 530, I would like to call the select board meeting to order. First up is public comment. This is comment on anything that is not on the agenda. So comment turning not on the agenda. Seeing nothing, we'll move on to approval of the agenda. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. A consent calendar. We have meeting minutes and warrants. Motion to approve consent calendar. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Business, first up is discussing the public assembly ordinance. Sure, this is a policy question that comes to us from a more specific set of circumstance here. We have a public assembly ordinance that was adopted and last modified in 1981. It's older than parachute pants. And in this particular case, there have been some tractor pulls up on a property that's bordered by Rogers and Williams Road. And it has raised the question the way the ordinance is structured, there are sort of two different pieces to it. And one of them in the ordinance is that public assemblies are defined as any event with 500 or more attendees. That one's pretty clearly and spelled out pretty specific. When you read through the ordinance, you can see that there's the intent to regulate assemblies in some form because it mentions different provisions such as traffic sanitation, other public safety and health mechanisms that are in there. The way we've applied it has been a little more broadly in different cases. Some of it depends on, we've used it almost as a mechanism at times for events with less than 500 that are on town properties or use town infrastructure as a way to just conveniently sort of lay out any conditions. So I think most recently, it's something like a first Friday where you may or may not have the 500 attendees, but we've used the public assembly permit process to say here are the hours of operation here, the things you need to consider. Here's all these pieces fit together. And then we've had events that have been somewhere in between with numbers somewhere between the Green Mountain stage race is on tonight. It's the threshold that uses state and town and even school infrastructure to hold its event and a little bit of private infrastructure too, but there's still that ability to regulate that assembly and then some smaller ones like the Slab City Mount bike race which uses town properties, town infrastructure and has a little bit of the events occurring on private. So really what's before you is we've got this situation with the tractor pulls that have been occurring. It's not entirely sure what the frequency but multiple times a summer potentially. The public assembly ordinance has 500 people. We went forward with an application or a process to say, hey, these require an application for a public assembly permit. And doing that and talking through that is 500 versus intent question comes up. Generally in ordinances, the specific will trump the general. So what we're looking for is, in addition to talking about this particular circumstance which some of the neighbors and others have asked to appear before you before, at the heart of the question is, does the assembly ordinance apply either in letter or in spirit, which sort of policy interpretation do we wanna go with because that'll clarify in this circumstance is what does or doesn't apply. We did also look at any of the zoning considerations you have in your packets, what Stephen Bauer who has our interim's EA in June came up with in looking through the regulations. It does allow for a certain number of events as long as they don't exceed. It's four times per year. And then there are day restrictions, consecutive days sort of embedded in there that you can host an event for. As long as they're not the principal use of the property in a few other conditions. So you couldn't have an event space and try to skirt around some of the regulations by just limiting the number. If it's the principal use, you'd be in a different regulatory environment. That is a long way around to say, we have an event occurring. The neighbors have expressed a concern. The property owners who are holding the event have said, well, your ordinance says this, we have a policy question about which one of these is applicable. It will matter in that it sets precedent moving forward and may require us to take some other adaptations for those events that have town infrastructure involved, town property involved, but have fewer than 500 people. We may be on sort of a case by case agreement basis for a while. And the trick with ordinance is we couldn't just say we want to amend the ordinance tonight, take action and have it be effective. If we had an ordinance ready to go and you adopted it tonight, it's at least 60 days if there's no appeal before that ordinance is effective. And that's a statutory timeline. So we don't have any ability to do anything about that. If it were on the zoning change, side of it's different process involves the planning commission has different timelines as well. In either case, there isn't any alternative language that's ready to go anyway. But you couldn't, even if you were ready, there's still a pretty long window. So whatever sort of the policy choices applies unless or until that ordinance is amended. And so then there's a little bit of just seeking guidance. Do you want us to try to dig into to an ordinance update as well? So Trevor, if we look at this though, whether it's four events a year or 500 people or less, my understanding is the tractor pulls comply with both. If they're under the 500 and it's not the principal use, it would find that path where it doesn't require a permit through either process. That's currently written, right? Okay, so no matter which one you want to point to or which one we do, the tractor pulls are not, they're not an issue unless we go through the process of drafting a new ordinance and getting it adopted at which point their season will be over. So it seems like the question tonight isn't whether they can or can't go on. It's whether we want to toss this issue to the planning commission to look for a revised updated ordinance. And it might even be that the public assembly ordinance is something we draft in a different venue unless what you're looking for is to embed it in the zoning regulations because it's a different regulatory document. So it might actually be one that we try to draft out of the manager's office and get ready for board action from there. And that's also the entity that takes the permits in and gets them back out after you take action. Seems like though we would be better off asking the planning commission to get involved to figure out what should be in zoning, what should be in an ordinance and have them go through the process of maybe holding some public input sessions to have that discussion of where we should be in drafting that to list, instead of us drafting it in the vacuum it seems like there's a lot of interest in this now that maybe there needs to be more of a public process and how that one is drafted. So from a planning commission standpoint being the person who was on that planning commission when we drafted all these new ordinances we spent a great deal of time with this piece of four events a year. And so there was no public input, if I recall at the time, on that part of the ordinance or the regulation. So what was there was kind of just readopted because it hadn't been a problem in the past. And so when that process came up they were also talking about other events where it's not just the tractor poles but it could be somebody who's holding a couple of weddings on their property or something like that. And so I think we followed some state statutes on this also and this process. And I think that number of four events a year came through state statute. The 500 number, I'm not sure that's part of the ordinance, right? Yeah, I'm not sure what the origin was. You know where it came from. I suspect it was probably a vent. There