 I'd like to call the meeting order at 6.30. Do we have additions? I guess we do. Yes. You have one? The Listers provided a memo for Santa's a day today with some errors and emissions for the Board to review. Okay. Anybody else have anything? Okay. A few minutes for September 12th and September 14th. Everybody have a chance to read the minutes I did. I mean, I'm happy to approve them as written, but I just might have no video for the day, but I have reviewed the minutes and I think they're fine. Thank you. I make a motion and we accept the minutes as written. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. That was the 12th. What about the 14th? I would approve the September 14th minutes as written. Exactly. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have it, they do have it. Public comment. Got one member of the public here? Two. Two. That's right. Two. Sure, it's all right. Yeah, I'm from the public. I'm just here to support and encourage my wonderful select board members. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I'm here on the public comment. My name is Dexter LeFafer. I'm running for state senate. So I'm here to introduce myself to the board, board members that don't know me. I live over in Middlesex on the ballot with both Republican and libertarian nomination. I'm trying to focus on making Vermont a more formal place to live. Bridging the partisan divide that exists everywhere. And just trying to promote sensible policies, especially with regard to energy, health care, environment, education. The list is kind of endless. But I think that Vermont can do better in all areas. And that's what really I'm all about, is trying to make us all better off. I have to take any questions that anybody has. I've got some campaign literature that I'd love to hand out. Thank you. Say hi, everyone. Thank you. That's it. My contact is on the card. So if you want to reach out to me about anything, find out more about the campaign, and Dexter for VT.com is the website. So info, contact, donate, you can do it all right there. Go ahead, all right. Thank you. Thanks for stopping by. You're safe. Have a good night. You too. And who's out? Yes, sir. Thank you. Did you have 51 cents? I did. Michael Dwayne. Yep. Markham Rhodes. I just wanted to put in a pitch again for the select board to publish its agendas on front porch form, even though it's not the official posting of official notices. I just think it's important to let people know that we have a select board and they're doing stuff and that they're active and there's interesting issues and there's an agenda. Middlesex publishes its agenda on front porch form. It's interesting to look at. Callus does likewise. It's interesting to look at. And Plainfield does as well. I'm sure there's other talents, but unless I'm missing something and please let me know if I am, I know it's public comment. I just don't see any good reason why our select board wouldn't publish its agenda on front porch form. Again, it's not an official posting, but I think it'd be helpful for the board and the town and the members of the town. And I know I mentioned it once before, but I thought I'd just come back and mention it again. Okay. Plain, this is something. I don't know, but I don't share public comments, not a discussion. Right. Well, thank you for expressing that. And we'll take that up at some point. Okay. Great. Not right at the moment, but we will thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Please. Okay. So that takes care of public comments. Next item on our agenda is consideration of VLCT passive membership renewal. Yeah. This is. Correct. This is us submitting an updated and essentially everything pretty much the same as last year. The only real change is as it relates to the payroll worksheet. Because as you are all aware, we have had staffing changes in the office and pay rate changes as well. And this is reflective of those changes. I just had a chance to see what you sent over. The little spreadsheet thing is this is, this is assuming a 3% cost of living. Yeah. That's just a high level estimate. Correct. Okay. Could be plus or minus that. Yep. So are we new? We'll go up just because our payroll. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It will. It's just a percentage of your. Yeah. And I actually reached out to VLCT because I didn't have any background on how the numbers were calculated on this document in the past. And sure I was including the right. Yeah. You know, who went into what markets and they confirmed all of that for me. So. This time we will have something that will show what the, what the calculation was so we can at least. So we need a motion just to renew the. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We make a motion. Finally. I'll make a motion that the board. Authorizes town administrator Jenkins to sign and submit. Renewal paperwork for the passive VLCT pass program. Second. Any further discussion. And we're going to authorize the town administrator to sign and submit the renewal paper. Yeah. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Yeah, I appear to have it. They do have it. The next thing on our agenda is a road foreman report. For a few minutes early, we could take care of the listeners. There's an omissions. That's right here. There's errors and emissions on the website. Oh, yes, it is. I'm blind. Sorry. Well, if you're out there earlier, it was a late ad because this came in late. You may not have seen it. We just need to, we just need a motion to add this to our. Okay. So they found. When eight, nine acres of land of land twice. How do you know how numbers one and two work? All they passed to me at the end of the day today. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I know it looks like the same thing. The only details I have. Parcel number, the parcel number slightly different. 008 versus 009. Now where's, where's Pine Ridge? Is that up here? Any finds? I thought it was, but I don't know. It might be part of the park. No. It's beside the park out off of Carl and Boulevard. So if you went out across from the fireworks place and went straight out. Okay. Well, that's the same size. Acres, but it's commonly owned. It sounds exactly the same sense. Except the parcel number is slightly. So maybe there's two parcels out there. Hopefully it's not another mistake. Is there a deadline? Don't know. I'm not sure what this process typically. Okay. Typically is. So I can, we can certainly have. Ask clarifying questions. Right. Well, we just don't want to have an error here. Can we have them just come in next time and explain this to us? Absolutely. Does that make sense? Sure. There may be a deadline on that. I'm not sure. I think there is. I don't know what it is. All right. So what if there is a deadline that that's before the next meeting? Yeah, our next meeting. What do we, what's our plan of action then? I think it's unlikely that there would be a deadline in the middle of October. Yeah. But if there is, I suppose we could have an emergency meeting. Special meeting. Yeah. Or we could pass it. Additional information from them that I could email to you. Is that. It's okay if it's two different parcels, which it looks like it is. It just suspicious because. Both of us exactly the same site. It could be a type of something, but you're probably it's not, but probably not. So what we could do is we could pass it just in case one of us can vote. No. So that person is authorized by parliamentary procedure to bring it up, bring up a motion to reconsider it at such a good meeting. And we can just ask them to come to the next meeting. And if we're satisfied, we just do nothing. And if we are unsatisfied, we can. Reconsider that motion. Assuming that no deadline has passed. Does that make sense? Yeah. Let's do that. Okay. Because then if there is a deadline. So I'm happy to vote no against it. Okay. Okay. So we don't have a motion yet. No one's made a motion. So that's what we need to do first. I move to. To approve the fall of the changes of assessment. To the 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 22 as billed grand list. As errors and emissions. Do you want me to. Read these. Do you want me to. Read these. As submitted by the listeners. By the listeners. It's good enough. Okay. Good enough. Yeah. I'll second it. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed to say nay. Okay. There are four eyes and one name. Please let the minutes reflect that I'm voting no for procedural reasons. Okay. Okay. That'll work. May I just ask we had someone join online. That's the title to iPhone. Could you please identify. That's me. Yeah. We can see you now. So that's. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So we took care of the addition. And we're going to move to the road foreman report. Okay. We have the floor. All right. County road project update. Yep. The contractor finished. All the dirt work today. So both types of been in and running water for a while now. And they got the slopes shaped up today and they started doing their seating and mulching. They're going to move a bunch of equipment out tomorrow. I met with. The contractor. And he was really happy with all the work. They were going to touch up a little bit of stuff in his driveway. This. A bunch of the spoil material they actually added on. Well, this, we won't call it added on to their parking lot, but got rid of it there and get it all shaped up. It was beneficial for everybody, I believe. And. The guard rails are supposed to come the middle of this month. And it sounded like whenever they had it a day where they couldn't be on a job, they were going to come and get those in. And. Meaning Lafayette when I say they. And. Up there should have everything shaped up. As far as seated and mulched. I would say by the end of this week for sure. It sounds like they're not going to be around a whole lot tomorrow other than moving some of the big equipment out. And. I met with George Wilson at the upper culvert today. He had a few concerns and we got those taken care of. So that's moving forward very well. And the paving portion of it. Has got bumped a little bit, but not that bad. If they're going to start doing a little bit of the dirt work at the end of this week. So as far as reshaping of the road, they're going to have to loosen some of it back up. So there's, I believe what I had talked to Tyson, it'll be from Vermont compost up to powder one Glenn. So over both of the new culverts. All the way up through to power one Glenn. Get that shaped up Thursday and Friday of this week. And then. Hopefully start laying down base coat a week from then. So next Thursday, Friday. Which would be the. 14th. Is that right? And then they will continue on. There'll be a little break again and they will. Continue until they finish is my understanding from. The. 19th through the 21st. How long have the culverts actually been driven over? Have they been. The second was opened on Friday. So it'll still have at least two weeks before it gets any black top on it. Yeah. I hope the road doesn't settle there. Well, there'll be your people. Yeah. This is true. They use the. Vibrating. On the boom of an excavator to set them. To come back. Yeah. It actually works really well. So they back. One excavator. And then the other one just keeps. Chasing him around. Packing it in. And it does a really good job. Nice. Could you say again what. What's that? I'm sorry. Could you. Could you say again what work you expect to be done next. This Thursday and Friday. Reshaping just putting up. Now I want to say a final grade, but getting the actual grade of the road. Meaning the slope for black top. Getting it very close to pavement. That's. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Sounds good. And. You also have in your packet. We do have to change orders. Yeah. They're not a surprise. These are the same numbers that were presented to you in April. Yeah. It's just a change order was never completed to memorialize that. So. Assuming the board. Yeah. Recognize these figures from April. We need a motion to authorize me to sign those. And then. In the warrant packet, you will also see invoices connected to these. To these change orders for 50%. And Guthrie has already approved that. Payment as well. Okay. So total amounts. 78,000 quarters. 62. Four. That is for. The. Okay. Yeah. The Morse is 142. 818. So it's a combination of the two. Flip the page over. There's a second. I think back in April, I just don't think any. I don't think anyone because the project wasn't. Him and it quite yet. Did the change order at the time. So. So this was something that we were notified of in April. Correct. Yeah. I was actually in the, I think it was the, uh, I think I did. I know. April 4th. Select board meeting. Okay. So this is what the ones that we previously discussed. Yeah. Yeah. The exact. Yeah. These increases were already discussed and presented at that time. We just didn't do the official paperwork to do the change order. Got it. So this is for. Two different sites. Correct. So. Morse and for. North of Barnes. Okay. For both. So should we do the, um, motions now or should we wait? Do you have anything else? I'm pleased with the work. I think it came out really well. I met with George. He was the only one who really had any concerns with either project. I met with him on site tonight and we went over it and they were already taken care of it when we were there. So I really don't see any problems with anyone's. Everything's look good. We've been working hand in hand with. We've been working hand in hand with. That's been great. He's been really good. He has some of the technical numbers. Timing and things like that. And compaction and everything. So that's been really good to have him on board. And. Like they, everything meets his. He was. Excited. How advanced some of their equipment was. Made the job go a lot quicker. So was he there all the time while they were doing the job? Not the entire time, but he was checking in virtually daily, sometimes twice a day. Okay. I know he checked in twice. Today. I know I saw him there tonight late. And I said, yeah, and I, what this morning, I met with him too. So he was there twice today as well. He was there. He was there. He was there a lot. Yeah. Well, that's good. Yeah. As I remember the. Stand tech that we hired to do this. Parking ride. They did a really crappy job. And I was kind of wondering. How they could do a crappy job when they were there most of the time. So. Yeah. He was there a lot. He was there a lot. Yeah. Well, that's good. Yeah. As I remember the. Stand tech that we hired to do this. Parking ride. They did a really crappy job. They were there most of the time. It's like, what's the guy doing? You know, smoking cigarettes in his truck or. You know, I wasn't paying attention. So I just was wondering how this went. You know, just because we haven't had such a great experience with other. Project managers or quality control. In the past. So it sounds like this is working out. Yeah. I asked. I asked him if he thought he would be available. Yeah. I asked him if he would be available. For assistance on the cherry tree hill. So we could at least start talking about that. Cause that project will happen in. June of 23. So the very end of this physical year. Okay. The grant project. So I don't know if there's room in there or not. Well, Was the town. So. Yeah. I'll make a motion. Motion that the. Case. I asked down Administrator Jenkins to sign the two change orders. One is for Morse Farm on the culvert there or $142,800 and $18. And site to. The north of Barnsrow $478,472. That I will second that with a specification that those two prices listed are the new. Adjusted contract prices. And not the amount of the change. We have a second on that. Yes. All your second? Yeah. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have, they do have it. And then the next thing we're gonna consider is it winter roads policy? Were there any? Well, we're having a general discussion with Guthrie about road conditions. I'm just curious Guthrie, what your assessment is of how the detour traffic has been? It's been pretty good for the most part. I'm glad it's over. That week of drizzly rain virtually every day was not in our favor for having the volume of traffic that we had on our detour work through it. And everyone, I think everyone was, once they started doing the detour, I think they were fine with it. I did get feedback as animal control officer from someone who was walking on the East Montpelier trail that has a trailhead on center road, who grew up in town that's in Montpelier now and she'd lost her dog that day. But one of the things that really shook her up besides losing her dog was the speed of all the traffic going by the speed and the amount of the traffic. But I told you that was a temporary situation, I thought. Deed has been a consistent complaint across the board lately. Just when people come into the office and even just general conversation. It's, we can't quite figure out what's happened, but it just feels like everyone has sped up. So it's just an issue that a number of people have commented on. Okay, not just in areas that are hit by the detour traffic. Correct. Okay, and not just on center road. Yeah. Has a state police been in town? I haven't noticed that. What's that? State police been in town? Haven't seen them. I saw them earlier this year down here and where the gravels rubbed a lot down there a couple of times. It's on my list to take a look at what our expenditures have been. Cause you know, we pay for Vermont state police when they're here, but if they're not here, they only go while we're not really paying an hourly rate for them to be here. We're also not getting that support. So Washington County actually stopped into the office one day related to something going on at the school. And I spoke with them and it's kind of on my mind to, I don't, you know, discuss what other options we may have to increase law enforcement presence if that could help, but little outside of this conversation, but it's, yeah. We might be able to call them and ask them maybe to go up right up. Yeah, they said they didn't really have capacity just yet right now, but they were hoping to, they're trying to hire. So that's one reason I haven't rushed it because they really couldn't commit to much right now. But I think everybody is just law enforcement strapped across the board right now. So we've called them in the past but they were short of health. I just want to clarify, you say the sheriff was here? Some Washington County deputies, yeah. And did they indicate that they had some capacity to help? Not yet, but they were hoping too soon. They thought at the beginning of the year they would be able to have. It is something that is on my mind and that is on my list to bring to the board as a consideration. First, I want to get my head around what it looks like we've actually been incurring as far as Vermont State Police because I think it's important to look at the history because I think what I'm going to see when I look at kind of your over your history is we're seeing a consistent dip in the presence that we have in town. And if there is a way for us to increase that if we could leverage, I know other towns are starting to leverage both Vermont State Police and like a Washington County water birds doing it. So it's something I think that we may want to consider. So I know this is a little off topic but it does, the speeding is an issue and it's been commented on