 I'm not an agent, you can run the meeting. Thank you Bridget. All in favor? Chair, aye. Okay, it is 504, calling the meeting to order. Right here, hold on. We got somebody? Oh, he does iPad. I'm having severe technical problems over in the Adirondack. I'm now here only on my iPad and I can't bring up any of the documents. We're supposed to talk about tonight so I'm going to need help. Help with a capital H. I also don't have the agenda in front of me. Do you want Randy to run the meeting? We've already nominated him and chuckered at it. That's because it's going to be a nightmare from here, I'm sorry. So we'll just carry on. We just barely called the meeting to order. We took a vote for me to run the meeting from here in your absence and then we were just... You're here now, you're trapped. Okay, I apologize to everyone but I am here now. First item on the agenda this evening is approving the minutes of May 16th, regular select board action likely. Do we have any motions to approve those meeting minutes or any revisions? Move that we accept the minutes of May 16th, 2023 regular select board meeting. You got it. Before we vote I just want to point out one clarifying point that I asked Sarah to clear up. It was just language around the boots and I don't know if folks saw the revised minutes but that was just today so I just want to call that out. It was just clarifying that it was one pair of boots up to $200 as long as they passed the standard that was previously contained in the policy and that whether road crew wanted to go with a lighter pair of boots they could or as long as they met the policy. We've got Victor made the motion Brigitte seconded all in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Good to go there. Reviewing and amending and approving the agenda for June 6th select board meeting action likely. I just want to since Peter since you're not here and you can didn't get my documents include a renewal of the dog stray holding contract with Central Vermont Humane Society they just sent it this afternoon. That's how it's amended. See ya. Any motions for approving the agenda as amended? I move to accept the June 6th 2023 select board meeting agenda as amended. I have a second. I'll second this time. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Good to go. Reviewing and approving a proposal for an upcoming townwide property appraisal action likely. We have Shelley Desjardins here representing the Listers. We had spoke a little bit about the H480 that did pass with legislative. There's a lot of kinks in it so I talked to the district advisor to make sure it's still okay to go forward to hire someone ourselves and he said yes because he thinks it's going to be a number of years before it's implemented and there probably changes before that. And as I said before when that was here with me never came in low and they're the system that we have that we use right now so it's going to be more cost savings for us to continue a number and they came in lower than anybody else and we only got one other bed because there's so few appraisers out there right now. That'd be your official recommendation to move forward with the NEMR proposal? Yeah. Okay. Does anybody have questions for Shelley at all before we try to put this to a motion? Peter you're on mute I think. Peter you're on mute Peter. I'm sorry I just don't think we have any choice unfortunately so I agree. I add that you asked me to check into how much money we had in the coffers towards this and currently we have $52,000 and this year we received about 9,000 it varies from year to year but that was this year's payment so there's $52,000 there right now so and this came in at 100 and something was it? It was 105. 105. So it's definitely going to be something that we'll have to budget extra for for the next two years probably. They had said they're making payments in 2024 if I remember right. Anybody else have any comments, questions, discussion? Okay we've got a motion to approve do we have a second? Victor seconded. All those in favor of approving the proposal from NEMR Any opposed? We are clear to approve the NEMR proposal. Sure. The board approves the money and the listers sign the contract. Does that sound right to you Shelley? I think so yeah. I'll call NEMR You don't have to designate somebody. I think that's the way it works. Okay. Meeting with representatives from Vermont Emergency Management to consider the following approving a buyout of 28 Ritz Road for $214,998 of which 75% will be paid for by FEMA funds and of which 25% will be paid for by Imagine Grant authorizing a town signatory at the June 29, 2023 closing and clarification of future reimbursements for asbestos consultation possible asbestos remediation and deconstruction action likely. I think we have Lisa here with you. Do you have any questions? Do you want to meet in emergency management? Yes. Thank you. Glad to be here. Very excited about moving this project along. Okay. Do any of the board members have questions, comments, concerns? I guess the question I have is and I've read over the I've read over all the documents that Sarah sent from and what our risk if any is would be helpful I think and good to get it into the minutes. And you do have the packet that I sent to Sarah that's been provided. Okay. So in looking at page three are there specific questions regarding the funding sources that you'd like me to clarify? So just to be clear, the problem is that I read those documents. I saw them but I don't have them up in front of me. So if you could just quickly go through that, that would be helpful for me. Certainly. Certainly. Okay. So as of this point in time, we have an anticipated total project cost of $259,100. The Middlesex has $20,000 from Vermont Disaster Recovery Fund, a federal award which the document is attached to the packet from FEMA for $179,325. And then a local match letter which is also part of the packet indicating that VEM's share of the match which is a 25% I'm sorry share of the project at 25% is $59,775 which equals the total anticipated project cost to date as of today of $259,100. Any questions about that column? Got that. Thank you. Okay. What I tried to do because Sarah was asking some very good anticipatory questions was wanting to point out which is the second column on that same page is that FEMA has already indicated in those award documents that they're anticipating potential additional $20,000 to be awarded in federal funds once Middlesex is able to get big documents or a contract from for the asbestos and the demolition. So there's already an additional anticipated increase in the FEMA funding of $20,000. Any questions on that? The only question is I believe we're anticipating that those costs are going to be substantially higher than that. Which brings me to the next point and is part of our document Vermont Emergency Management has committed to paying the match requirement and the funds needed to complete the project and what we tried to indicate in the documents that we sent is we can't just make up a number, right? So we have $8 million which was allotted for match funding through Vermont Emergency Management and we've only spent two. So we have $6 million remaining in that general fund to use for match. So we're committed to paying the match since you have an idea on how much that match needs to be in order to cover the remaining expenses of the grant. So the bottom line is, and I know we've been through this before, but you truly believe that there is no cost risk associated with this project for the town of Middlesex, correct? Correct. And again, I want to be very careful and cautious. The first step is to actually find out how much it is going to cost you. And then Sarah will turn that into us and we will increase the match by that amount. Right. And I guess the other question which came up in looking over these documents is the time deadlines that are built into the project and will we be able to meet those time deadlines? Correct. And what the process is do we need now to try and get additional time or do we start and then ask for additional time? How do we do that? Let me address that and I'll say this. The question I think the end question for the town is what happens if? And I can tell you that we've just never had a case where the project does not get completed. As far as the timeframe, we are not yet at the time when we would request an extension from FEMA because we need to have an idea on how much of an extension needs to be asked for. I will definitely answer more questions on this, but I will say that part of the ordinary course of business or a project to request additional time to complete the project. And if you'll bear with me one moment because I want to give you this date VEM has till September 1st to request an extension to that period of performance. Yeah. And so like I said and I think I did address and please if there's more questions but on that first page the demolition once we know how much more time you could potentially need to do the demolition we will ask for that extension first of all of the period to demo the building because it needs to be done within 90 days and then secondarily for any increase or advancement of the period of performance deadline. This is also not the only project we have under 4330 under this grant round so we're anticipating the possibility of asking for additional time to complete these projects. I'm just afraid really afraid that we're out looking for an asbestos abatement contractor and a demolition contractor and we've got a 90 day deadline. We don't know we haven't tried yet but I'm just anticipating right out of the box it's going to be very challenging to get somebody. I think the challenge for me is I want to I understand and I want to honor that question and I don't know how much more I can say than in the ordinary course of business this is what we do. We request this extension and it's not going to be unreasonably withheld FEMA neither FEMA VM or the town of middle sex wants to not demolish this home. I don't know if this gives you just a little bit more. We're not going to do this in this case but on prior projects going back years we were actually also allowed to ask for what's called a retroactive extension to demolition which FEMA approved. So I said we don't anticipate any difficulty with there being a an approval of any request to extend the demolition. And again if it makes you feel uncomfortable after the closing if you would rather that we request that extension and demolition immediately because that kind of gives you a little bit more a little bit more feelings of okay this is moving forward I'd be more than happy to do that for you also. I don't know how others feel. I think we can assuming we agree to go ahead with this this evening we can we can get right to work and see if we can line people up and we'll know very quickly they're telling us you know it's going to be next year before we can even look at this then we're going to be coming right back to you and saying okay we need that extension. Yeah and again I believe me I don't want to oversell anything but and I know that we live in unprecedented times but I will say we've we've just never seen that. So like I said I don't want to dismiss it all because a lot of this is beyond all of our control it's just not something that is normally anticipated happening. Sarah have you had any conversations with any contractors thus far? Because I do want to start this process until we actually went through the closing and also this closing has happened pretty fast you know we there was a delay and it didn't even go but it was 24. So I definitely have an idea of what our timeline is. So is there a reason that this closing needs to happen on the timeframe that it does? Can we go seek proposals and understand what this timeframe is? I mean so my concerns are you know the town being burdened with any cost whatsoever you know and understanding that we may receive an extension and it's probable that we'll receive an extension it's not guaranteed and if the closing moves forward and all of a sudden we do find that deconstruction can't happen within the