was something emergent and it was specific to that. I think you have a lot of research on this because now you've got the East Valley community holding a community-wide yard sale. So is that considered a public event? There was a conversation about whether it applied for that and was there a single location versus a coordinated series of locations that would count as one event? Does it draw the 500? Does it, how does it use infrastructure? There's also the Morgan, of course, event that takes place every fall as well that's been going on for years. I don't know what kind of numbers that draw us, but they're actually functioning on public roadways if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, there's a lot of things to consider here. What's on public land? What's on private land? And if I'm not mistaken, we're talking now about things that would require a permit. It doesn't mean that these sorts of events would not be allowed, they would just have to go through that process. Right? Right, right, so if it hit the 500, there were 501 people showing up who'd be permit eligible could go through the process. Well, when you do that, you're involving the police department, the power department, the town highway department to make sure you're not creating an undue burden on those services or they've addressed those services. So did they hire sheriff's department? Do they have EMT services there? I've gone through this numerous times with RSL, even though I don't have to because I have a permit that gives me the right to do that and stuff up there, but we've gone through that process anyways just to make sure that everybody's comfortable with what we're doing. Right, and we have a past practice of broader application, whether it be from the town's end or from an applicant and two that does allow us to answer some of these questions, to have that kind of review of what's proposed. And so we would be, when we would still need some mechanism for an event that's proposed that does involve town infrastructure, it may just not be through this vehicle, it may have to be through some other individual set of agreement than a random of understanding thing, unless or until there's a change to this or it hits the 500 person threshold and then that permit would apply. So it does create a little bit of a change in practice in the short term. Sorry about that. Oh, they turned that off. So we've used this a little more broadly to get to some of these other goals, but in that strict reading, you can make that case if you don't have the number. It's not a public assembly as defined in that ordinance. So how does it fit? But we obviously wouldn't want an event with 498 people on Merchants Row with Merchants Row closed. And obviously you can't just close a road because you feel like it, you feel like holding an event. There are some other provisions in place, but as an example, that's, we'd still have to regulate that type of event. Relative to this specific event, the tractor pulls, what is the impact of them upon public services and infrastructure? Is there any? There's no impact on public services. Right, right, so. But yeah, I mean, given the location, it hasn't, you know, there hasn't been an intersection impact that's been reported, but if you don't go through a process to at least have some kind of conversation about it, it is also hard to answer the question because you don't necessarily know the parameters. There may be none in this case, but a similar event may have others, but if we don't have a review mechanism, unless something's reported or has happened, we don't, we may not necessarily know. I guess my point is that there are neighbors that are upset that this is happening at all, and I'm not sure that changing the ordinance, a permit is required for such an event addresses their concerns, right? It just means that they have to go through another set of groups to get permission, but it wouldn't be like they would not be allowed to do this, they would just have to get a permit. Yeah, and then in seeking the permit, you could put conditions on hours, whatever the ordinance specified for frequency of event, duration, any of those other factors that are hinted at or at least somewhat referenced in the current ordinance, you could put those in as conditions of approval. If you needed to, if there was an impact on service or something anticipated or some other concern, but yeah, there still could be the potential to hold event to get the approval, even if all you did was lower that threshold from 500 to 100 say. It just steers this particular event and others of a certain number size through this portal. Right, I guess I'm just thinking in terms of, we're talking about the possibility of going through an ordinance revision process, which is fine, but if at the end of the day we're not meeting the concerns that are sort of driving this to begin with, I just wanna make sure we kind of know that that's where we might be going, that if we're gonna go through this process, that it should be because we're intending it to meet some sort of concern. So if we are, that's great. I'm just not hearing that we are. Yeah, I think an ordinance review process would look at what's there and identify and or make recommendations for any changes in process practice, numbers, definitions. So in the ordinance review process, it was a public process. We would get review, we would get comments from like some of these neighbors who could say, this is a problem, here's something we should consider having in the ordinance so that this is less of an impact on the folks who live adjacent to it. So I'm just gonna lead to noise ordinances and other things during the daytime because right now in my business, there's people out there that are doing 400 person, 500 person events, weddings during the day, run to 10 o'clock at night. That's just, they're allowed to do that. Sometimes, you know, let them at the time and they say the noise ordinances is 10 o'clock. Okay, which doc is an example. All right, so, you know, are we gonna go down that path? And I'm pretty sure that when we did this from a planning permission standpoint, we looked this up and it was, there were a lot of poor events a year and they're pretty vague about, but, you know, there was no noise restrictions, but if you start doing that, then obviously you're gonna have a bigger can of limbs that you're gonna open here. Oh yeah, I can totally see that. I'm just, I'm saying, like, as we- Like your control- Deciding, we're deciding to go through this process, I think we should have our eyes open in terms of what it is that we're trying to accomplish. I'm totally agreeing with you, but you're also gonna bump up against some state statutes here and property rights. So unless you wanna get on that path, which I don't think we're willing to go down to, you know, this was, you know, what, four or five years ago when we did this, you know, I think we kind of followed state statute and, you know, felt that that was a pretty safe place to be. We did that with a lot of other things. So we're gonna talk in Woodstock here, you know, we're gonna talk in Woodstock concert event. Okay, we're talking about a small event that I believe is held mostly during the day, okay? And yeah, I'm sure that there's some noise associated with this, but, you know, I live next to the interstate, there's a lot of noise living next to the interstate, you know, so I'm here in trucks, race up and down 66, you know, I can walk out my door yard and hear that kind of stuff, because are we gonna start limiting jake breaks around town and those kind of things? Or are we gonna go with this? How far is it gonna go? There's also a case to be made that this is how to put it, kind of a quintessential rural Vermont event. And if you're living in an agricultural community in rural Vermont, these kinds of events are traditional and commonplace. And I think we have to be cognizant of