across many areas in town. Woodbury used the Washington County Sheriff's Department quite a bit and actually I think it had, well it certainly slowed me down. No, it makes you a lot more cautious. And they were pretty regular around Woodbury Lake and along 14 on that end because a lot of people would speak to there. So I thought they were pretty effective there. As long as people know. And I know Guthrie's list has obviously been stacked pretty heavy these days but getting a kind of speed bump speed table kind of I know it was on his list for Sunner Road. We had talked about one that you could bolt down and he, you know, nice thing with that it could be removed for the winner and put back down. And he kind of liked the idea of that. So it's something that will I'm sure be on his list when we get into next year. At this point now, yeah, it's getting into winter or so. Yeah. So I'd kind of like to finish up the discussion on the winter roads policy. Yes. Guthrie's here, I would value his input on that. Do you want us to put any changes on the winter operations plan? I think it worked well as it was last year. So update the dates and that's about it for me. Okay. That already we did the sidewalks a couple of years ago. We added those in and same thing. We haven't really explained. So I think it's fitting for our tax base if you want to call it that. Okay. Sounds good to me. So I think we need a motion to adopt it. I know that we adopt the town of East Montpelier to 2223 winter operations road plan. It would be. Oh, yeah. It's the right date. Yep. Perfect. Yeah, I already have things. Yeah, yeah, I'm looking. I'm like, oh, that's the right date. It actually assumes that you would approve it at the bottom of course that, you know. Yeah. Could be changed, but. Right. I'll second it, but I'm using up all my motions and then can you go home after that? I was a favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes appear to have, they do have it. And I would say we have new people who move into town and may have different expectations than what we set out in the winter road policy. So I would think, I mean, this is a long thing to post in its entirety on front porch forum. But I would suggest that, do you know, you make a post the front porch forum saying, hey, let's look for just past this and. Link to the website. Link to the place on the website and mentioned the statement on town sand and salt pile usage, just to kind of sweeten the pot saying, hey, you know, we don't have a bare road policy. Here are the limitations and what you can expect. And by the way, free sand. We've had trouble with that sand thing pass. People dug in there and they were. It's been pretty good recently. We've got it signed fairly well. So. Oh good. Cause at one point we had to tighten down on that. Cause people were going and coming in there and taking a lot of sand. And the road forum at that time wasn't happy with what the activity was. Yeah, the statement specifically refers to a few small five gallon pails or similar containers loaded by shovels. That's what the sign says to. Yeah. Okay. I'd like to move on to the discussion of the charge point level to EV Charger. Are you all done? Guthrie? Yeah, I'm also. Thank you guys for your time. Thank you. Thank Guthrie. Have a good evening. Maybe you can put their policy on along with the agenda for the selection. Sure. There's gonna be a lot of stuff here, but sounds good. Let's see. Okay. So I saw on the memos, the charge point level to EV Charger discussion. Where are we on that? We gotta start charging. So where we are? Well, is that essentially at the end, I'm not sure of the specific date I'll have to ask Bill Powell that, but I think it's the end of November. Washington Electric no longer maintains or controls that Charger. It becomes the responsibility of the town and we have a few options with that. We could network it and basically charge, use it and charge people for using it. Bill actually doesn't recommend that. He said it kind of becomes an administrative nightmare for very little money in the end of the day. And in fact, pretty much no one's doing it for that reason because the administrative costs of maintaining that kind of negates any benefit you would have. We can essentially turn it into a dummy network, which means that people can use it if they have, and Carl can speak a whole lot more intelligently than I can on the specifics in regards to using EV stations, but essentially if they have the right card and system they can use it. And then lastly, Carl and I had actually discussed this already and there's a lot of issues with that. It rarely seems to work. So Carl and I were discussing whether it even makes sense to have it there. So Bill Powell said that if that was something, if we did want to consider removing it to let him know, because it's something we could possibly sell to someone else. But I know Carl, you were over there testing us. I'm really curious to know whether it worked for you this evening or not. So it did not work for me this evening. It gave me the same error that's been giving for the past couple of months, which is a new error. But over the five years that it's been there, I have spent a whole lot of time on the phone with ChargePoint because it would work apparently, but when I plugged it into the car, it would not communicate with the car and so they'd have to reset it to get it to communicate with the car and a bunch of assorted errors like that. So, and then for six months or more, I haven't been able to charge it at all over there. And I'm just very irritated with dealing with ChargePoint. I did a little bit of research on, because I saw an article a month ago or so about the number of broken public charging stations around the country and saw ChargePoint referenced as having a very high percentage. I could not relocate that article, but there was a study done in the San Francisco Bay Area earlier this year by somebody at Berkeley who found that on average a quarter of the public fast charging stations were offline in an area that's really interested in electric vehicles. And ChargePoint was the worst network offender with 36% of theirs offline. So I talked with Bill Powell a little bit today. He had indicated that he was going to be here at the meeting and may pop in sometime soon, but he was against taking it out because it costs so much to put it in, but that's sort of the fallacy of some costs, I think. He said it costs $16,500 to buy, but if there's a used market for it, maybe we can get half of that back. Clipper Creek is a manufacturer of dump chargers. It's just very simple. You plug it in and there's no network to worry about. And I've never had a problem with a Clipper Creek charger that I've used. If you go to a dealership, a Ford or a Nissan dealership or some other dealership where they have a charger, more often than not, that's what they have. Very simple technology. I was talking to them today about what we could put in there with dual ports and they recommended one of two different models that'd be about $1,600. So it's gonna cost some money to connect it to have something to put it on, to connect it to the electricity there to take out the charge point one. But I mean, if we can get $8,000 for the charge point on the used market, if it's worth half now of what we paid for five years ago, then we might even come out ahead. Did we pay the 16s? Well, actually, no. This is covered by a grant that went to Washington Electric. That's right. And I guess they paid the 16, but the grant paid for it. So anyway, we might come out pretty good. Carl, what does the $1,600 one look like? I mean, is it just like, I'm just picturing like a bear wire or something. That can't be it. Have you seen the ones at Hunger Mountain Co-op? Yeah. Very similar to that. Yeah. So the charge point one is hooked into their networks and there's no way you can retrofit that one to make it work better or with a different- I'm not trustful that you can. I mean, Bill and I had some trouble communicating today. So I'm not sure what he was trying to say, but at the end I was asking him, can we just set this up so that anybody can use it without a charge, without a card, without a phone app or anything. And he said he was gonna look into that and he reached out to the charge point rep here. But what I know of is over in Barrie, behind the resource there, there is one that's been there for, I don't know, since I've had my vehicle in probably five years or more before that. And the entire time it's been off network. So it's a charge point one, but it's off network. It's not on the charge point map, I don't think. And much of the time you can use it anyway, but you have to have either your charge point card, your RFID card or the phone app to make it work for a while. It was not working with the card, but it would work with a phone app. The last time I was there, it wouldn't work with either of them. So it's just a pain in the butt, whereas the Clipper Creek one is just simple. You have to, you know, at the Nissan dealership, they have a circuit breaker that is connected to, turned off when they're not there and they have that box locked, so it doesn't work then. But as long as there's electricity to it, it works. But do you have to pay, is there a meter device in that thing? There's no meter device. So we would have to, you know, make it basically irrevocable decision that we're going to stick by our previous decision, not to charge people for it on the grounds that the administration of it would cost more than it would bring in in revenue. Hello, Bill. Hello, Bill. And board, good evening. Hello. I know. We were just talking about the charger over there. Trying to decide what to do with it. The charge point, EV, level two, whatever