timeframe that's allowed and there isn't an extension granted you know. I'm sorry can I interject what FEMA is not going to allow the building to stand. I mean FEMA is not going to say no now you have to keep the building. We also have flood resilient communities fund which is a state program which is always our backup to move from the FEMA to the flood resilient communities fund. So I'm sorry to interject I just I again I hear you guys and I know that that's a great concern in all of the time that hazard mitigations existed FEMA has never stopped a project and then kept the home standing in the flood zone because the intent is to remove the building from the flood zone. Any questions on that? No. My understanding is as long as we haven't accepted any money we can back out. Is that true? Like if this just turns out to be a nightmare and we can't get an extension but we haven't started the project we're not obligated to go ahead with a project are we? Not from the side of FEMA but you do have a homeowner that went out and found a new home and to back to and I'm sorry I can't tell because your names are not on the screen. This life board member who had just recently spoken to ask why the closing date because a homeowner has found a new home that she's purchasing. Well she's been sitting on her hands for what two years so I understand that. I really believe me I want this to happen. I just I just share with you that I think I just want to make sure that you understand that you're not under any of the company's concern and I remember we did what we did another project a couple years ago we had all the same concerns and issues and everything worked out fine but it's just a little scary for us I'm sure you understand we're not trying to be in polite or rude or nasty I guess the thing is where I'm coming from is we have funding for everything and we will request all the extensions if necessary and it's everybody's goal to complete the project and then we have the flood resilient communities fund which is a state funded program that would be like that last resort but I guess the bet I know you don't know me from anyone else but we're not anticipating any difficulties we have no concerns about the project where it's at or where we see it's going and we don't have any into any difficulties that we're anticipating in the completion of the project. I have a concern with this being two days from our year and that I do not want to see us in a deficit situation to end our year so this is not an approved thing that money that the townspeople have approved for us to expend any kind of money towards this so you know whatever you know if for some reason that money is not in our account come June 29th I don't think we should be signing anything if I may I'm sorry on page one I did think that I addressed that all of the 100% of the closing funds will be to the town prior to closing so you have $0 that except for there's a $13 tax adjustment which I don't want to chase that rabbit too far but if you look at page one under closing funds we've already the HUD that you have once that sign and submitted that the VM is sending you the town those funds for closing so you have no money that the town's expending at closing at all well it said that it could take up to two to three weeks I just you know there's three weeks to go from us to you all close unless you have that funds that's actually one of the services that we provide is rather than having the town see a reimbursement we actually do an advance of funds in anticipation of closing so no you would not close unless the money is there and all future expenses we have to pay up front and then we get reimbursed that is the standard course of business if you guys would like to request that we do so otherwise if you have any questions Sarah can just send us an e-mail requesting that and we can we'll need a an invoice a clear invoice and we can check with finance to see if they'll approve that that's correct that the last time we did this or maybe it's Sarah we had no trouble getting the funds that came that was before my time yeah I don't remember I don't remember a problem I just want to be clear what we what triggered Lisa what triggers the the release of the two to three week process releasing funds what needs to be signed is it anything that needs to be signed tonight by the board that's here somebody needs to sign that financial reimbursement form that will accompany the HUD and we can do that now can we do that now even though we've got a little wonkiness on the on the tax issue yep yep because that'll be handled that that's handled what we call outside of closing that allows us to go ahead and get the advanced funds so yes so just to read just as when looking at that HUD VEM is sending 100% of those funds so I'd also say if it makes everybody feel just kind of a little bit a little bit like okay who's got skin in the game VEM is sending you are 50,000 plus I'm sorry not 50% our 25% match we're we're investing that in this project and FEMA is investing the 75% so after closing if you look at it this way both VEM and FEMA actually have the money invested and we have a greater desire to see the whole project be completed I mean if the town's not releasing any money it does make it feel better that you know we're less at risk yes and again I please understand it's so hard not being there I really all these questions are good really good diligent questions I just and I want to make sure that I'm addressing everything we do this in the normal course of business I know it's easier for me to say that like I know Sarah's put a lot into this and it has been a couple years coming but from our perspective everything is happening exactly as anticipated and as it should if one thing I will throw out I can't guarantee but if the concern to our select board who brought up hey we don't want to have to like I said you can handle the closing and then once you know how much things are going to cost ask us if we would consider doing in advance of funds for it and that's an allowable practice typically it's not typical it's not typical you don't want to be the you don't want to promise anything you can't deliver you could ask for it and under the circumstances if it makes everybody feel better about moving forward we would recommend to finance that that be allowed so Lisa can I just ask another question while I got everybody here so what you would like to do is have the Department of Public Safety the hazard mitigation program this FEMS this is the one that they need to sign the 200 this is the one that Cheryl corrected the figure that we'd already spent third quarter from six one twenty twenty three to six six twenty twenty three this is the date that you sent this was sent to us the financial report she corrected a it's a a legal fee we haven't that hasn't been included in this that I was saving for the other title that was okay I had emailed her back we handled that outside of did you edit the financial reimbursement form did I just need to know is that what they need to sign tonight is this but because everything started I will edit it right now okay good very hard to do this remotely I do want to make sure for those that had concerns and questions if you still have that concern a question can we continue to discuss that or do you kind of feel better kind of seeing the whole project and how it all works together I'm all set I'm ready to go I don't have any more questions I'd make the motion Bridget did you have any questions concerns comments no I think that Randy your questions and Peter as well address everything I was thinking so I heard Victor make a motion I'm assuming to approve right correct I make the motion to approve the the buy out was it 228 Rich Road 28 28 Rich Road authorizes authorize the signatory for the closing on the 29th okay two separate motions okay Sarah yep okay so we have a motion from Victor to approve the buy out of 28 Rich Road sound like Peter seconded that yes we should probably establish the dollar amount in that motion of 214,998 dollars all those who approve actually it's $215.715 right no I have 214.998 no I'm looking at this form Lisa it's 215,728 which is equal to the amount the end will be sending the other side is what the what goes to the seller so when you look at the hood when you look at the left hand side the two 157 28 so to be clear put forward a motion to approve the purchase the buy out of 28 Rich Road 215,728 dollars Peter you still hold your second it's been moved all those in favor hi the motion has been approved we also need a motion to approve a signatory for the closing on June 29th, 2023 Peter would you say this one for that someone to sign that form tonight right they're going to be a lot of financial reporting forms that we have to go through starting now could you authorize Lisa I see this for a second signature of sub recipient authorizing official who does that have to be Lisa anyone that the town gives the ability to sign would you consider making the authorizing official the authority to sign the approval of the reporting forms as a treasurer she'll probably have to sign a check to write she'll have to sign a whole bunch of stuff Lisa is that what towns do do they make the treasurer what happens at closing you'll give one check to the attorney's office wire transfer you'll get the money to the attorney and the attorney will cut all the checks at closing but you also need to consider closing I think that the board has just authorized Peter our chair to be the signatory of those I'm talking about the financial forms going forward sorry yes yes you can have the treasurer it's kind of a normal course of business it's usually the treasurer or town clerk or town administrator is the treasurer okay with that yes I'm going to make a motion do you guys have a motion on Peter signing the all the closing documents and we need a second on that and then also authorizing to read and to sign everything yep okay thank you so let's move forward with the first motion to have Peter sign documents at the closing so moved we had Victor make the motion do we have a second Bridget all second all those in favor aye any opposed congratulations Peter you're going to sign all the documents closing we also need to move to make Dorinda an authorized signatory for any financial forms moving forward through this process so moved all second all those in favor aye aye any opposed congratulations Dorinda thanks great and I believe that that brings this matter to rest may I just say thank you very much I hope I answered all the questions even though it's moving forward I do think it's very important that you all have confidence and understand kind of those next steps so Sarah does a fantastic job of representing the town and asking the right questions but in the meantime if you guys feel we're almost done but if you guys feel like you have additional questions or you want clarification please feel free to reach out and ask okay thank you very much Lisa and I appreciate your patience and understanding like I said not a problem at all when you're not in the course of business of doing things like this there's a lot of things you're concerned about that's all I said I didn't want to be flipping it all but I'm like we're not worried about doing a great job so but well thank you all I'm going to bow out and let you get on to your remaining business thank you appreciate your time highway department update on road issues we don't have any don't really have any we've been ditching up on Upper Barnett and Upper Sunnybrook we're moving on to Shady Roll Shady Roll what's up we did get our yellow center lines painted by the state of Amant on Three Mile Bridge Road and on center road not sure over in Route 12 I don't think I didn't see them and I have no idea why they stopped where they did on center road but they left out just beyond J.J. Van Dietz home to the end of it ran out of paint that's the only thing I can think of eric's we're checking we're checking on the were you able to check on the truck again I haven't heard back and then you have met with one person on a loader and then is there been any progress I haven't been