that, too. Is this the first time that this, and Trevor, I don't expect you would know, but perhaps some of the fellow select women, this is the first time this, not just this specific event, but this issue has come up around other events in our rural zone. I would hate to see us go down a slippery slope as you both suggested, for something that is an outlier, relatively outlier complaint, if that makes sense. So, Tom, it's not the first time they've hosted the event, it's been happening for years. It is the first time that there's been a series of complaints from the neighbors, and it's the only event that I'm aware of that's drawn that. That's kind of what I was getting at, Trini, thank you. I just, I worry that if we, if we turf this to the Planning Commission, look at rewriting the ordinance that we might be creating that, I had to use the old cliche, but a tempest and a teapot, that might lead to further issues moving forward if somebody wants to have their child get married on the property and have a large wedding reception and make use of a rain or shine tent and some live music up to a certain, I agree with time restrictions, you know, eight, 10 o'clock at night, whatever it might be. I don't have any issue with that, but. That's a noise ordinance thing though, that could be a noise ordinance. Yeah, exactly. So, if we move in this direction, we might be opening up a whole other avenue for a can of worms to just explode. So, I think we need to be careful. I do think, just in looking back to the last year, this is one of the few events that isn't located here kind of in the larger village area between say, Farshill, downtown and the rec field, you know, quite a few of the events seem to happen in that triangle. I think for a variety of reasons. So, there aren't a lot of measurables at least in that very short timeframe, but if you play it out over years, I don't. You get me on April of 21, I could, okay. They think the majority of the ones we hear from are looking to use some type of town asset, whether it's to close a street, it's to use parking lots to have different things that are in the village center mostly, but to have the police block certain parts of the road while the bicycles go through on their race. This one wasn't asking for any municipal services. So, I agree they ought to have to go through a process if they're asking for us to close a road or commit resources of some sort to them or take some action of a public asset, but we got to be careful or we're going to have applications up to the wazoo as every person decides to have a family reunion or a large 50th birthday party or a wedding or whatever. And I don't know that we want to get down into the weeds on some of this stuff either. I don't know. So, Perry, you're saying that the, even though the ordinance dates back to the 80s, that the planning commission reviewed this just a few years ago? We've looked at the zoning stuff, okay. In zoning, the zoning regulations will allow you to have four events a year. And I think we modeled that after what state statute said before it considered doing a commercial venture. So, in other words, somebody who, let's just say somebody's got a large private property and they want to host weddings there. This happened in so a lot and places like then happens a lot of places where somebody's got a beautiful looking property. It's great, it's gorgeous. And, you know, it's got a great view of the mountain. Well, according to the state of Vermont, from when I get gathered and what we looked at was you're allowed to do four events a year at that property without having to go through any regulations or zoning changes or anything like that. So, you know, that happens quite frequently. I mean, we were constantly in places where somebody's rented their property two, three, four times a year. And so, I don't see that as any different than this. Okay, and if it's a noise issue, I don't know how you're going to control noise, you know, in the middle of the day. I mean, that's just, I mean, we're not talking like we're next to a quarry here or something. And, you know, it doesn't, you know, if you went through some active 50 requirements, I do know that like, for example, with our project with the hotel up there, you know, when we went through this with the active 50 thing and we're looking at doing, you know, attended space, you know, sound cutoff time was 10 o'clock and we're a certain DB at the property line. But, you know, now we're in, that's a commercial venture. This is not a commercial venture. So. There's no development involvement, so it doesn't even, and it's not a commercial, commercial event. So it doesn't even come close to triggering any, I mean, this is really a stretch, but active 50 review, such as a larger scale commercial development for an event space on a farm would, perhaps. Not seeing that. No, no, no, I don't see it at all. Maybe the action item is to change our assembly permit. So it's only required when it's impacting municipal resources or we'll have more than 500 people in attendance or happen more than four times a year. So it's picking up on the ones that are not covered by the ordinance or gonna impact municipal resources. Yeah, but I think that an update of a number of our ordinances is due just because they're fairly age, and we run into some of these nuanced things across them in application throughout. So we're due for that kind of review round and in a process like that, those are the types of adjustments you might be looking to make to say, well, how are we using the tool? What do we wanna use it for? And then we craft the ordinance around that. So if it is about over a certain attendance size, utilizing municipal property or infrastructure, other considerations, that becomes part of that regulatory framework through that and then clarifies when you need a permit where you go to get it and what the conditions are there. So then we're not trying to figure out what was the legislative intent in 1981, when the ordinance was created? Well, there's probably been changes to statute and I think we need to align ourselves with some of that stuff. So I don't think it's a bad idea to start reviewing that again. You can start with this one. There are traffic ordinance, for example, I'll still reference the Randolph Village fire or the police department. Right. So for tonight, are we looking at, right now there's no action we can take tonight between the ordinance and the zoning. It's an allowed use. It's going to take a change to one or the other to have any impact on it. So what I'm hearing is the only direction is to look at whether the ordinance needs to be updated to kind of be in sync more with state laws and those owning rights. Is that what everybody else is thinking? That's what I'm thinking. You access to me. Are we going to hear public comments, Trini? Well, I don't want to get into a discussion of whether we should or shouldn't allow tractor pulls because I think that's irrelevant tonight. You know, they're allowed. We have an ordinance that allows it. We have zoning that allows it. We can't do anything about it. That's the way those were written and passed. And so we're not going to do anything if we have people who want to talk about anything as far as whether they want to participate in the public process of rewriting the ordinances or some change like that. I'm more than willing to entertain the active comment, but I don't want to get into debating whether this event should or shouldn't be allowed to happen because our rules allow it to happen. Looks like we've got one in the audience. You can just identify yourself. Yes, my name is Judy Murrow. I live on Rogers Road. So you're saying they can hold the event one day per month. What about creep? What if they start setting up the day before and they're still working on removing equipment the day after and there's continued noise and other interruptions? And we'd be ordinances