it is. So you have an opinion, I'm sure. I don't. I'm here to answer questions as I can. Yeah. Well, we're just saying, it doesn't seem to work very well. So we're wondering if we should take it out. Retrofit it, mate. Well, I was wondering if you could retrofit it. I was just talking about a Clipper Creek option, Bill, that I looked at after you and I talked earlier today. There is a similar capacity charger with the dual ports for Clipper Creek that goes for about $1,600. And there'd be some associated costs to tear out the charge point one and install the Clipper Creek one. But it's cost new, about one-tenth of what the charge point one cost. And in my experience with Clipper Creek, they always work as long as they have electricity. They work. Any thoughts on that? I have no objection. It's your station in two months. There needs to be a decision. If that's your decision, I can support that absolutely. Whatever you guys want. There's no skin in the game for whack. If the usage is as it is, it's a small potato. I shared with both Gina and Carl some information about how much the lights and the parking lot use and what the relative share of the power to the charger at this point is de minimis. So whatever you wanna do to lower your cost of operation, I think it's a fine idea. And I have no objection about Clipper Creek. It's a fine product. So the $690 fee, if we keep that, that's what's gonna cost us. I would need for it to work. That's the charge. That's the charge. That's if we want to charge monetary. Oh, I see. We charge people money to use it. So if we just kept it there. But. Do we have any records as to how many people use it or how frequently it has been used over the years? Nothing that I am aware of specifically. There's a dashboard that collects those data, but I haven't been on it. So I can just estimate. I would say sharing today with Carl and previously Regina some data from March, April and May, the three earlier months this year, I would say it probably had a half a dozen, maybe 10 cycles over three months. Probably 80, 60, 80 kilowatt hours. That's a guess, but it's de minimis compared to what the rest of the lighting, what the rest of the use in this park and ride is. Not very much. Yeah, well, it might be used more if it worked. Right. I was just about to say it's also tough to gauge and I think that's when Carl and I spoke to, it's tough when it's not working. Right. I don't know. That would frustrate me if I were driving through and saw that and then pulled in and it didn't work. And the other thing you should think about is the future. Exactly. That we're gonna have more electric vehicles and people will be using it more. Yeah. So we got to think about that. Yes. So I think we should have one that works easily. I think we should get rid of that. What is it? Pay me ass, excuse my English and get one, like you said. I think that makes sense too. That's to me. Yeah. Why would you keep something just like rusting out in the element? Well, it's not probably not rusting out, but it doesn't work very well. The history that Carl has given us is they don't work well across the country. Historically, they don't work well. So if we can get rid of it and then pull one in that works, I think that's a good public service. Yeah. I mean, as yet, it's kind of acting as a coat wrap or something like literally it's just standing there. Nobody's been able to. But in this age of increasing use of electric vehicles and climate change, et cetera. We really should put something in that works and look into the future. Yeah. I mean, that's just the way it should be. So that's what I would support. I guess not today. No, I think before we make a motion, we should have a more specific proposal. I do too. So who's going to do that? I guess I could work with Dave Roberts is the guy who's in charge of drive electrospermont, which is in charge of promoting electric vehicles. I reached out to him after Dean and I talked, but he was away on vacation until today. I didn't want to bother him on his first day back. So I will give him a few more days and then reach out to him and figure out the best way forward. I guess if we're going to have work done there, I guess electrical work, we wouldn't go to the road crew with. We would have to find our own contractor before. Yeah, okay. So it's a parking ride, but elect my average contractor. Yeah. Absolutely Seth. Glad to help if I can provide some contacts locally. I turned to our neighbor, Dan Cowan, who is usually very, he's a very aware of Clipper Creek and other products. So I'm sure he'd take that on. And we should look at it and see if we can get that thing taken out and what it's worth. Right. Right. Savage value put that towards, like you said. Yeah. But basically I was looking at it tonight and I think the best thing to do is to take out the existing one and put the new one in exactly the same place. Oh yeah. Just in terms of where it is in relationship to the parking spots. And also there are two nice posts there that are set up to prevent anyone from driving into it. Oh yeah. We want them out at the same place. Yeah. That's just roughed over and it's cheaper. Yeah. So plus you're already connected to the tower there. Yeah. Right. Okay. That sounds good to me. Okay. Sounds great. So I will. Anything else Bill? No, just let me know if I can help. I'm glad to talk through Gina if that works, but otherwise I'm glad to stand by. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So are you okay to move ahead? Capital Reserve Fund discussion. I think I've heard some rummlings about two people that want to talk about this. And I'm going to tell you right now you each have seven and a half minutes. And then that's it. You've already used up like two of our minutes. I did not use two minutes. You have a really bad timer. So I will remind you of that. Just quickly, we had a meeting last week was it? And there's a couple of things that came up and had Gina had put in an application for an application survey. For what it's called. Whatever. For doing some requests for doing some work and using capital reserve money. We're doing some work in here painting for office furniture, just kind of making some improvements to the office. So I don't want to forget that. So we need to talk about that. But the committee asked me just to come in and just mention to you that, we've talked about the town garage. We talked about the town offices. We haven't done anything really yet. And so I just made a list of things here. So we should start the planning process for replacement of the town garage and the town office. I think we need to determine which one is a priority. The garage. Yeah, but I just need to know why. I think people out there would want to know why. Well, they can hardly even fit it. Right. That's why I'm asking. That's true as well. My head goes number one. I'm in this office every day. So I mean, while this office may be a little tight, I think with some new furniture and just giving this office a little TLC will carry us well into the future. The garage I view as a public safety. You know, that crew is what's keeping our town and our roads safe. And right now what they have, this doesn't really meet their needs. So that's why I say that I believe the town garage as for the resident and town administrator. One of the reasons that's replacement of this has not been a priority. It's just working. And also because it's significant cost to replace it. And we're paying the bond on the fire station. So while I've been on the select board as long as I have, we've talked about it, but we haven't really, you know, hey, we've got a big bond to pay off over there. Just not rushed things. This is working. The town garage we've discussed in, I'm happy to be part of that discussion, but it's too small. The equipment's bigger. They have more equipment. It just doesn't serve the needs very well. So we've also got this lot down here that we'll be acting on. And that could be part of the town garage network of buildings. So there is a lot to talk about. So the issue with town garage, we don't know where it would be. We don't know where we find, if we use town land or if we have to purchase land somewhere so we don't know what that cost would be. We don't really have an idea how big it would be to bond, but somebody had to throw that number out. And I was thinking that maybe it's time to recharge the town garage committee and sit down and actually get some milestones, put together some dates when you'd have it, some of this planning done. And, you know, first of all, you got to figure out where you could possibly have the place, build the place. But we didn't envision moving inside the building. We did envision doing some work at the site. So, okay, but that's just, do you think that we could put together the committee again and then come back with a report? Yeah. And with some ideas of where the location might be, if you choose to have it at the same location, how you would work around building a new garage when you're storing your equipment and everything when you have the new, the old garage gone, theoretically, that sort of thing. They can build a garage pretty fast, you know. Yeah, I know. We can do it at the time of year when you wouldn't actually have to have a garage. There's work around. I built a, in Harvard, I built a 25,000 square foot shed and we had a lot of generous construction to it. And they had it done in a couple of months. Yeah. So, it was easy. The committee that we had on the town garage, I got through myself and two other site board members and both those members aren't on the board anymore. So, it was just Guthrie and I are last. So, we'd have to get somebody else on the committee. Okay. So anyway, so then I agree. I think I agree