over for three or four days on the speed limit sign and Shady Roll is that working yet I have not been over there last time I was like three or four days it wasn't probably still not then I think it's something with the the the charging of the battery well there's not getting enough sun so I think I have to move it move the solar panel we're talking about our $16,000 of the signs in one of them the one on the pillar side isn't working right at this time hasn't been working for a while I believe it's a solar issue yeah no no yes it's and it's not but anyways we will follow up on our north so guys I have a quick question and it comes to mind because I'm over I'm over in the Adirondacks and they're doing their roadside mowing and I thought huh I wonder where we are with our roadside so where are we middle of July we have it scheduled to come what's our plan we have the tractor coming like we did last year so we're ready to tractor but our guys are going to do the mowing same as last year thank you is there anything that concerns you about that Peter no we've had a lot of discussion over the years about you know one mowing two mowing do we try and buy our own machine do we rent one all that so I just was curious where we had come down on that thank you no we need to do the roadside mowing no doubt okay and Mr. Russ Bennett from Galaxy of Yes to discuss possible survey of residents likely to be affected by a potential municipal water system about their potable and wastewater needs action possible good evening Russ good evening should I sit up here a little closer maybe sure there's a microphone right there so that the camera can pick you up you're early you're early yeah well I can give you a little for Craig from Auto Creek Engineering supposed to come on at about six o'clock he couldn't be here in person because he had a child thing but one of the things that we wanted to begin to talk about was um as we'd mentioned before we know we we're pretty sure we have the capacity to have enough water for the town and middle sex to have a municipal system if it wanted to and we the Galaxy folks and Rob Napier would help we would have we have to spend some money to have a municipal to have our own system anyway and it seems to me that we can probably if we have to spend that money I think we might be able to come up with the match or most of the match that a town would need to have a municipal system and then you wouldn't have to come up with that yourself and sort of help you guys get the grants so one of the first steps is um for you guys to if you think it's a good idea to think about surveying your population does anybody else think this is a good idea um and what do they think about it and um so one your service area whatever that might be and the general population as well so um Craig will talk about what the general how's it how long is it to take to put to build a system you know all of this kind of stuff what's the process but I had brought some um and I can pass these around preliminary rough survey kind of things that they because they do this all the time Otter Creek engineering municipal water systems and sewer systems so I can send these around for you guys oh you've got one everybody got one yeah all right so we we have all we do it's good for you you go these are not meant to be anything we don't have an agenda you know uh in any way anybody else want to see um other than we want to be good uh neighborhoods good citizens okay um so there's sort of Peter the sample surveys I guess I have two questions and maybe you can maybe you can answer them and maybe we need to wait for the wait for the engineer but one of my questions was I just know having been through this before years ago the first thing people are going to want to know is a what it's going to cost the town and b what's it going to cost them in terms of a usage charge or however it's going to work you know this is just meant to be a very preliminary survey saying you know I guess if we could supply water to you for a reasonable cost would you be interested in having a community water system and having fire protection and all of this just to see what people would say but I think a lot of people are going to be reluctant to say yes if they have no idea about what the cost might be so I'm hopeful I'm hopeful somehow we can come up with at least tentative rough back of the page estimates of what that is and I think the other question was or the other question for me is you know getting some kind of idea and it's great that you guys are willing to help and help us get grants and this and that but we need to get our arms around total cost is going to be and get a better idea of what grants might be available I mean I don't see us going ahead with this unless we can get some substantial grants I agree you would be up against it you know I mean the reason to do it there's many good reasons to do it because you know you have a need and this village down here can't really grow or even maintain itself with the kind of infrastructure it has but roughly my understanding about what cost would be and it's you know it's a range depends on how big it would be all this kind of jazz is somewhere in the seven to twelve million dollars range and my understanding from Craig and others is that there's federal and state money that's available and generally speaking what's left for the town to have to pick up is up to about 20% and my 10 to 20% or whatever that cost would be for a match so as I think about it I think well that is probably something that we the galaxy could come up with if we were going to have to build our own system we could just roll that in and come up with that two million or whatever it might be and that might be the same or slightly less or more than what it would cost us to build our own system so you know just trying to be who we are can't really help ourselves which seems like it would be a pity to not make that opportunity available to you guys and what would the rate be well probably in some ways I haven't gone through this with in the many years ago with Weitzfield a little bit you know there's a space that it needs to hit in order to be bearable by any user you know whether it's a commercial user or residential user I mean it can't be onerous to have town water if you already have water and you're like well I'm fine I'm good you know so whatever that rate is would probably be about whatever market rate would be but because you wouldn't have in my fantasy world which is not a bad one um you wouldn't have that 20% debt service because we would erase that so your debt service would be minimal the cost of operation would be what it would be but it would be sort of like for the road crew if your equipment all got bought and you didn't have any of that debt service and you just had to operate it so that's sort of how I'm approaching this if that makes any sense to you Peter because I think obviously the first step is to get some kind of an idea about how the people are going to potentially benefit from this feel about it I just wanted the other thing that I didn't really understand and I mean I understand it on some level but I just don't want to confuse people by asking all those wastewater questions because my understanding was when we went through this the last time that we didn't have a wastewater problem potentially what we had was a water supply problem so I'm just concerned that by bringing up all those wastewater questions we're going to scare people as well we're not saying that any of these are questions that you need to ask you guys know your people more than we do but one of the things that I do think about is that in the village this is 19th century technology that's in place for a lot of the places that are still here as far as water and sewer it's coming from across the river you know the state doesn't really like it they want to get everybody off a surface water and it's not who knows what the pipes are in some cases and we also know that it's most likely that a lot of the pre-existing residents and architecture that's in place doesn't meet any actual today's standards of isolation distance from your well and your house and your septic system or even be a legal septic system so it begins to make sense to begin to think about what that is and if you take the water off the land because some people do have drilled wells here then that makes isolation distances easier to meet for existing residences and other buildings that would need to have septic systems that could actually comply and meet their need I can't meet we have engineered systems and all that kind of stuff they all meet state you know we've been through all the state stuff so we know we're good we know we have good soils and you have a fair amount of good soils in the village if you wanted to be able to have the ability to provide more jobs etc so one of the things I think about Peter is if you had a water system which was able to supply hydrants for fire protection which would also be a bonus to everybody who lives within that district because your insurance rates would go down it would allow it would make it publicly possible for certain kinds of commercial development to happen which would provide jobs and housing as well because sprinkler systems are really expensive if you don't have the kind of water that we could provide because we have enough head head height up there our preliminary designs are around 750 feet or so and we could go higher if needed and that would provide more than enough head pressure to have a good fire suppression system down here you know real hydrants all that kind of jazz so then you begin to have some tools which you can say as townspeople what do we want for the future do we want to have housing be available here and can we tie that into whatever your zoning might be and whatever some kind of linkage might be which is you can build I'll just be extreme okay you can build five two million dollar houses and then somebody's got to build five affordable houses or something like that because you can control how your infrastructure is used it's just like you do a road you can say well this is the rating this is the road rating and you're going to have to get a special permit to have a 72,000 pound truck go over the road or whatever that might be so I think what I'm just trying to do is say there's an opportunity here for you to really think about what you want to do for the future as you imagine it you know I'm not predicting a future I'm just here saying we want to do a little development up there take care have some jobs have some this and that have some mixed use housing and have some affordable and unaffordable housing and most and keep a fair amount of the land what it is so we don't know what our total build out is because we're really only thinking about phase one which we're just about sort of starting to getting ready to do our permitting for and that's in the mixed use zone area which is I think only about 40 acres out of the 278 acres so create a little hub in that way Craig I think I see you do you want to you know I'm good at putting my foot in my mouth so if you have an extractor and you want to sort of jump in here at some point that might be a good idea okay evening everybody sorry sorry I'm late so I believe one of the things that Russ has provided is a draft of a village questionnaire that we discussed the last time this project came up and so what this is is a draft document of kind of typical questions we would ask the general public related to their onsite wastewater and water supply systems more so in this case obviously water supply but we do have some community wastewater questions in there kind of mixed in there and the idea is to try to gain some additional information related to need but also more specifically how amenable the community might be to a community wastewater or excuse me water supply system so we provided this as kind of an opportunity for the board to comment if there's questions you want added on here questions you want removed we really feel that the biggest one and on town letterhead so that it is a town exercise is being subsidized by galaxy