for like three days. Three days, four events. Four events up to four days for each event. So they're actually only doing one day and a day is set up and whatnot. They could have the event all four days. They could have an event where they brought in people, they camped on site and they pulled tractors for four days. Is there anything about notifications for letting the neighborhood know about the dates? No. There's not in the audience. Great. There's a lady in the front with a red shirt header hand up. Yes. Just identify yourself. Yes, I'm sorry. I'm Christine Burke. I live on Hilltop Drive. And there's been some discrepancies here already that I'm hearing from you and the board. I've read through the Randolph land use regulations and I've looked at what the uses are for land in our rural residential district. There's no such allowance of a tractor pull. So I don't want to talk about that, but what I do want to talk about is the fact that these people who are putting this on are using some misconceptions. For example, they're saying these are temporary events. These aren't temporary events. These are permanent events because there's no provision there for weddings either. So we don't have regulations that deal specifically with weddings, but anybody can have a wedding on their property. That's an example of a temporary event because that's a one-time occurrence. You don't know that for sure. Don't temporary, temporary to me and weddings mean one time. That's what happens, it happens one time. I'm sorry, but that's the way the regulations, you could actually have four weddings at one property every year if you wanted to. It happens. I know, because I'm in the event business and I see it happen. You're talking about this structure? So are we going to ignore the rest of the intent of the ordinance just based on the criteria that 500 people ignore the rest of the intent because it's pretty clear to me that there was some intent to protect the public from noise pollution, pollution itself from the exhaust. My house shakes. It's not living next to the interstate, bud. You guys want to come out to my house? I invite you to come out. What's the other thing you want to talk about? We're in the weeds. This is apples and oranges. Okay. Weddings catch no noise. And my name's Marcell Origa. In a residential neighborhood, you don't have 106 DBs all day. We're hearing protection on that property. Does a wedding have a siren blowing? Constantly, about every 15 minutes. We don't have a noise ordinance address is that. Maybe we should. Maybe we should. That's what we're talking about. Maybe we should look at the ordinances and adjust the ordinances. Okay, but right now, what we said here at the beginning is that we don't have anything that addresses this right at this point. And the future is highly possible. That we could kick this back to the planning commission and we could have that conversation. And our zoning ordinances need to be rewritten also. I don't believe these people have a zoning permit to operate this. They don't need one more. Because again, you're assuming that they are allowed to have this temporary event when everything they use is permanent. They removed soil and put a dirt track there. They made that track permanent. They maintained it. There's a permanent structure there now. Yes, they put up a building now this year alone. That's why we're here. It's gone too far. That building can be that building. That's something you need to do. They actually moved. That's wonderful. They put it there. They put it there to serve food and sell items. It's a money-making adventure. No, it is not. Non-profit. We live all lives for charity. You have a 501C3. You are listed as a nonprofit with the federal government IRS. It's in process. It's in process. So you're not a nonprofit at this point. It's a three-year process. Three years or no. No. You don't have it. We got one more in the past at the end of. My name is Christy Partlow. I'm one of these people. I should keep putting us. So we post these events. We donate the proceeds that we get from organizations. Last year, we donated $750 to the veterans home in Northfield. This year, we're donating all proceeds that we receive to two people, two women, who are currently fighting cancer. We do not make any money on this. We do not keep any money. We actually, I myself, put in about $1,500 a year to this. And we built this. The whole family puts in money. We built this as something for my grandson to do with my son, to do with my dad. And it's an event that we do. Do it at your house. Excuse me? Because I wrote to you. We're neighbors. You could come to us as a neighbor and be like, this? You could have come to us and asked. Yeah. But we didn't hold it. You could have come to us and asked if you could buy your house. It wasn't going on when I bought my house. Why would I have any reason to think that that was going to happen? Hey, hey, we're out of time. It's our property. We're allowed to do what we can do. Wow. There we go. And as long as we're not violating any ordinance, and you guys are saying, we're within the ordinance. If we find out that we're not doing something that we should be doing, then we're happy to do that. I don't understand why we can't be neighborly about this. Why, you know, if you have a problem with, you know, the horn going off, let us know. Maybe we can remedy that. Did any of you come to us? No, not one of you has come to us and said. No, neither can me, either, so I wouldn't expect you. Then step up and meet up again, and come to us. See you soon. Thank you. My name's Eric Henry. I live on Rogers Road, right across from the tractor pools. We moved to rural Vermont, because we like rural Vermont. I would caution you against zoning rural Vermont into Massachusetts. Thank you. OK, thank you. All right, I think it's time to kind of get our direction at this point. Thank you all for coming. Trini, if I may ask, does this need a, if we are going to look at, as has been suggested by the town manager, and we seem to be in consensus here, revisiting some of our longstanding regulations, would this require a referral to the Planning Commission to come back with a revision that's consistent with current Vermont law? It doesn't. That's how managers can communicate that to the Planning Commission. All right, moving on, let's consider adjusting the water wastewater bill for 77 North Main Street. Chris is on with us, and he provided you with some information ahead of time. And he will be able to run you through the details of this one, as I understand it. This one has its origins in a burst pipe. Burst pipe. And I don't know if you're talking to Chris, you're still on mute. I'm muted. Yeah, they come to the next tracker pole. Let's see. This is not a wedding. You going to do me over there? Now we got you. We got you now. So Brian Murdoch owns 77 North Main Street, a small apartment building. Sometime between January 22nd and January 25th, a water line in the crawl space under the building frozen burst. He did not call us directly on it. All the plumber to come try to ratify the situation. After having to touch base with a couple of different plumbers, we finally got one to come in. Get the problem solved, get the water off, make the repairs. Then he got his bill from us. Realized why his bill was so high. He reached out to us to seek an adjustment for the wastewater portion of the bill. In his letter, he requests both, but I informed him the water has to go through an abatement process, not through the adjustment process. Some staff did go over and verify that there was a repair made. As well as I spoke with two of the plumbers that were called and the plumber that made the actual repairs. So we believe this did happen. It was a high use for that particular quarter for him. If you notice that his average usage is typically around 26 units per quarter. That particular unit or quarter, they had 94 units. Results of the adjusts a potential adjustment of $850, which would be just the wastewater portion. On June 7th, the water and circuitry voted to adjust to the average billing for the wastewater services. We have done this in the past with multiple other properties. So Chris, the request on the table is for the board to approve adjusting that invoice by $850. Is that correct? Tom, the manager can do the adjustment up to $500. Obviously, this one exceeds that. Okay, so you just need a motion to make a motion to adjust the wastewater portion of this to the $150. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained? Motion carries. Reviewing the pretreatment discharge permit determination for New England precision. Chris is still with you for this one. Provided some materials ahead of time. There have been some conversations going back a few months now about some elevated lead and copper levels that we're showing up on the system. And so these conversations have involved DEC and the folks from New England Precision. And the recommendation you see before you flows from that process, but Chris could certainly give you the details on those conversations and what's being recommended and why. So as so many may recall, patient increase late last year. The increased allocation will, when they started trying to discharge at those levels, they started having issues with their discharge parameters that were in place. They, through some conversations with myself, we ended up reaching out to the pretreatment program, which we have Garrett Walsh from the pretreatment program. I believe he's on as well. But the newer allocation levels, the lead and copper levels that were being discharged by New England Precision are highly impacted with the wastewater plant and to the environment as well. It was making the plant meet those parameters. NEP wishes to continue at the 2000 gallons per day, which triggers a pretreatment permit. Again, Garrett will have to explain any questions you guys have on that. But the pretreatment program presented a 25, recommended a 25% of the allocation, so to speak, of our lead and copper levels. The 25% is above and beyond what the town already sees from the drinking water sources due to the hardness of water and that type of thing. And any other sources that we can't regulate that come in. So this is of that portion above and beyond those numbers. So the Water Sewer Committee recommended going with the 25% lead max per day of 0.015 pounds per day or a monthly average of 0.008 pounds per day. And then on the copper, 0.13 pounds per day or a monthly average of 0.052 pounds per day. And that's based on current water quality standards as set forth by the EPA. Great. We have any questions on that? Thoughts, Trevor? None. None. It seems like everybody understands this is something we'll have to do. So, and DEC has tried to engage early and often both with us and with the business so that there wasn't any surprise. They didn't suddenly get a letter that said, you have to meet some more stringent requirements that may involve the installation of equipment or other processes. And the wastewater water committee met with any DEC to I think prior to its recommendation. So I think it's, these are numbers, everybody. They are sort of the regulations state what they state. And there seems to be agreement that we have to time to abide by them and do what needs to be done. To abide by them, you mean knowing long precision? Yeah, to make sure because they got the extra allocation so those levels go up correspondingly. So we need to take additional action and make sure that it all fits within that overall water quality load as it relates to the copper and lead. Hence the three treatment on the first side. Right, yeah. So they're not opposed to any of that, obviously. Yeah. They just want to comply. All right. And they need to know from us what limits they have so that they know what kinds of equipment to that they need to install. So that was sort of the big thrust of the meetings that we had was that depending upon how much allocation we would give them, they might have different sorts of things that they need to look at in terms of what kind of processes they'd need to engage in order to meet those limits. So they're looking for a cap from us? That's what this 25% is, basically. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. Okay. That's the cap. So we're basically saying to them, we're gonna give you a quarter of the plant's capacity for these kinds of contaminants, leaving three quarters for other possibilities, other industry, other things that might come on down. It seemed like a reasonable sort of middle ground and doable at their end. Okay. Did I read you right that they're already over the maximum for the town at some points? I am not sure about that. Did you hear that question, Chris? He's having connectivity issues. I think you might be having a connectivity issue, Chris. So if you tried, you may want to try again. You hear me now? Yeah, I got you. You hear me? Yeah. What was that question about? I didn't really hear it. My question was, is New England precision? I read it carefully, but not knowing all the details. Is New England precision already in some categories over what the whole town is allowed? That is correct. They're currently discharging too much lead and copper. And it's actually putting the wastewater plant at Jeopardy as well. The numbers are exceeding. The treatment options, the state kind of looked at it as how they handle metals finishers. New England precision isn't a metal finisher, but they did kind of compare them. And the numbers are very easily achievable by current technologies. There's metal finishers, not just in the state, but across the country that are achieving much stricter limits than this. And how is this enforced? Do they report to us regularly? They report to just us. Once the state implements a pretreatment permit, they will have to report to them every month as I report to them to the town. And then they'll also, we'll see a copy of those reports so that everyone knows what's going on. That's good. Does this take much time to administer on your part? I'm framed. They're already in the middle of engineering systems. They just kind of have to decide which to go with and forward. The good part is that right now, while milligrams per liter wise, they're putting the plant to be kind of on a high level. The pounds per day portion, we're not hitting because we're not at our 400,000 gallons per day that were permitted through the state from town. We're half that on our worst days right now. So we have some buffer room there so that we're not truly hurting the environment yet. So as soon as they get, they can get, it gives them a little time to get that up, but foreseeable one to two years, but I don't know if it'll take that long. Is there a timeline that they discussed in your meeting? Larry? In terms of how long they have. What they could, how long it'll take them to accomplish this? I don't recall talking about a timeline. Doesn't seem like a take. I want to do one or two. Yeah, Garrett, is that one you think you, or that I heard you say? Garrett Smith, DEC. Hi everyone, I haven't met. My name is Garrett Walsh. I work with the Vermont DEC for my video on, hi everyone. I work with Nick Gianetti with the pre-treatment program. For timeline, for this all star, we need to first have them submit the permit application which we're really just been waiting for this allocation to be given out by the town of Randolph. And overall to the timeline that we would give NEP to meet these limits would come down to a number of factors, but it'd probably come down to maybe a year. It depending on cost, but also a supply chain issues, we might be able to give them a little bit more time to meet the limits as well. So it's, I can't give a final answer on the timeframe, but you can think of maybe a year give or take. Any more questions? If not