to the town office is to wait. The town office would be one way would be easier because you already have a site and you can do an engineering study to figure out which, you know, for water, wastewater permitting and just get that underway. But I don't think you necessarily have to do it right now. I think it's probably more important to do the town garage and maybe look at coming up with a plan maybe in the spring. Yeah, we can do that. I mean, yeah, I think that it'd be very quick to get to the engineering part of it. And that's kind of where we were at before. Then you got to go to an engineer or something like that. And that was kind of cost some money. I guess, you know, one of the options is after money would qualify for that. But I don't know if that's something we want to use it for. I'm just putting that out there. And I had thought, I think I'd put in here to do potential reusing our funds if possible. But we also talked about either doing an actual set aside in the capital budget for the town garage replacement, maybe even for the town office replacement, even if it's just a normal amount of money, but put some money in there. And I don't know what else was gonna say about that, but that's what I would recommend that we do. Or they said we could use the opportunity fund money. But if you do use the opportunity fund money, there's nothing really allocated for it. You have to go in and grab it, take it, where if you could set aside some money and start setting aside some money, you'd have that earmark for that product. It would be likely it would stay there. But the amount of money could be used for the engineering side. Right, so what's- So that's just one of the options that we can put out when we do the survey or whatever it was. So how do we move forward for that? The garage, we have to get some people on the committee. I mean, I'm willing to be on it with God 3. You have to have God 3 on it. I'm willing to do it, but we just don't have anybody else. There's just two of us that are left from that original committee. And we went out there, had a couple of meetings, skipped some ideas around, that's as far as I'll end. I hate the volunteer. You don't have to. I don't want to like every committee, they're really on the front page. Can we start with one edit though? Yeah, I know. I mean, what's your experience with it? I mean, do you see what this is? It's such a natural fit. Oh, thanks. We just had to go up there. I mean, basically it's almost at the engineering part. We just, the real important thing is to find a spot. But you're saying that you, we'd have to say, okay, we're going to build it right where it is, but tear it down. That was my impression when we talked about it, but my thought was, we need to do something with that fire station up there because that's kind of right there. And I'm like, can the fire station come down? That's what I'd like to do. Well, see, there we're already starting to get some answers here, some ideas. Well, we can go up and look at it. Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah, so the committee should go up there and talk about that. We already have, but we need to talk about it. Okay. So we probably won't make any decisions on the set aside for that, but we need to keep, we need to have this thrown back on the agenda again so we can talk about either using the opportunity fund, using opera money, or having an online item set aside for each one of those projects. Yeah, we can't really use opera money until we get to go ahead from everyone to what we're going to use opera money for. Right, right. And that's a little ways away, but we miss notch. So are we going to go up in front of the porch forum and ask for volunteers for a town garage committee? We could. Sure. I think you'll get any nevels. I don't know. I'll help you with what you want. Help me what? Put it on the front porch forum? No, I'll help you. I'll be on the committee. So if you three of us, that's all we really need. That's it? Yeah, our numbers are better than you need. You can't go against me. Exactly. One thing that occurred to me with Bill Powell right here is in terms of taking down the whole thing and reconstructing it, the WEC equipment shed is just right down the road there. And I have never been there or except during annual meeting when they have cleared everything out. So I have no idea how near capacity they are. They might be completely full, but it might be worth checking in with them to see if they have bays that could be used for some of our equipment during garage reconstruction. He's on the facilities committee for Central Moss Always District too, and I'm on the committee with him. Yeah, okay. Well, let's first have a meeting up at the town garage. Yeah. I agree. And then we'll get an action plan together. Okay. And there's one other thing we need to talk about though. We want to, it's up to Cycord if you're going to reallocate money from the capital fund to do some maintenance items here and make your maintenance items. Okay, wait a minute. I want to ask you about that because if we have money in there for maintenance. The 19,000, you think that's enough to do what you want to do? Is it 19 or 29? 19, right? It was, there was a budget in 2022 to spend 19,400 on this building. And what? Nothing was done. Right. Yeah. All right. So if, can she over-expend that or we'd need to allocate some more money for that? Oh, I don't know how much we're talking about. The meaning is a lot. It costs you a lot to have things on these days. Depending on what you do. We're getting furniture quotes, Jess is working on that now, that she's on board. Honestly, that's mostly been challenging just to find people to get new numbers. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds pretty good. Yeah, that's what we'll plan to do as it relates to. And see this kind of over-expand if it does and we can reallocate some funding to that to help out with that. So you're saying there was a budget item for the FY22 annual budget or that that was not used? Correct. Yeah, it was in the capital plan. I thought it was money over here. That was funny. I don't know if it was said, there could be some every year. Yeah, every year. It disappeared to be money that it was intended to be spent in 2022. Okay. Was it in the 2022 budget itself or was it in the capital plan with a notation to spend it in 2020? It was in the capital plan with a notation to spend in 2022. Okay. I thought it would be accumulated over a few years because I thought it was like $3,500 a year that was put in there. Yeah, 19 grand. Yeah, but 19 grand is because it hasn't been spent. Right. So let's spend it. Okay. This report appeared to be like it was planned expenditures for. Yeah. It wasn't necessarily the accumulation. It was an intent to spend. Which is why the external auditors actually questioned what was planned that didn't happen. It's the same budget that's in for paving, for road work. That's earmarked. I'm picturing the town plan. I just don't have, or in front of me or not the town plan, the annual report. Yeah. So the auditors had questioned what that was and there was really no plan for what to be. They do that because they want to know if you know what you're going to do with that money. Yeah. They came up with that. There was never an A's discussed since paying $19,000 last year for this year or whatever it is. No, it's probably accumulated. It's accumulated. Yeah, I know it is. I know it is because we're putting a certain amount in every year. And it was only $3,000 or $4,000. And we just haven't spent it. And it's a note, I think, in there about what it could. We did spend some money on the heat pump, though. Right. That was part of it. Yeah. So let me state, if I may, my understanding of the relationship between the budget that the voters approve each year in March and the capital budget. So I understand that we've got the separate fund of money, the capital fund. Yep. And that has milestones for when we should be spending on what things in that plan. It's a plan. It's a plan, yes. And that dictates how much we ask the voters each year to put into the capital fund. But when it comes to actually making the expenditures from the capital fund for those projects, we don't put that into the annual budget and ask the voters that year to approve it. We just, they've already approved funding, the capital fund, and we can make the decision to spend in 22 or 23 or 24, $19,000, for example, on improvements here. We're not held to spending that amount of money that year. The plan is a tentative plan. We can't spend that money. It's just like the paving. We just put that much money in the paving thing every year. And that's a way to keep the tax rate consistent without these big spikes and costs, which is always a consistent amount that we put in it, which has worked really well. So that, right. And that's what slack boards do, allocate funding. Well, wait a minute. Not all slack boards treat capital expenditures the same way. Oh, I know that. Right. Some of them vote, bring it to the town's people, the town meeting, to vote for a truck, to vote for this and this. This is just a different way of handling that. That we have a capital plan, they voted to put the money in the capital plan, and they know that we can spend it on XYZ. So that's just the way that we're doing, right? I don't know how hard we're doing it. They don't set aside money to buy trucks every eight years to buy a random truck with cash. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've done, we're doing for 10 years. And that's the same thing. Yeah. Good towns do set aside money. Yeah. So you don't have to borrow money. And then you can use that money to gain interest and help even out all the big spikes. Right, because you're not gonna go after a half a million dollars one year and $50,000 next year. Right. But you've got the money already there. Yeah. And this is where we come up with a new plan and we can afford to pay because we've got the money already there. Right. We've got the money which they did years previous. When I got the spec before that, they had been borrowing money. Yeah. They've got a bond. A bond for everything. For the people. But now we have a better plan. That's what we do it. I agree with that totally. Yeah. So anyway. Whatever that means. But we still have a few more minutes to talk about the capital planning. We haven't heard from Gina for a long time. I don't really have an excessive amount to say. I mean, what we're wanting to do to the office is simply make it. Yeah. More comfortable for essentially this current staffing plan. This office was not designed for the staff that's in it today. So we're working on ideas and getting some numbers to bring some plans and whatnot to the select board to see what we can and can't do. And this is where the select board can help guide me on that process of using these funds. So you just need to come with us to come forth with us with ideas and dollar signs attached to us. Mm-hmm. So we welcome that. Very welcome to that. As a side note as it relates to ARPA, I have had some conversations with the ARPA rep, Katie Buckley, with the LCT. And she said, I'm just throwing this out there for you all. But sometimes one approach they're kind of taking is she said that sometimes they're taking the approach that the select board was elected to make decisions on behalf of the town. There are certain things. She said especially there's a lot of money being spent on town facilities right now. She said that there are needs that have been on the back burner for many towns over many years. So the select board's kind of taking their ARPA funds, taking a portion of it and saying, we know these are things that we need to do for our town infrastructure. So we're gonna put this to the side and say this is going to help fund town office, town garage, improving the town's infrastructure. Then we're going to go out to the general public with this bucket of money and solicit ideas. So I just wanted to mention that to you all that that's some feedback that I've gotten that was suggested to mention to you that maybe don't consider it as its entire bucket, similar to CD fiber. We could shoot a thrill when I told her we carved out funds for CD fiber. And she said, that's exactly what I mean. She goes, you know, the board knows there are things that need to be done. She goes, the fact is a lot of your town residents, they may not, they may never even step foot into some of your facilities. They've never been in the town garage. They've never been in the town office. She goes, they're probably not the best people to make the direct decision of that's where the money needs to go. She said, that's what your select board knows what the town's infrastructure is and what those needs may be. Then you go, she said the vast majority of it, of course is going to be essentially put out to gain ideas from the general public of what they want to do. But, so I just wanted to mention that to you that that was, seems to be the way some towns. That's kind of how I feel about it. But, you know, I don't think everyone select board feels the same way. So I was just, I like the idea of the town facilities. It's a chance to get some money that we ordinarily wouldn't have to put it in our town facilities, which we already know we need. Like the town garage needs it. That's our biggest facility in town that needs desperate. So that's, but, you know, not everyone feels the same way. That's where that, I agree. So anyway, so we don't have to discuss the capital fund because we're right on time. I lost the time. Why you're joking here. I don't know about that. He really is. It's probably your neck doesn't turn. Anybody else? We can't reserve discussion. Okay. Regional planning, transportation, advisory committee town representative. Who's that? Frank Pratt. Oh, Frank. Yep. Came and spoke with me last week. And he has decided that he would like to step away from his role as a town representative on the regional planning, the transportation and the transportation. I haven't, other than getting that information with him, haven't done anything with that. He was going to email. His contact there. You know, and I think it was a sheet. Know that, that he would no longer be participating. So I'm coming to the board. I don't honestly know what this particular committee does. And before I started digging, I thought I would bring this to you tonight and get your thoughts and ideas. I don't really know what he has either. I know he was the representative, but I don't really know what he does. Can anybody. Well, I know that when we were doing talking about the intersection and this and that. Frank was pretty active in. Representing the town. To the state when we're doing that plan. On the intersection. But. I think they helped with long range planning. And I think it's important to have someone. Representing the town to look out for the town's interests. In terms of planning and funding. So that's kind of a general. That's my general understanding, but I think it's an important position. And I definitely think we'd want to get someone into replace. Him who has energy and interest in it. Yeah, I agree. The central Vermont regional planning commission. Puts together a regional plan, which is intended to tie in with the town plans in the area. And transportation is. One of the areas of the regional plan. And it's pack. Advises on the content of that part of the regional plan. So yeah, I agree with Judith. We should have someone who represents our interests. So. Does Frank have any ideas about potential replacements? Because you says here, T. A. Jenkins is best point potential replacements for. Oh, not with Mr. Pat. So he's got no ideas. And then my next steps would be to essentially reach out. He did give me the last packet of paperwork that he had from the last meeting. So I was planning to find a contact there, reach out to them. See what kind of information that I can glean about what the committee does and then go to front porch forum. And. You know, but I think it's important to, I need to be armed with a little bit of information before I do that. Do you feel sufficiently. Not yet, but I will go get some information. Because, you know, of course, people want to know what exactly this is doing. Well, how many times a year do they meet? I mean, what's the deal? And the person would have to be a town. Resident. I would assume. And how many meetings a year. And that's all the information I would need to go get before attempting to put anything out on front porch forum. Do you think Frank would be willing to write up a post saying, here are the wonderful things you can do in the pack. Possibly. I don't know. Can you ask him how many meetings a year? Well, that's, I mean, I can reach out. I was going to reach out to the committee directly to get some information. Yeah, you have a committee. No, I have the packet that he gave me. So I haven't really had time to dig into it. But I do have the packet of information. Okay. So maybe give us some more information. The next meeting. And then we can discuss it. That's for. It's not, I don't think it's very often. No. I think we need more information before we can advertise the front porch forum. Whatever. Yeah. That's what we need. Good. Okay. Discussion on health insurance option. Boy, didn't take all up. I don't think it's very often. No. I think we need more information before we can advertise a front porch forum. Whatever. Yeah. That's what we need. Good. Okay. Discussion on health insurance option. Boy, didn't take all up. 19% right? Yeah. 19.72%. Yeah. Usually somebody does. They laid it out there and gave us a nice church. So it's not. Yeah. We've had them. I do it. My farm too. I reached out to. We just went straight right to the. Great to the. Fender. Yeah. Really? Yeah. And, and, and usually take whoever provides the best deal. Well, that's what we have too. Yeah. It's like the same. It looks like pretty much the same, but they must charge a little bit for doing something. Do they handle the cake? The claims. They charge me anything, but I don't know. Do they handle the claims? No. They don't do anything, but just give you the numbers. And then you pay them. I don't think that. We didn't. Directly. Maybe they're just helping you guys out as a service. Oh, good. That's when they help me on my insurance. I have on my farm employees. We just call them up and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. I'm just wondering. Yeah. They're paid by the. Insurance company. So. MVP is still a slightly better deal. I read the minutes and the memo and whatnot from last year. And it seemed like a lot of comparisons were made against blue cross and blue shield. Of course, everyone at this point is on MVP. Yeah. So I'm bringing this to you now. It technically came to you last year at the next select four meeting, but I'm bringing it now because obviously the, it has increased quite a bit. So I really don't know how the board. Wants me to proceed. What information do you need? What. How would you want to look at this? Cause again, when I read through everything last year was just comparing back to blue cross and blue shield, it was really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We usually have a packet and it's got a few pages of different plans. A silver plan, a broad plan. You have that here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we had it for each vendor. So it'd be blue cross. Yeah. That's what we've received. Yeah. And