of yes as far as being distributed and collecting all of that information so if the town would like that stuff to be sent directly to Otter Creek we can do it that way if the town would like to have that stuff sent to them first so that they get the initial copy of it it's really up to you guys how we go through the process of doing this but we wanted to kind of give everybody a starting point with these are we think are at least the baseline questions that we would like answered from a community perspective and we wanted to give you guys the opportunity to add or the supplement to that as you saw fit assuming that you do want to distribute this to the potential users I have a question Craig you know what might be helpful since you've been through the process of helping towns get funding and build water systems and sewer systems but we're just talking about water system is maybe you could just sort of give a general overview of here's where we generally find federal money here's where we generally find state money here's where we find money under a pillow or whatever the hell it is and here's what a local match normally is and it takes about this amount of time and what's the process we're looking for and you know what would an end point look like something like that so that these conversations begin to be in the context of an overall understanding of what it would mean to have a municipal system does that make any sense to you guys yes okay so generally whenever we start with conversations about the creation of a water system the initial question of needs to be addressed whether that is a need due to failed water supplies treatment requirements contamination issues first it's demonstrating that there's a need in the community and then assuming there is a demonstrated need and the community is willing to kind of go down those roads there's various funding options that are available to a municipality to look at the development of a water system typically there are two main routes to supply funding that's USDA rule development and then there's the states revolving loan fund both are federally funded programs that are run by USDA or the state in all circumstances and they have various amounts of planning money that's available to further look into the need and determine a potential solution to that need so generally speaking how this process would normally work assuming the town did want to proceed with this is you'd have to do a preliminary engineering study which outlines the need the potential alternatives and then identifies a potential solution to meet the express need we've done a similar report for Russ's project we would need to expand that a little bit based on what the towns needs would be and that would be kind of what they call step one step one would produce a document that allows you guys to look at alternatives and also would look at future user costs so I know you guys had mentioned the report that you guys did in the early 2000s and what came out of that report was here's a typical user cost for a water system if you had X amount of users that's essentially what comes out of that step one that preliminary study here's what this would look like here's what we think the annual cost would be per user on the water system step two well let me step back, step one then gives the town the opportunity to look at that and go do we like these solutions do we like the preferred solution and do we want to proceed forward with looking at design of that solution which would be step two there's federal money available to do that part of a loan slash forgivable loan some programs use grants some don't but essentially some mixture of grant and loan related to the design and then you design the system get to the end of that update your cost update your user cost and then at that point in time typically go to a bond vote if the town decided to move into a construction project which the construction would be step three so those are the general steps all that would work funding options along the way our general approaches is that you leave the door open to as many of those opportunities as you can until you're required to eliminate those options one of the steps that would kind of be in between step one and step two would be what they call an income survey so I think we talked about this last time generally speaking when we look at mean household income it's across the entire town there are circumstances we're looking at the income of the actual user base gives a more accurate picture of affordability and doesn't skew it by what tends to happen in Vermont towns is that the villages poorer than the the outlying areas of a given town and those mean household income numbers get skewed as you get further out so assuming the town wanted to move forward with looking at a design one of the interim steps would be doing an income survey there is a company Reart who does income surveys for communities and they would do a similar essentially questionnaire slash survey of what we expect to be the service area for the water system and try to get a more accurate depiction of the mean household income the lower the mean household income the better your subsidies your grants or your forgivable loans and that portion of which what portion of that is loan versus forgivable loan or grant the lower the mean household income the higher the grant or the forgivable loan is so at that point in time the town would get a sense of how much subsidy might be available for them moving from into design and eventually into construction again one of those data points to understand whether this financially makes sense for the town to participate in it's not a quick process it's not necessarily always a straight forward process there are circumstances where sometimes we take two steps forward and have to take a step backwards depending on some of the answers that we got in those steps so it's a back and forth it's not something that will happen tomorrow if the town decides that they want to go down this road and I think the town needs to understand that there will be multiple offerings related to this so saying yes to kind of moving this forward doesn't mean you're saying yes to the whole thing it's you're saying yes to kind of move to the next mile market related to kind of this overall process so just in general Russ and Craig and I think we talked about this the last time you came in I have already heard and I imagine other board members have already heard after our first discussion in the minutes I've heard from quite a number of people in town probably almost a dozen who've said we don't think we should have to pay for a water system for the village what's up with this and I think that's something we have to think about whether we're going to create and I know I talked about this last time the fire district so that the users are the ones who pay whatever the whatever the cost is and whatever the operating cost is I think we need to be careful when we're sending out these surveys like if all of a sudden we send out an income survey to the whole town I think the town is going to freak out to put it bluntly I just think we need to be careful who gets the survey and who participates in all of this because we've got to make it clear to the town assuming it is our intent that anything we do would be would be covered by grants and user fees by the people who get the benefit of the water system so I want to be careful how we go forward and those are those are great things to keep aware of and you're 100% right on that so two data points data points related to that so fire district is an option the town also has the option to just assess costs to the users so you can within your own municipal structures the users are going to cover 100% of the cost of this and we are not going to go to the general tax fund to pay any of this so you do have an intermediate option that doesn't require creating a fire district the only reason I say that is at the last time and we need to understand what that is because my understanding had been that the way to do that was to create a fire district so if there's another option we go ahead with this we need to look at the other option but I think and I'm not trying to speak for the board I'm speaking for myself but I think we need to if we're going to go forward with this make it clear that our intent is to create a fire district or through some other mechanism that the potential users would be paying for the cost sure and I think to the income part of that discussion the intent would not be an income survey to everybody in the town what it would be is an income survey to that user base so the specific people we think would be able to connect not everybody in town so I think that even further is kind of what you're trying to say is their income is associated with that I think also too with the questionnaire that should be limited to the potential service area that we've kind of identified give or take maybe a few people here or there I don't think you want to send this out town wide because people who are way outside the village that's erroneous information that doesn't even really help us in this process anyway so we can give you the parcel information for the people we think would be part of the service area and I recommend that that's who we go out with this questionnaire to is those specific landowners who we think would be users of the system not everybody in town especially the people we know are going to be users on the system thank you Craig we've got a question from Dorinda and then Sarah also has some comments or questions yeah my question mine goes beyond the initial establishing getting the grants to put this all in but then you've got the who's going to maintain who's going to build these people who's you still got all the taxpayers paying the bookkeeper the treasurer whoever it is paying their salaries you're not going to be able to delineate that portion just to the users on the system so it's going to be an impact to all taxpayers once it's established and going forward what happens if there's a problem with the system is the 35 I think I counted 35 parcels in the village district those 35 parcels are going to be able to pick up all this cost I think it goes beyond getting all the grants and everything to get it in there is the operational side of it that's going to go on forever and before you I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you're 100% right and part of that study that step one that we were talking about includes all the operational and ongoing maintenance costs related to that so that is included in the quote-unquote cost of all of that is the administrative side of that the ongoing maintenance related to that so all of that will be included in that and then would be broken down per user cost so essentially you account for what that cost is and then you include that in the user cost on top of the actual quote-unquote construction cost so it is incorporated into that but it's separated out in the report so you know capital improvements versus ongoing administrative and operation and maintenance costs and Craig am I right that automatically falls to the town accounting department it sounds like no no it stays within it would use a highway department say the highway department was like its own thing and it was bought and paid for by somebody else and it was no it's not really a good analogy because everybody drives on the town but the water system in Watesfield for example has no impact to the property tax rate because the rate for the water usage includes all of the billing all of the maintenance all of the testing that needs to be done by the state every you know month year all of that kind of stuff so it doesn't fall it needs to surpass the support itself it doesn't fall to the town at all right but who doesn't use so there's going to be somebody sitting in an office somewhere that's going to be doing all this is what you're saying and it will be paid for by the users right so it's not any part of the municipal government what's the difference between what you're saying and a lot of district middle sex with a lot of district