a motion? I think for me, I'm good with that. Just you, this is your committee. Yeah, but that's why it shouldn't be my motion, right? I don't know. If I'll just get the, what do we have to do on allocation? I think it's, we're gonna approve the proposed limits for renewing one precision in terms of a new allocation. Whether it's 10, 25 or whatever. I mean, in our, basically we would be proposing the specific limits that we have in front of us that Chris mentioned earlier, the specific amount of lead per day and the monthly average and the copper per day and the monthly average. That's how we, that was the motion that we passed in the Water Waste Water Committee. Yeah. So basically as it's written, right? So, yeah, I mean, I'll just read it because it's in front of me. I moved to the, that we accept the pounds per day listed under the 25% allocation recommended limits from the letter to the town from the state procurement program dated April, 2022. The limits based on current water quality standards in 2022 would be lead maximum per day, 0.15 pounds per day, lead monthly average, 0.008 pounds per day, copper max per day, 0.13 pounds, and copper monthly average, 0.02, oh, I'm sorry, 0.052 pounds per day. I'll make that motion since you've just read it. Thank you. I'll make the motion as a member of Sackowitz has stated it. Second. Can we make just one friendly amendment? There's a typo in the lead max per day that should be 0.015 rather than 0.15. That doesn't make sense. Yeah. That was my transposition error. With that correction, okay. Second will be read. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Stained? Motion carries. Next up is to consider the recommendation for a local cannabis control commission. We have someone from the planning commission. Is it Jeff? Yep. Jeff Grout is here with us digitally. Yes. Hello. I think you all had a copy of the resolution in your packet. There's a lot of references to the state statuettes, but I think there's enough explanation of what they are. In summary, having a local cannabis control commission which would, we recommend it would be proposed or the makeup of the commission would be led up by you, by the select board. And it could be run as the liquor board is run now or it could be a separate commission from members of the community. And I'm just gonna leave it there and I'll answer any questions that you might have. But basically, I guess what's important is with a local commission, at least there's a few, they're enforcing the regulations wouldn't be one of the key responsibilities because the Vermont Cannabis Control Board has just pages and pages, very strict regulations of how they do that. The local commission is mainly just so you'll keep track of who's applying and make sure that their operations meet local zoning ordinances. And they'd work closer with the ZA to make that and really just record keeping at that point. It does allow the town to have a licensing process. It does not require that to have a formalized licensing process with the town that they would then bring to the Cannabis Control Board or to the licensing board when they apply for the license. I don't know if we wanna go to that extent but that could be part of the process. And I guess the other thing it would allow public comment as well. So when it would be, I think that's what would happen when you do the liquor board. The problem is I don't really know how the liquor board works so for us to recommend the same as the liquor board. That's your call. But I think if it works for the liquor control board it would work for the Cannabis Control Commission as well. What one of the key things you can do as a liquor control commission that you'd be able to do as a Cannabis Control Commission is an issue with what we think of as the nuisance types of potential violations. You can take action on a license in response with some of those things in mind. Noise to use one from earlier tonight for example or any of those types of things. So it gives you a little bit of a hook. Should you have a nuisance issue that comes up with an individual licensee that you may not otherwise have without it? Much like with liquor control you could deny somebody had multiple violations for serving underage and you had a establishment that continually flaunted other rules and general neighborliness. If I remember correctly we basically agreed that this was a good idea and that we wanted guidance in terms of what the specifics of it would look like and this document that we have now gives us those. Kind of gives us that. Yep. Now you had two conversations at least back in the winter time I think. I thought we had the conversation that we wanted the cannabis control board to also be the select board like the liquor control board was too. There seems to be agreement. Anybody have any further questions or want to make a motion to move it? I will move the draft resolution for Reynolds cannabis control which I don't need to read the whole. No, but if you could include incorporation in the meeting minutes that will skip the need to read aloud. I will move the draft resolution for Randolph's cannabis control commission as incorporated in the meeting minutes. And that that board, that should be the select board? And with adding the motion as it reads gives us the option of either being the select board or a pointed body by the select board. I would move that we designate the Randolph's select board as the cannabis control commission. And I'll make that part of the resolution. Second that. Motion second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Motion carries. A request to formally name the Randolph Union High School Access Road. This one came to us from the folks at the school they'd like to name the unnamed access road as Jane Drown Way in honor of a long time teacher who recently retired as I understand it. They're still there. Has not retired but a long time teacher. I'm a mistake. Can you tell you how long? I think we heard 50 years maybe? Was she one? First year I, my first year there she was there. Whoa. I think that's 50 years. That's an incredible tenure, yeah. And so you've got your materials, some of the things we reached out to, it's a bit of an odd duck in that it's not a public road in the sense many of our others are. It's not a private drive in that it's an access to school and it's not really a driveway either and it is public property because it's school property but it's not municipal property. So we reached out to save what kind of naming conventions apply. It does seem like, in part of why the recommended motions written task us with the next steps is there's some follow up questions on exactly how do we get there if you're agreeable. If we followed some of the naming conventions for other types of roads as recommended by VLCT's municipal assistance center, we'd schedule a public hearing say at your August meeting where you'd take any feedback on that and could formally name the road Jane Drownway. It may have an impact on some E911 addressing issues primarily with the, when you look at the superintendent's office there's the blue-ish garage behind it. We're working with them to distinguish is the primary access off central street or is it really off the access road? And so if we get Jane Drownway that one might be renumbered and renamed as 22 Jane 32 something like that. Jane Drownway as opposed to how it's currently addressed. Thankfully because of that it doesn't seem like it would impact anybody else. So we had some conversations with the E911 that were a little convoluted about what really needed to change. So we'd look to determine it if you're agreeable and pin down the process. If it turns out they can name it on their own, then, but it appears like it makes some sense to run it through this system given what it is. So then there's a formal name, formally blessed E911 compliant just in case. But so it's really just if you're agreeable