that's what's in your packet for tonight. So. You know, we're on, we're currently on the MVP. We're on the standard platinum because it's a, they have a standard plans and non-standard plans. We're on the MVP standard platinum plan. It is going up. Just under 20% from one year to the next. Last year. The motion was written that. The town was paying essentially the MVP. I think it was written was covering the MVP plan, which was 92% of the costs of the blue cross and blue shield plan. And that's the current stipend. This year that's now 98%. They're almost neck and neck at this point now. The current stipend last year was set as it said, it was 50% of the blue cross and blue shield, but I think that was a typo. It was actually, I think 50% of the MVP plan. Cause that math works closer. So the current stipend is $4,869. Applying that same math to this year, it would be increased to $5,822. That was the first time we adjusted the stipend in years. We did that because we thought it was more fair. I don't, I think Judith was against that actually. You were, because you didn't think that we should be giving a stipend. Not trying to put you on the spot. I was just, we, this is the conversation I want to be having because I, I honestly started to delve into this a lot. And I was looking at it this weekend and pouring over it. And thinking if we go to the gold plan and have people pay if they want to go to the platinum, but the problem that you get into with that. Yeah. It's, it honestly becomes a wash for the employee in a lot of cases, you know, because to go to the gold plan. They're still paying because now they have to pay more to hit the deductible. Right. Out of pocket maximum increases dramatically. Right. So that's why I just needed guidance from you on what is your typical approach is, you know, last year, I think you only went up about one. It was one and a half percent. So we're in a different situation this year. And I was initially approaching this from a corporate view, which is not how we tend to approach things here. So I just paused and wanted to hear what you had to say tonight. Yeah. So I would say what we've done in the past is. We have tried to offer as much choice to the employees as we could, while setting things up so that it was very clear to us which choice a person would probably want to make, but not force them in to do it. So they have the choice of MVP version of Blue Cross. They have the choice of the various levels. Last year they were not given a choice of levels in the memo that I found. They were given the choice of MVP Platinum or Blue Cross and Blue Sheopat Platinum and paying the portion. The memo that Bruce actually provided was highly limited. No. Yeah. That's correct. Okay. In previous years, then my memory is that we've said, we will pay this amount. And you know, you can choose a lower price option, but that's your choice. Maybe we decided to take a further hand last year. It sounds like. Well, his memo, I actually have it. Yeah. His memo only provided that they had two options. And that sounds like more reasonable idea. Judith was trying to say something. Just looking at the comparison doesn't compare the benefit to Blue Cross Blue Shield to MVP. It compares MVP existing to the renewal option. I'm wondering, or maybe I missed that. I'm wondering if we have, I know we have separate kind of an outline of MVP. And then a separate, one for Blue Cross and Blue Shield, but not a side-by-side comparison. And that might be too difficult. Yeah. This is the way it was provided last year as well. I think to do that comparison you're talking about would be made able to take these two. Put them against each other. Are you talking about comparing Blue Cross Blue Shield. And two MVP this year. So Platinum MVP. Yeah. In terms of the benefit, not necessarily the cost. Cause that's right. I'm trying to recall last year. I know that MVP probably made more sense because it was. Well, it was measurably less expensive. And I think that we, you know, maybe we're satisfied that the benefit was comparable. But I, I haven't looked at the benefit. I haven't compared the benefit yet of MVP. What, whether or if the renewal option to Blue Cross Blue Shield, just because MVP now is so much closer and cost to, you know, it's 98% of Blue Cross Blue Shield and Blue Cross Blue Shield much more expensive. And I think that we, you know, maybe we're satisfied that the benefit was comparable, but I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. Blue Cross Blue Shield and Blue Cross Blue Shield might be better. I don't know. I haven't done that comparison. I would just. Want to give the best bang for the buck. To our folk, whatever that is. I don't know what that is yet, but. I can ask it. If they have anything that does that. Well, we've done that. We did that last year. We looked at the benefits that the employee would get in each. That's what Bruce had told me. It was quite similar. And it seemed like they would not have to pay. The increased premium. It was a better bang for them. We could pay the whole thing and they wouldn't have to pay anything. And it was still less money to the town. And they were getting good coverage and they didn't have to pay anything out of pocket or as far as premium goes. So we liked doing that for them and that they didn't have to pay any premium. They were paying 10% or whatever it was. I can't remember. That's only if they wanted to stick with. If they went to. Right. And I don't think anybody did. Did they? Everybody's on MVP. Everyone's been happy with the coverage. I know. So one of the values of having somebody from Hickok and Boardman come in and have this conversation with us is that they can answer questions like the ones that Judith asked. And they can also answer. In the initial years when we considered MVP, there were pretty significant differences in the network. Right. Available. Yeah. People. And those leveled out. That's gone away. That's pretty much gone away. Right. And also she was able to tell us that. Everybody satisfied with MVP. Right. And that was valuable for us to know. So. But the other thing is that we need to think about is that in the past we've had employees pay a portion of the premium. I'm not advocating for that because I think in with a competitive. Labor. Around your needs for labor. For road crew to go to other places. Attractive for our workers to have them have us pay the premium. They don't have to pay any premium. That's a big benefit. Huge. So I'm not advocating. They pay that. I'm just saying that in the past. They have had to pay a portion of it. But I would strongly recommend that we still cover the whole premium. I think it's a great benefit. It's an expectation at this point. I mean, it's a good expectation. It's a great benefit. I urge that we keep doing it. We will keep our road crew happier if we do it. It's very tough to go back. Yeah. It's just that this is a huge increase. Yeah, that's where my believe me. I've been spending this around in my head a lot since these numbers came in. But I think the next step should be we should compare plans as you suggested. If we could have someone come up. From Hickok Boardman doesn't cost us anything. We should, we should have that discussion in the deadlines December 1st. Probably. We will keep our road crew happier if we do it. It's very tough to go back. Yeah. It's hard to go back. It's just that this is a huge increase. Yes. Understand that's it. Yeah. That's where my believe me. Yeah. I think I think it's starting November. They tell you it starts November, but I haven't really figured out when it ends. So I haven't gotten into all those questions yet, but, but yeah. So I'm looking at this blue cross blue shield versus MVP. And they do do some comparisons. I mean, then the goal plan. Individual family. I think deductible is 1400. It's 2800. And then over here. It's a first. Blue Cross is 1250. And they talk. Looking at this one hand. Yeah. I'm looking at balls comparing across. I'm looking at the standard plan. On the right side of the MVP. And I'm looking at the goal plan. For blue cross from shield. It also talks about. You know, visits to your primary care physician. And then there's a deductible afterwards. So there are some comparisons. You don't have to write all the stuff down. So there's some comparisons right there. Yeah. You can just eyeball this and go and just keep in mind that the staff has come up with. The goal plan. The goal plan for. For. Hold on here for MVP. I think it allows you to go to your primary care physician for three visits for zero cost. And then there's a deductible afterwards. So there are some comparisons. You don't have to write all the stuff down. So there's some comparisons right there. And just keep in mind that the staff is currently all on. Yeah. An MVP platinum plan. Right. Yeah. So there's also a concern that if we deviate from that plan, there is more out of pocket. That the employees will have to bear. So just keep that in mind. We are theoretically starting to charge them. Yeah. So it's just we changed the plan. It's just a set up differently. They have their comparisons. It's there. Yeah. So it's a standard plan. Yeah. And it's just on, on Blue Cross Blue Shield and then MVP. All right. It runs down the side. This way. So yeah. But there are some major comparisons there. If you want to look at. You have that. Yeah. No, I'm looking at it now. I just. Yeah. The standard plan is what you're looking at. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm interpreting this correctly in light of our previous conversations about this. I think what this is saying is that. The benefits for both MVP and Blue Cross. For platinum would be the standard one, according to the exchange and for the gold, it would be the standard one according to the exchange. And then it's only the rapes that we need to compare, but I would, I would want to get Hickok and boardman's confirmation of that before making decisions on that basis. Yeah. It's a little bit different, but not major, not major differences. The PC being able to go to primary care position three times without having a co-pay is pretty good for people. I mean, it'll only be $60 for three. This is, but still that's a pretty good. That's not a bad deal. And that's MVP. I think both of it. I think these are both. MVP. This is platinum on the left. It's gold on the right. Yeah. My interpretation is that it's for both of them. Yeah. No, but I'm comparing. No, I'm comparing. No, I'm looking at this, but I'm comparing a different page. I'm comparing the MVP across. With the same headings that would be for. Blue cross. Comparing directly to blue. Blue cross. Provide. What are you saying? You pay for urgent care. So that's comparing what does MVP platinum? Yeah. Right. Yeah. What did you're out of? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it goes up and down for the other one. But you can isolate each number. There's some wins or some losses. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. Somewhere exactly the same, but. Yes. So if we want to have Hickok and Boardman come in just to reassure us about what we think that's a good idea. They're getting their brokerage sheet. And then we can make a decision. And it is. It's a big swallow. I mean, that's what states getting free one about it now. Yeah. No, I heard of that. Everyone in the state. Yeah. It's not like we're the only one. No, no, I know. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well. Okay. We need more information. We need to think about it, but I don't know what we can do. Besides just. Wow. Yeah. Let's see. Discussion on town management by the COVID-19. We have anything new to offer. Carl. Gina. I'm just, you know, put the usual CDC community level tool information saying that Washington County is at the low level with a case rate of 48 per 100,000 population. And I'll do my usual thing of comparing it with the, the old school methods, the community transmission method. And that shows that Washington County is at moderate levels of transmission. And the number of positive tests. All over Vermont is a high substantial or moderate. But this is with, you know, very few people taking the PCP tests that get reported. And it's based on the test positivity rates. The number of positive tests. And so nobody knows what the real numbers are positive tests out there. And the number of positive tests as we see here, but you know, not nearly as many people are going to the hospital based on a positive. The new vaccine. And people are very resistant to wearing masks and are being forced to wearing masks. So. I don't see that we have tools to work with here. People are vaccinated. Yeah. I don't see that we have tools to work with here. So that's what we do here. It's just passing away there. People have a huge. So how many people in the hospital? And say, Intensive care. I see you. In Vermont. Yeah. I mean, that's a relevant figure. Right. I don't know. But this is nationwide is mostly people are unvaccinated. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. Because they get older. Yeah. And I'm back to me. Yeah. Yeah. The way they do it now, you need to dive into it. Weekly surveillance report to get that information. That's why I haven't seen the figure in the paper. But naturally, the last number I saw was around 400 people a day are dying of COVID still nationwide nationwide. So it's the number three or the number four cause of death. Okay. We have warrants signed. And. We have one to look at. Those are hospital admissions are 4.4 per 100,000 population. For four. Again, Carl's point, it's kind of tough to really gauge. They changed the metrics. Is it clear is that for a week? Yeah. Percent staffed in patient beds in use by patients with confirmed COVID-19 is 1.9%. So I guess of all people in the hospital, then just under 2% are actually in. With confirmed COVID cases. And as I've been saying, even with that. You don't, are they there for COVID or for something else? And they happen to have COVID. Right. So. Right. So the good news is it appears the vaccines are hopefully working. Yeah. So I guess the only hope we can take. And masks. And masks. Right. The. Have I mentioned the contradiction here? Yeah. Everyone had to wear a mask. Yeah. Everyone has to wear a mask. And since April, we've been doing the most dangerous activity that you can really do during an airborne pandemic. And we've asked people to give their contact information and let us know so we can let people know if there have been any. COVID tests positive very soon after the counter dance and up until this last dance on Saturday, there were none with two or three dances a month since April. There have been two since Saturday's dance, but one was the next day. So it was probably not something that he got at the dance. And the other was this morning, just still a little quick to be getting symptoms from having gotten it at the dance. So it's still, we don't have any evidence yet that anybody has gotten it at the dance. With masks. No evidence that's a super spreader than. Yeah. All right, so what are we doing? We're going to watch. I'm just passing around. Just a moment. I went to just look more. Here you go. This is two of them here. I think it's just one. One sign. One was already done. The one I signed. Yeah. This is the one that needs to be signed. This is the October 3rd. Yeah. Because it was the October, September 22nd. Yeah. Now one is on the website. And that one's that. Yeah. Okay. We're running up against some due dates. Yeah. The only thing that's left is a personnel matter. I can see. Yeah. Just so everyone knows the DRB meeting for tomorrow. Is canceled because there was one application and it was withdrawn. So. Okay. So, um, and then town fair is Thursday and Friday of this week. So Michelle, Michelle and I are going. So, um, just, and I do have notes, by the way, they all attended their treasurer and town folks conference. I do have notes from them that I will bring to you with the next meeting. Okay. This is the one I saw. They were. Okay. They were actually quite excited. Just was super excited and apparently embarrassed them a few times and they were like, Oh, my God. I'm not raising your hands a lot. Asking all sorts of questions. So she was super stoked about it. So. So I will not. I'm only going. It was pretty cute. Yeah. I'm only going to Thursday of the event. So I will not. Before. Thank you. You're on. Here. You did. Yeah. I wanted to follow up on. An idea that Carl had. And I know a couple months back. And I know that the, um, Vermont league of cities and towns has kind of a. Workbook or, uh, Kind of. Information on it, the DEI training. And whether, you know, whether we wanted to bring in Susanna Davis, whether we wanted to, um, Determine if we wanted to kind of. What issues we wanted to address with that, or if we wanted to address. Issues regarding that. But I know the Vermont league of cities and towns has a whole kind of section. On their website, providing information to municipalities. Um, that might be helpful. And maybe not today, but, um, maybe in a future board meeting, we can follow up on this. And I think. Was there going to be a session on it? Um, or maybe I missed that. I might have missed. Diversity. I just wanted to kind of revive that. I'm sorry. Thank you, Carl. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That's still on my to-do list to reach out to her second time and, and talk to her about coming here. And I don't recall whether there's one coming up this week. She's been out active in various forums that I've looked at. And I don't recall if it's, it's the BLCT one. One or not. But yeah, I will. I will make that a hotter spot on my to-do list. Yeah. And maybe I can just send a link to the BLCT materials to folk from their website. Thank you. If you have that handy. That's great. And I'm going out of turn, but if the last item is something that I was supposed to do, I haven't done it. What? There's an expectation. I'm not, I'm not saying any, if there was an expectation on that, I just wanted to. Give that information. And that might inform. I don't know what. The personnel matter. There's a draft. Oh, there is. Yeah. But. I'm sorry. I haven't, I haven't seen it. I apologize. I have nothing to do. Oh, I said, I said, I said a draft agreement to you. Okay. Was that later today? I apologize. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm sorry. I can't hear you. Later today. I apologize. I didn't see that like two weeks ago. I definitely didn't see that. It's let me, let me check my spam filter. Cause I did not. See that. I got scammed. You are. Believe it. So, no, I think we're debating whether we need to go. I don't think it. Well, Can you forward it to her, please? But it's okay, we can just do it at another meeting. Yeah, I apologize, I didn't. That's why I reached out to you this morning, John. That's what it was. So. John. Yes. You look at your spam. Yeah, I'm right here in the spam. Yeah, I would need to look at my spam. I just sent it to you, Judith. I sent it for my phone though, so it may look a little. So we can get together, then we'll talk about it, but it won't be at night. That's right. Okay, you got it. That's fine. Okay, there's maybe a different motion in order. There is a different motion in order. One of my favorites. Can you handle it? I make a motion that we adjourn to nice meeting. I sent it. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That is. Yeah, pretty good. And we did a fair amount, actually. We did.