yeah you can define the district Craig you can jump in where you want within your municipality a fire district was more popular years ago when say in the mad river valley we would look at doing some sewage treatment that would serve more than one town or water system that would serve more than one town hydrants in more than one town then you need to create a fire district so that you can do that but middle sex you can stay on this side of the Winooski and make it as big as you want as demand grows right so that you could say the district is going to be from somewhere down route to to somewhere where crosses the Winooski to up above you know up to the Notch Road or wherever it would be and a main will run to there and if somebody wants to go again at some point in the time in the future those things would have to be figured into what the cost of the water business would be so that it wasn't throwing a burden on the rest of the taxpayers I'll drift off just for a little bit and say if you're downtown becomes more vibrant whatever that is sort of like what we're trying to do but to everybody to have you know a better a better downtown if we had water like the railroad buildings they don't have any water and they don't have any way to get rid of water if they had it but those buildings could grow up and become something if they had some water available to them and they had some way to deal with that and in some way by taking away other taking away by being able to eliminate other wells that really are probably not up to snuff because we know PFAS and all this stuff is everywhere now and once you start to test the water you're going to find that there's probably pretty serious problems almost everywhere Sarah you had something at the last meeting when these guys were here there was a big discussion about what this water district might like what this service area might look like so I did a really not an engineer I just did a really rough sketch and here's some of this using our tax map identifying parcels and I think this is where Derrinda Kim got the idea of 35 parcels just in case anybody want to look at a period you don't have I think I said two and if you're talking about setting this area versus the town in general is this the area that you're looking at pretty much not having that in front of me I could compare with what we identified in the service area I've got a map I can compare that with your map but yeah generally speaking I think 35 parcels sounds generally right maybe a little bit more here or there just go back to the fire district thing just for just for a second so to add to that conversation the fire districts were created back in the 80s to give private landowners access to federal dollars by calling them a pseudo municipality and that's that's really why the fire districts were created was you had a bunch of people usually in a neighborhood district or you had 30 or 40 people who wanted a community water system the town wasn't in support of it they create a fire district that allows them access to those federal dollars the issue becomes there's a water board or a board that's created on that that relies on that board not aging out and so that they have new people coming in they have new people connected to the water system who are now going to do the next 20 30 years of what needs to be done on the water system and what we're seeing with a lot of the fire districts in the 80s they can't get people to fill seats they don't have functioning boards and a lot of them are going back to some of the municipalities and going please take these over because we don't have anybody to continue this moving forward so they're definitely pros and cons to both approaches I don't think you guys should eliminate either one of those options because there are pros there may be one that's more applicable and more beneficial than others and I think you leave both of those options open as long as you can relate to that I think the I think the important thing excuse me brandy I think the important thing that we need to consider is that our principal is going to be that if we go ahead with this project it's going to be designed in such a way that all the costs are going to be covered by the group of people who who get the service now whether that turns out to make it economically unfeasible to do this excuse me it may do that but I don't see us going ahead if that isn't the case so I'm ready to go ahead with the survey and start the process I'm certainly not saying that we know the answer of whether this is all going to work or not excuse me right I have a question for you Craig one of the things I'm assuming but you never should assume is that galaxy we know we have to spend money to have a water system and we can probably fund some of these things which normally might be a forgivable loan that you'd have to apply for but I wonder would that then be something that we could contribute we the galaxy to the effort as sort of in kind match money that the town would have gotten by having us do some of that work so the short answer to that is yes the longer answer is right now the town is looking to go get a planning loan to do the preliminary engineering study the step one I've seen turnaround times on those loan applications somewhere in the five to six month range if no longer so from a timing standpoint there would be some benefit to being able to move that forward and if galaxy wanted to essentially fund the preliminary engineering study for the town's benefit that's certainly an option that's available and would speed the process up as opposed to using federal dollars or some of this planning loan money in order to pay for the study itself so that's certainly an option that's available to you it doesn't restrict the town in any way as far as the document how the document gets used so I don't see a downside for that that you were willing to yeah we'd be willing to do that because you know we're going to want to use water at some point and then not wait long distant time so anything that we can do to sort of help us all to move forward without going forward and backwards in some way would make sense and so we're willing to gamble I guess is what I'd say you know so just to be conscious of time yeah I just want to open it up to any of the other board members to there's anything that hasn't been touched on we've got about five minutes before we move on um Bridget did you have anything you haven't heard the whole lot from you but you're good okay Sarah has something so my least concern is that if you send out a survey on town letterhead I really think that there needs to be an explanatory paragraph of all the things we've said here which is that the galaxy of yes has water on its property right this is the beginning I don't think that anybody should be under the illusion that suddenly the town of middle sex has come on a water supply does that make you sense to you yeah yeah okay recommendation a quick little cover letter to go along with the questionnaire as to why these particular people are receiving that and under what circumstances they are and what the town is considering I think all of that top context is great and we'll save you guys phone calls and getting stopped at the store and everything else related to that as well are we looking for a decision on this survey as to who to send it to and and how it's prepared or are we are we looking at that at a future date Bridget Randy I did have one question I'm Peter had mentioned previously concerns on good portion of the questions currently in the questionnaire I'm Peter how do you feel about that now that was to do with the well we need to we need to look over that questionnaire and decide which questions we really want to ask I mean the the real question for me is to be able to say to these people we have an opportunity based on the fact that there is excess capacity available for water for the village if we were to do this the cost would be born by the users of the water and this is our estimate of what the potential cost might be if this all came to pass would you be interested in being connected and beyond that I would agree with that and then Randy again following up so I would say what is what is the galaxies position on us revamping that the survey I think we want to make a one page that's simple to respond to and just take the temperature of everybody and see where they are there's plenty of time to ask more questions later so that's the way I feel about it that the survey our position is we brought it in here so you could I'm just working with Craig and you can work also directly with Craig and a basis to get going but you're 100% right this is coming from you guys this should be what you want on there what you don't want on there specifically so you're not going to hurt Russ's feelings and you're not going to hurt my feelings by adding subtracting starting over entirely with what you guys want to do we just wanted to give you something as kind of a starting point and say here's a typical sort of set of questions what do you guys want on there because it really does need to come from the town to the users and if it just comes from me or if it just comes from Russ probably going to read that way as well and that's certainly and then so I would certainly encourage the board to go through that so Randy maybe with regard to making a decision tonight it's who would be the person to make those edits I would suggest that we all make a suggestion for edits you know like and do it as a collaborative group and then present something at a later point in time for their review again maybe we can commit to doing that for our next meeting which is right around the holiday so there's going to be some discussion on when that meeting happens too but oh the 20th okay I was already thinking of July 4th sorry my brain somewhere else but yeah I think collectively as a group just proposing different edits or thoughts that people have is what I would support that sounds good to me too and I'd say you guys can work directly with Craig he's smarter than I am about all this stuff and I'll just add one thing we would end up just being a user you know so we're going to want to have it as cheap as possible too so can I just ask for the last your last meeting when you discussed this you all to discuss whether or not to send this just to the service group and also to whether or not to send it to the whole town and I'll think I heard a decision tonight 8 minutes about that it sounded like tonight we were really leaning toward supporting just sending it to the service group is that the consensus of this group yeah okay great thank you you guys do have any questions or want to send me anything feel free to do so I'm happy to help however make sense for you guys Craig could you be available at the next meeting to help us while we make those edits as long as somebody can send it to me tomorrow or the day after before my month fills up but as of right now that date is open so I should be able to make that work okay cool I'll just say one other thing now we need to move ahead with our agenda Randy but if this goes forward and we get any kind of a positive response from the community we should probably have a meeting and have Craig come to the meeting and let people ask because people are going to have questions and I just think if this is going to work it has to be a consensus building process especially when they hear that we're sure no happy to participate dollars or whatever the whatever the huge number is to do this so anyway yeah no and happy to participate in any public forum that you guys think would be helpful to kind of facilitate this conversation further if that's the way you choose to go great thank you thank you Craig Russ thank you moving on to the next item on tonight's agenda final review of the town's personnel policy action possible Randy do you know where in the last you left off at the end of the sick time right yeah yes so section 23 personal leave I guess I can read through the section um it says those employed full time by the town on January 1st will on that day receive three days of paid personal leave per year