you're asking us to go forward with the next steps with an E9 toward a public hearing in August on the whatever the next meeting date there at 11th I want to say but I don't know if that's right. Yes, the August 11th being a hearing date if needed. We should move forward with that. There was some talk about high school maybe having to be redone. There was but that'd be one of those try to clarify it seems like maybe it would just be this one building and some further clarification but that'd be one of those we'll keep running it down. Just keep looking at it and see if we're whether it's all the way through or whether you just terminated. Yeah, because we're looking at it locally on the ground and you know when folks are looking at very nice but still digital imagery. So what looks maybe like it's more connected or more adjacent sometimes isn't. So we'd like to clarify that so before you did anything we'd come back and say if you do this then the high school gets renumbered. You know this other structure does we'd be able to pin that down on them by that. Now it would get put in with our mileage. No, I think it would just be formally named it still wouldn't be a one, two or three class highway so. Is there any like practical benefit to having this? I hesitate to call it a street. It's sort of a street, it's a very weird street. But to have this have an official name. I think from an E-911 response if you had an ambulance for example first responder called out and they knew they had to go to Jane Drownway versus the entrance to the high school and go around Forest Street. Not that it's a huge property obviously but you go around on the Forest Street side instead. A lot of private lanes that are named already. Yeah, I'm just wondering. I mean that's really other than the honorarium the practical impact is it might make it easier to respond in an emergency situation if you had something on that access road. You know it's on this side rather than. Well that's why it seems like you got a Forest Street side you got a Central Street side kind of need to work that piece out. Yeah. And one of the things we thought of doing is even if they just named a segment and there may be a way to essentially rather take the whole drive if you end it as a segment a little bit earlier it clearly cuts that point. So it may even be a part of that. Well what if we essentially cut Jane Drownway here? What would be the Forest Street side? Right. Then what would you do on the Central Street side? Anything? Yeah that would, well that would be the Jane Drownway side. Or you can see it was like around the school? Yeah, that would be on the Central Street side would be the renamed one and then at Forest Street would be the other. I didn't want that 911 people to go there on entrance. Yeah we don't want to do something. Make it more complicated or cause more renumbering but I think we can get there with them. This is not an uncommon evolutionary conversation with them. All righty. Do we have an E9 911 coordinator? You do? Eight. Other duties. Oh yeah we didn't put that in. We were counting certain tasks up today. We didn't get that one last. Eight. So do we need a motion or can we just proceed without? I think if you're good we'll take it forward from here if that's what the consensus is. I don't know that you need a formal motion unless or until it's time to act. And we'll queue it up for whatever needs to happen on the 11th to make it formal. Sounds good. All righty. That's good. The paving bids are not on tonight, is that correct? I think yeah if you guys are okay we can take them off. We got the bids in yesterday. We've still gotta go through them. There's quite a wide spectrum based I think largely in part we did an addendum. We followed our own RFP. It presented some pretty variable prices amongst the three bidders. And really the addendum was about clarifying what we were after. And so they run the range from, what we got back range is from 450 to $1.1 million. So it's a pretty big spread. And we need to look into those. So we may or may not ask for some sort of capability to take special action say next week once we go through them we can kind of pull them all apart. See what the per tonnages figure out. I suspect the discrepancies are in the original bid as it went out at a broader scope of work attached with it based on what we were gonna do with the shim piece and in terms of what we were gonna put back in before the actual shim layer itself for the overlay layer. I mean the shim layer was gonna be more substantial and more universally applied. And so what we clarified in the addendum was really what we wanted to do is to create a nice level surface for which that overlay level can adhere. And I suspect that's one bidded on that spec and the others I'm guessing bidded on the other because they're nearly double. I don't know. One has nearly twice the asphalt. What do you think of it that way? So yeah. The thing is if it's at the 452961 number you, we budgeted for 335 for a particular project but at 450 which is kind of where we were thinking this we had any luck actually. This could come in as a number. There is that capacity in the paving reserve while still leaving nearly a similar amount in there to build a multi-year plan off of before you get into whatever transfers are in the budget for this year. I forget if it's 75 or 100,000 that's scheduled to go in as well to boost that. So it steps us ahead because there's quite a bit of paving nearly 20,000 linear feet. Yeah, it's all overlay but that'll improve maintenance, ride, all of those things. Safety, we could do both at that number obviously. You get it the others were either entering out that entire, entire war chest or maybe I don't have enough but we'll pick through those with an eye toward a good recommendation that looks at fairness too. So it was pike, black top and fresh coat were the three that came in. We did what we did last year, we sent it out. We had an expanded list this year. We sent it directly to the vendors, sent the addendum directly to a vendor list through all the main ones that do paving work in this area or in Vermont. And then we posted it on the website and published it in the paper and according to the policies. And ended up with three. We ended up with three, which is last year we had two so we're heading in the right direction. Now, is there a limit on the bid itself? We didn't put a limit. We just essentially said, we can eject, I mean accept, reject or seek to modify and just show us what the pricing is. I think practically speaking that 450 mark probably is somewhere in that range would be what you could consider the funding limit. I was thinking for this year, regardless of how many projects it covers too. I was thinking of time. Yeah, time the RFP wanted them are done. There's a date a little bit earlier than last year's day. I think it's in October. So there would be starting and before. So yeah, well, we'll get those queued up and get that out to you, but. Okay. We move on to discussing reallocation of the hybrid positions. Yep. I think we've had this conversation a little bit in the past, but before I arrived, I think too, it was two highway positions if I'm not mistaken, we're taken and created into what we've called the hybrids. So they're split half a year more or less with buildings and grounds and half a year with highway. Usually it's been summer with buildings and grounds highway in the winter. That was the idea. We've had a hard time filling them, keeping them filled, keeping any interest. They've been vacant effectively since January. And the idea has come up internally and talking with those two departments that rather than trying to hire the hybrid, because a lot of times what they do is they, you know, highway could use this extra body on a culvert project, say, but that's when building grounds needs them for one of their maintenance activities as well. So the idea came up