note, I'm going to boot orca. Thank you very much orca.