anyone hired for a full time position after January 1st will receive three days of paid personal leave the following January 1st provided said employee is still employed full time by the town pay for personal leave will be used for employees regular rate of pay if an employee does not use all of the employees personal leave in a year the employee may not carry those unused leave forward to the next year upon separation from employment an employee will not be compensated for unused personal leave I personally don't see any reason to revise that I think it's fine I just haven't there's just a typo on the third one when it says three days I just see an extra space there yes I have a question so if you get hired on the 15th of January you don't get any personal leave time until the following year correct does it make sense to say you know if you're fired and hired in the first half of the year you get one and a half days or I don't want to make it complicated I don't want to try that but it seems a little rough to me to say if you get hired after the second day of January you don't get any personal leave for a whole year whereas if you were hired the week before you would have gotten three days just a thought would you just split it at the six month mark for some work we could do it quarterly whatever you think but three days doesn't fight very well quarterly just to make it simple I'd say if you're hired for six months of the year you get a day and a half personal leave for that year and if you get hired in the second half maybe you get three quarters of one day or something just so you get a little personal leave so are you saying that we hand out the personal time because the reason I think you guys put it in there when you did it is they had three days at the beginning of the year so the people who are here on January 1 are we going to hand it out in quarters or halves or whatever you decide to do or is it the people on January 1 get the three days and then if you do six months that person gets a day and a half or are you going to hand it? They get the three days at the beginning of the year the same way we do it now but just change the language so that somebody who gets hired after January 1 gets a little bit of whatever we decide it's a little bit of personal hope but not make it complicated and confusing whatever we do Yeah so why not just break it up into three four month periods and for depending on which period they're hired in they would get those days Yep I agree Can I make a suggestion to put it in hours as opposed to days so like the January 1 would be 24 hours the June 1 or July 1 would be 12 hours It can get confusing when it comes to summertime hours Yes, let's change it to 24 hours instead of three days and then break the year up into three different periods and depending on when they're hired they would essentially be prorated into that into those buckets So if somebody was hired on January 15 they wouldn't start until March is what you're saying It's either that or you go to a full prorated schedule where whatever portion of the year is you prorate the hours by that I would be fine with that too I think that's more straightforward um the calculation on their hire date and then they're provided those and I would assume that personal leave would be accessible after any probationary period That's the other thing that this doesn't cover that I would assume we would want to make it What's that? I mean the probationary period You don't have one in their personnel policy You guys took it out Okay But essentially what you're saying is if you don't have something stipulating that somebody could start on January 15 you could give them their time and they could use it all that week and get done the following week So I think there needs to be real parameters around this Right now there's none If you're working on January 1st you get the three days or the 24 hours and you wait for the next January 1st to get more no matter when you were hired It's on a simpler or fair but it's pretty cut and dried I like cut and dried Sarah go ahead Why can't you get 8 hours that first year 8 hours every 4 months work 4 months again 8 hours work 4 months again 8 hours because you went from 24 hours to 32 28 You said The first 4 months you get 8 hours Oh 4 months as opposed to 3 Yeah, exactly 4 months you get another 8 hours The third through 4 months you get another 8 hours So the only problem that I see with that is is somebody's ability to use that time in a timely manner and it not going away at the end What? That was why you guys gave it on January 1 because we were doing it like when they got hired but then they couldn't use it by December 31st That's exactly what happened And the other thing you do is just leave it along the way it is I think that was picture suggestion We've got about 4 different kinds of leave here that we're going to be considering in the next 2 minutes There's plenty of opportunities to believe I'm supportive of leaving it as it sits Maybe Maybe you could throw in a qualifier statement where Eric's discretion or something No, I think if it's going to be anything it would be something that I mean for me it's if I'm being hired and I'm reading this personnel to be ahead of time and I have an issue with it I'm bringing it to the table as a negotiation and and let it be at that I would go forward and change it to 24 hours as opposed to days I agree with that Is there a consensus on that? I'm good with it I remember reading 24 hours previous to that You just did the conversion It's all Moving on, section 24 parental and family leave Do folks feel like I need to read it out loud? No Thank you I think it's I think it's fine We had a request to pass that you've dealt with by saying it's not our personnel policy and that is for bereavement definitely do you want to put this here do you want to address it do you want to move on to the past I would say we'll issue a little deal with it at another point let's not muddle it with this Okay Section 25 short term family leave Those are all Yeah, I mean it's there's nothing I think that was fine too The only thing that comes to mind here was was there an issue with that we were facing as far as like qualifying people within one piece of our policy last year was there something that we had to deal with what that was on a hiring process I think okay so nothing to do with any of these okay so we're all in support of just leaving section 25 alone okay I am section 26 leave of absence without pay I'm fine with the way that sits I'm fine too um so I guess you know moving on from uh absence bereavement leaves that Sarah brought up um right now there's nothing in the policy um does the board support exploring the addition of bereavement I support allowing time for bereavement but I don't think it should be a special heading in other words if you have a pass away I think the employee should be allowed to take time off I mean whether he takes it a vacation or a sick leave I think sick leave should be allowed for that but otherwise you're going to be giving them another time out right another three or four days off yes that's the conversation I think uh when we discussed this before I think what we decided was they could use any accumulated vacation time we had and at discretion of the supervisor we would allow them to take time even if in other words in other words go into a hole on vacation time in a reasonable way if they had no vacation time that would be at the you know the discretion of the supervisor if it was the road crew or I guess the select board if it was somebody else but I agree people should be able to take time off I don't want somebody in a bereavement situation and they've just used up their vacation I don't want to tell them they have to take it without pay I don't think that needs to be in there I think we can just agree that that's the way it's going to be we allow them to go negative if we remember I'll remember okay that's it that's if we're all here well we can put we can put that language we can put a sentence in there that says if a situation arises where there's no vacation time available a reasonable amount of time will be allowed and the person will go in the hole or whatever the right language is on their vacation time that makes everybody more comfortable I just think we have to be able to let people do it and I don't think we should be telling them they have to do it without pay under what section should that go well if it's if it's going to be tied to the vacation leave then it should be it should be entered in underneath the vacation leave well vacation or sick or personal I mean so personal you know personal is and so my thoughts on personal leave is hey I need a personal day it's not approved time off vacation leave is approved time off so maybe that's bereavement shouldn't be approved so maybe it needs to fall under the personal leave and allowing them to go in the hole on personal leave because I do struggle with that you know if it's I shouldn't have to get permission to go you know deal with the death in my family and if you're going to let me go in the hole let me go in the hole on time that technically I don't need approval on so let it fall under the personal leave and not vacation but they don't earn personal leave for another year I know so we're taking a risk that I think you could create your own section that says that you know you can use you know anytime you have available or something like that if you have no time available then go to what Peter says with you know we will allow you to because technically it's all approved time off I mean you could deny you could deny vacation request if I need the people we've never had anything in any personnel policy did I have to be administering to allow people to go in the hole that was done on an informal basis and we certainly over the years at Noel Johnson dinner four or five different times for different reasons we allow people with cancer diagnosis to go in the hole on their sick time you know that kind of thing I mean I don't think it necessarily needs to be in the personnel policy just to refresh your memory we had a road foreman who came here we had a prior road foreman who wanted to we had you had a whole meeting about this and he was upset that he was not being compensated for going to his wife's sister's mother-in-law's funeral or whatever it wasn't a direct relative but it was an issue I can dig up those minutes if you need a refresher that was from two years ago yes I remember I think that's where your definition of what immediate family member is you know and I think you had decided at one point that you went by the federal guidelines of what is considered an immediate family member and his wife's sister fell out of that definition if I recall right but didn't in that case, didn't the individual want extra time no I think they just wanted paid time off right which is separate from their vacation time that extra time yes I guess you're right I mean yeah they didn't like I don't want to use my time because I want to go deer hunting right yes but I'm really bereaving a lot with bereavement time other than not one situation yeah so maybe that's the reason just to leave it alone well we didn't grant you didn't grant them that time is that correct I don't believe we did it's like COVID but you gave them the option to use paid time off if he wanted to so I don't know how you found that side so Dorinda says the town doesn't have a policy for bereavement pay that the personnel policy does allow for personal days there's an employee who wants to use bereavement and interpreted a section of the personnel policy that was allowed reviewing this issue Dorinda came across a clerical error blah blah blah did that as you aside Dorinda asked how the bereavement question should be addressed since the personnel policy does not cover bereavement leave Peter said the employee should use either personal time or vacation time Peter said he doesn't want to create a bereavement leave policy if the policy doesn't have a big note of that paychecks out on exactly how much sick personal and vacation time exists to the employee should know exactly what his options were that's what you decided and that was from September 2021 I still feel a same way me too I just don't think it's it isn't like we've had a recurring problem with that so I think we should just leave it alone okay I mean if somebody asks we have no policy on it so you use your time available and that's the way okay okay military leave military leave that's pretty straightforward to me jury leave section 28 again it feels pretty straightforward to me I don't suggest any change section 29 over time we follow the rule so should I move the microphone over I do have a thought that we might want to consider last time we met we talked about vacation time and making sure people took their vacation time if we pay out over time anything outside of our normal work hours and we cover our 40 hours with either physically working a sick day or a vacation day I think you should still pay out overtime as long as it's available to you as in not going in the hole we don't have an overtime hole no the available time off without going in the hole so like vacation time if you're in the hole you can't do that or sick time it'd be available time that you've already accrued they're not working those hours so that would essentially be buying out their paid time off I don't understand how that works it's already time that they've already been given and whatever it's not allowing them to take that vacation time later on in the year so it's helping use up vacation time see what we run into is we're expected to be available 24-7 which is fine I understand that that's the job but there's no compensation for that so if you work a Saturday and a Sunday plow in snow and then you're sick on Thursday you just lost a day's overtime well but overtime isn't for me that's part of the job and overtime isn't it's not guaranteed it's not a right it's and this is exactly why I brought up the buy out option because that's essentially what's happening here I don't understand that part if you clarify this for me what are we talking about overtime or are we talking about the incident with one of our I'm talking about overtime being paid out anything outside of your normal work hours outside of your normal hours if you're on ten hours and you work four tens and you work twelve you get paid two hours overtime if you're on eight hours five days a week you work ten hours you get two hours overtime if you work a weekend and you take all week off you get paid overtime for the two days on the weekend correct but you also lost a week's vacation that you cannot make up correct that's absolutely right yeah there's nothing wrong with that there is for me I think when we make the decision to not buy out the time you are you absolutely are and it's on budgeted at that place so when we do the budget yes it is it is not hours or forty hours a week is calculated at you calculate two thousand and eighty hours a year of straight time so what happens is if you pay a full week's worth of pay for your sick time and this in your two thousand and eighty hours includes your sick time so if you pay out that forty that would be fifty two times forty fifty two yes isn't it two thousand and something two thousand and eighty hours isn't that what I said yeah okay so that's your basic pay so then if you paid overtime on that so you're still paying your vacation and you're still paying your sick time now you're throwing in overtime for the two days that they worked an extra four hours that is on budgeted time because you've already paid don't you budget for two hundred and twenty five hours but that is over and above the time pay so the first thing exactly and I don't see where you call it buying out overtime I don't if a person works over you know he should be compensated a higher rate if he works over eight hours or ten hours if he wants to go four tens you should be compensated for that if you work all, if you work sadly and Sunday you should be compensated for that it doesn't budget out that way but Sarah okay so I'm not taking a side on this one way or another I am just simply giving you the information as a select order system your personnel policy says in accordance with the Fair Labor Standards Act and this is the Fair Labor Standards Act do not require employers to give their employees time off for holidays, vacations, or sick leave either with or without pay if your employer allows you to take time off for a holiday, a vacation or because you are sick the time off even though you are paid for the time is not hours worked and need not be included in the total hours worked for overtime purposes so there is no federal law that would require employees to treat hours worked on a holiday as double time, the time worked on a holiday is hours worked just as any other week but then anyway I can also send you guys some links to this that's how it's calculated if you are going to stick with that in your policy that is what the policy says the Fair Labor Standards Act I personally disagree with it but that's okay I think that if you're working all week and you work on the weekends and you get sick that sucks and you should get your overtime but that's not what the Fair Labor Standards Act says thank you so where does that leave us it's where the devil needs to stay that's what I like to say that's what we do for all our employees I mean if there's a holiday you just don't get the overtime and generally they know that so that they're less apt to work for those hours I guess the town situation is so different because it's a they don't really have a choice so where don't they have a choice working over if there's a situation that needs attention are you talking about us are you talking about the road crew I'm talking about the road crew they don't have a choice unless you're one of them we'll wait till Monday and buy all the roads if it starts snowing Saturday so I think that's the only difference that would push me toward the more generous because they don't really they can't pull back on their hours voluntarily so that's the only reason I would probably side with that it should if you're working that you look at it as the day that which is what we do with our guys on occasion if they if they've performed above and beyond that we have discretion to do that so I kind of I guess I'd side with Sarah well I know I guess I'd side you said you didn't agree with it I'm sorry oh I didn't agree with that with those later standards I see what you're saying but I'm not anybody so I mean if if we move on this I mean I'd I'd advocate to move to a structured work day what's that mean? five days a week, seven to three there's your eight hour day you know if there's overtime coming outside of a specific time frame I'd the whole flip-flop of hours and what's a working day and when do they get paid overtime versus when they don't it's I think Eric addressed that when he said normal working hours which is well when you work the four ten hour days it's a ten hour day when you're working five eight it's an eight hour day but then somebody comes in on a Friday to go grade or something like that and they're working their four ten hour days it's outside of the work week and all of a sudden they're getting overtime anyway not if you're not over 40 hours sure, the way it's defined outside of the work unless I were to take a Monday off the way that it's defined based on the normal working hours if your normal working hours are Monday through Thursday as long as your 40 hours are met via physically working or taking approved time off or a holiday your 40 hours still have to be met well not if you take a day off during one of those one of those other days you've got to take it off somehow you've got to account for it you have to account for it whether it's a vacation day I'm not saying take the day off without pay and then get overtime for another day that doesn't even make sense theoretically in that policy that could happen but even if they took a Monday off and then work to Friday the day itself sick day or personal or vacation day or whatever it's still overtime well that whole thing of 40 hours like we have it right now is crazy if you work 40 hours and you take Thursday off there's no accountability of where you were Thursday you just, no don't worry about it and that just causes a lot of hate and dissent they couldn't have a situation where they put the hours in and don't get paid for it at all you know how many people are in that boat now what are you saying you're talking about making sure that they're compensated for that time and it's just look at how many salaried employees are out there working a 14 hour day or 12 hour day why not because you don't salary employee you can't turn around and say they're going to get paid oh wow they worked so many hours and now we're going to pay them overtime they don't get compensated for it period they get compensated by a higher wage they get compensated for it by a higher wage and better benefits I don't necessarily agree with that I'm going to say this once and then I'm going to close my mouth the way I look at this is over 40 hours times worked doesn't count vacation time doesn't count sick time doesn't count personal time you get overtime and that's it simple and I understand the issue of somebody works a 10 hour day when their regular work day is 8 hours and they want to get paid for 2 hours overtime they don't get paid for the week and they put in their 8 hours they will get their 2 hours overtime because otherwise you're buying out vacation time I agree and maybe we can't agree on this and we need to defer further discussion on it but we have beat this beat this horse to death and obviously we're not in agreement so I would suggest we move on move on from this tonight and if that means we've got to move on again I guess I'm willing to do it but I'm not going to change my mind I think we've given very generous pay raises I think we take good care of our employees I think they have a lot of opportunities to have time off and non-paid time and everything else and yes part of the road crew job is that you get called in on the weekends to plow snow and they know that when they take the job can I add one point and that one point is Peter if what happens is they do work a lot of overtime in the winter and they are hesitant to take time off because they're going to lose it I think Eric has said I'm not going to take any time off unless I absolutely have to so what that does is create a time in the summer and they have all their time in the summer so your summer maintenance is neglected my counter argument to that is most of the summer maintenance I'm not saying we don't have damage from storms and things that need to take care of but it isn't like a nice storm in the wintertime when we need all hands on deck well I'll tell you one thing Peter if the roads get real bumpy and there's a lot of screaming at the road crew because they're grading you can remember a couple of years ago or three or four times in the last ten years where we didn't do grading because we were doing something else or we didn't have anybody to do it and there was a lot of screaming about the roads I mean I just think the summer maintenance is very important I think Eric has worked real hard at and I think your road is even quite a lot better than it usually is I appreciate it but okay that's all I just want to bring up that one point I just feel like especially in the last couple of years we have done a lot for the road crew and I know they always want more whether it's boots or socks or you know whatever it is they always want more and we just got to watch the town's bottom line it's an unbudgeted expense I think we do a good job of managing it I don't think people get denied vacation when they ask for it in an unreasonable way and I just don't like the idea of buying a vacation and that's to me what it is but anyway that's my opinion I'm not trying to speak for the board or change anybody else's mind but I think clearly we're not in agreement I mean if we need to take a vote and vote up and down about whether we do this let's take a vote and see what happens but I'm not ready to change our current policy that's what I'm saying for me I think it's fair if the fair labor standards get changed then we'll follow them Eric's got something to say I would like to see how it would cost the town extra money maybe we could sit down and you could show me because I don't see it yeah I don't I mean that's a serious I'm not trying to be a smart alec about it at all maybe I don't understand it well I think I think the way to I'm sorry just dealing with in the defense world with the union and everything I could see what may happen is if someone is sick and they can't help it or for whatever reason they're not going to want to work overtime whether we need them or not you almost couldn't blame them I've seen it in the the other world in the shop if they didn't get paid for the time off with the overtime they just wouldn't work and wouldn't miss sales I mean that's just looking at the other side of it and we've heard that we've heard that in the past and the whole hourly thing that's beneficial I mean I made six figures hourly so they made me salary they gave me a $6,000 raise and I worked 24 hours a day for the rest of the time I worked there you know so it's like the only way you can force anybody to work when there's a snow storm if they don't want to is fire either really if the guy keeps saying well I'm not going to work you're only how often do you want to start firing a bunch of the road crew? that's what we should be doing if they decline to work then they should be fired I mean I understand the road crew would like this but I think you're really talking about a problem which doesn't exist we pay substantial overtime to the road crew they expect that overtime they need it they want it and they earn it and I don't disagree with any of that but if all of a sudden you say you can get paid overtime when you're taking vacation time or a sick day I just disagree with it we we pass over consideration of this tonight and I think maybe just maybe we could finish up the personnel policy other than this issue in about five minutes I don't think there's much else to talk about and then we can take this up take this up again at another time might I suggest might I suggest moving the entire the rest of the policy to you know we're looking at 10 after 7 we're we're running 25 minutes off schedule so instead of moving through the rest of the report the rest of the policy move the entire conversation and finish it up in the next meeting that's fine yep what's one more to be Treasurer's report I would ask one just one other question for Vic and Eric can you hand the list or is it just all over the place well I could speak from experience of where it happened before where I worked and that's how they dealt with it how you had to account for your 40 hours you couldn't just leave during the week and then you had to account whether it was vacation time or whatever and then if you worked outside of that normal work hours you got paid overtime but you had to account for your 40 hours one way or another including paid time off the state of Vermont does that and I realize the state of Vermont's got a bigger resource of money than the town of Middlesex I mean I understand that argument exactly but the thing I'd like to see is like Eric says I'd just like to sit down and have somebody show me maybe I'm wrong I just don't see it but that doesn't mean I'm right we need to put an end to this for tonight but if you end up paying out more overtime than we are now that's an additional expense and I think it's likely we would end up paying out more overtime if we administered in this way so to me and if that's what we want to do and that's what the majority of the board wants to do that's fine I just disagree with it and I think it is certainly it's an unbudgeted expense for next year because when we count on overtime we didn't plan on doing that it's very hard to quantify how many hours that might be I don't know if it's 100 hours of overtime that we otherwise wouldn't have paid or what but it's potentially real money I think one thing I will say though you can't you can't make up overtime there's only so much hours of overtime whether it's available or not so I don't see how you would pay more out because for instance I didn't take any vacation time during the winter and that's what I got for hours for overtime hours if I would have taken a vacation day it's still the same amount of hours it hasn't increased anything there's no more overtime I think we should I think we should yeah that's perfect um treasurer's report nothing that was the easy one um other business ratifying catering permits for the local and all goods eats for summer events that can't meet and reauthorizing the town clerk to approve future catering permits action likely I'll move it Peter moved do we have a second Bridget yes all in favor aye any opposed and we are good so Sarah you are approved you're good to approve future catering permits thank you um approving the FY24 annual Washington County Sheriff's Department contract to provide speed, patrol, and middle sex action likely can I say something about this? yes Sarah please so we have a new sheriff in town ha ha ha and the rates have gone up from $31.25 per hour the last sheriff to $60 an hour now for this new contract the um you also at the same time increased in your budget the amount to spend on speeding from the sheriff's from $5,000 to $2,500 so you've cut it in half so if you paid them if you paid the sheriff's $1 per hour for 52 weeks you'd be over budgeted $3,120 so do you want me to save $0.80 an hour to keep it on $2,500 anyway those are the numbers I'm kicking around you guys in the past during how much we spent right now we're at $2,500 right now we're at $2,500 you've raked one week, two weeks before at the end of the fiscal year so that's the information I'm giving to you can we do speed I thought we had to have a traffic study I thought they weren't even going to force it there are roads where the traffic is the studies okay where is that they've been sitting on center road a couple times I've seen them that's one of the roads that isn't eligible you have a contract here do you want to renew it and if so how many hours a week do you want to go in I would think that we want to go in for just what we have budgeted so for half of the hours it's still going to put you over budget well if they show up okay so instead of three hours you want one and a half hours per week yeah it seems how do they justify that rating price just because they say we need it I guess so, yeah like I said it's like our language they provided six shady service and now they double the rates they expect us to eat it one, two, three, four, five how about if you do five hours a month well because the contract is written per week they don't come per week though right how do they bill us whenever they want it's just that the contract says the department agrees to furnish deputies for blank hours per week on a regular basis the hours per week will be determined according to a contract length and the contract amount of $2,500 they never order their contract yeah I just need to know how to fill it out so you guys can vote on it alright so why not do a maximum of 78 hours that's a that's an hour and a half a week throughout the year is it an hour and a half weeks to can we modify it to say 78 hours annually or something I don't know it just says if you do blank hours per week you've already got $2,500 just do it in two weeks then they won't be around they won't speed I mean it's good there are two conflicting sentences because the first sentence says they agree to furnish deputies and the hours worked per week will be determined according to a contract length and the contract amount of $2,500 so it's already determined how many hours they're going to work on yeah I mean that's all they're doing is they're taking the budget and dividing it by the hours to determine an average weekly that's all they're doing okay so do you want to say one hour per week and then $2,500 yeah with a maximum of I don't think we could do one now okay well then that's 0.8 hours per week so they'll show up for one hour yeah okay 0.8 hours per week okay by the time they get here they'll be leaving so they can't accomplish anything in that hour and then you guys have to vote on it and authorize the signature because Peter's not here okay oh no you all have to sign it sorry so we just need to vote on that that approval yeah do we have a motion so move okay wait so who had the who had the motion Peter and Victor both moved and they both said second so you pick approving the renewal of the dog stray holding contract with VHS action likely how much was it for during that $289 or something like that and you have budget it goes by the number of dogs they've held over so you guys had budgeted $300 in the upcoming fiscal year wanna cover it so we have $300 and the bill came in at $289 so we're good for this year oh it's nothing else you can do and we budgeted next year it's at $300 so a lot of years we don't spend any it depends it was a bad year for dogs should they double their rates hopefully not it's $25 daily $25 daily um do we build two of the dogs are we don't know where they belong but one of the owners we do know do we go and build them for the compensation for that $100 for holding their dog we hadn't in the past I don't think but I have recall ever bailing them I think that's legitimate to bail them if you know to recoup some of the money yeah so it looks like they CBHS charge the owners 25 days uh boarding fee of $50 for the first day $25 daily after for each calendar day when they go pick them up at the shelter um that they build the town $100 per canine and $60 per feline turned into CBHS so they've already paid to go pick up their animal then that's and also it's like a double dipping kind of thing comes that way from what he's reading you want to sign that and then there's an after hours fee of $50 per animal I think this has always been just like a flat contract thing that we've had with them and but but it sounds like they had to pay to pick up their dog right maybe we overspend that one or two times I can't remember spending it if we did it with very small money I mean we need we don't have any other option so somebody moved anybody seconded do one of you want to second this uh second that bridge in favor do you want to write a signatory uh no I guess we need a signatory for that as well can you include that in the motion yes I'll amend the motion Randy can sign it is that okay with your second Bridget that's fine okay all those in favor aye okay that has passed um we only have two signatures on this contract do um for the signatures would require five peter you're not going to be around right Bridget you're not going to be around yeah I can stop by tomorrow okay I'm just going to put on the counter for you then I'll be around next week Sarah don't we have documents on um not not these paper documents okay great okay Welch park update action possible look into peter for that our attorney is working on the documents uh the good news is uh peter sent a great to our proposal that if we take over the roads they should continue to provide us with the water for our sprinkler system at the fire park so that's the way the documents are being prepared once they're being prepared they'll be circulated off follow up with the Riley again this week because it's time he gets those done do you see the light at the end of the tunnel Darinda when that's sign sealed and delivered I will I might be the train coming the other way but I think we're getting there okay uh orders it will need you to sign the orders when you come in tomorrow bridge it because we only have to only two signatures here okay any correspondence any other matters uh coming before the board I would just apologize again for my arrival and Randy I thank you for uh stepping into the bridge I appreciate it thank you very much yeah no problem just don't put me on the spot anymore we'll just dock your pay up Peter you don't get any you don't get any overtime for this brandy that's right that's right all right uh and with that I during the meeting so thank you thank you