talking with those departments if we took the two and just split that capacity amongst them. So one goes back to highway, essentially, and then one would go with buildings and grounds. We don't lose any positions. We're not losing any of that workload. We're just essentially taking two people who would have shared it and putting all of it in one and all of it in the other, depending on the department. And it seemed to work for both Harold and John in terms of this does and I didn't move forward. They both actually have ideas, potential candidates to fill those roles. And anecdotally, what we heard from a lot of potential applicants was if you had a CDL, you'd qualify for the highway half of the hybrid and you wanted to use that CDL drive truck, drive equipment, and those folks didn't necessarily want to cut grass in the summer and or dig graves. At that point was a big part of that, sent more than one applicant away. And then conversely, the folks who were interested in those pieces either didn't have a CDL or didn't have any interest in plowing snow at that level in the winter. And so, you know, didn't apply based on that. So it was a way to try to fill those slots. Those have been the vacancies we've carried the longest in some form. We've had at least one open at all times, except for about a four week period in the fall. Before one of them, we hired for a hybrid, moved over to water wastewater. Are you saying this wasn't our best idea ever, but it was before you came? No, no, I think it was a solid idea. I think it just, it was difficult practice. You know, certainly I think the intent to get that work covered using existing resources was worth a try. I think if we split them, it might make it a little easier to hire and retain. I think the other change we have is we now have a highway manager that's keeping the guys busy and doing a lot more pre-planning and whatnot. So some of the challenge was we had all summer long, two or three hanging out at the garages. There's not much to do. And we were getting complaints that the cemetery wasn't mowed. And, you know, there was different issues of trees not getting cut out of the right of way and whatnot. So the idea was to, I got these resources standing around in the garage. Maybe we should, and then the union said, not unless it's in their job description. So we changed the job description, but now that I think all the ones that are in the highway department are out, there's a lot of work being done and they're doing it internal versus hiring contractors. It makes sense to give them a year round workforce. We just completed North Randolph Road was the one you were notified of directly, but they just replaced a culvert on Holly Hawk that's long been on a wish list and had thought at one point that we may or may not be able to do it ourselves. And now we're going up to do the Howard Hill Grants and Aid Projects with our own resources in addition to being more expansive and pothole-patching. And that's all just in the last few weeks, which that would have last summer seemed like a, monumental task. I would have been remarkable to have had that happen last summer. That's so great. And that's a three, three and a half week load. That's amazing. I think we've made some really good decisions in that respect because things like that are paying off in spades right now. Yeah, that's so wonderful. Entertain a motion to make the change in the positions. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Action on the VCDP forms for the North Reservoir. Forms should look familiar every time we get a grant from community development. We file out a form or fill out one of these forms and send it back in. Wish we could do this sort of as a blanket annual thing. And it just covered all grants because it's essentially the same reach. So this one is for that $300,000 grant from the VCDP toward the North Wells and the TANK project. And it's part of just trying to get to, we're still trying to work our way towards the grant agreement itself. And this is one of those pieces. And then we've started to collect the others. Is this texting while driving? Is that a new one? It's not good. Newish, I think the last few years. So, if you're going to sign this, pal, you're going to have to stop texting while you're driving around there and just listen to Springsteen and focus, all right? I'll move that we accept the municipal policies and codes as required by the Vermont Community Development Program. I'll second. I'll move the favor. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Next up is considering appointing an interim zoning administrator. This is just formalizing. You previously appointed me as interim deputy zoning administrator as a, in case of emergency, break glass option when we had Stephen Bauer. Stephen has, as you know, accepted full-time employment woodstock. We closed the office for about a week and a half to try to work out another interim arrangement with two rivers. We're at the spot where we had to reopen the office. We have assumed zoning administrator duties for the time being. So this would make me the full interim zoning administrator. Formalizes that we're probably okay with the other one, but this would be cleaner as we sign things and if anybody has to go back through the record. The idea would be to just do this just long enough until either there's a full-time hire or some other interim option would be identified. It has begun this week in earnest in terms of we've started the duties and it's certainly motivating to fill the role in some other way. But this will certainly help us get and remain street legal. I'll move that we appoint the town manager as the interim zoning administrator. And I think he deserves this good step up. I'll do these as a sigh. Yeah. I was gonna say with our condolences. I will accept those for sure, yeah. I'll second that. I thought it was gonna die of no second for you. No, I'll wait for it. I was rooting for it. I was thinking about maybe if I cut the sound. I already jumped in, so. Yeah, I can't let you out though. All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? All right. All those things in series. We're now on to appointments. So we have the tree wardens, we have two applicants for tree wardens and two for arts council, right? Yes. Hopefully everybody saw, you've got Jeff there who was listing the packets and then Sam Lincoln's materials came in today and we sent them along. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, Jeff's here as well. And then there were two for the arts and culture committee. And you do have, I suppose, theoretically, you do have two tree warden positions in that statute of divisions, both a tree warden and a deputy tree warden. I would just have to say, I don't think you can get much more qualified than the individual that wrote the laws and helped clean up the programs at the state level and especially the guidance to the towns. That's pretty interesting. He's here tonight to chat with us about that, if we'd like, right? I think we have two candies, two positions. I think we could probably fill them both for sure. So, thoughts? When was the last time we had this position filled? I don't know. We had it early. It was early without the tree warden. And then Rob Ronalds from the highway department was at different points, I think, if not in some form across some years too. Yeah. And so if we were to appoint a tree warden and a deputy tree warden, like for our town, is that overkill? Is that reasonable? Do we have candidates who would be willing to work together to do wonderful things for the trees of Randolph? Yeah. What kind of makes sense here? Do you want to try me and Sam? If I may. Yeah, please. Sam Lincoln. Nice to meet you. Is this double salary? Is that what you're talking about? Absolutely. That's going to cost us twice as much, right? Twice zero. Twice zero is still zero, yeah. Thank you for the consideration. You're talking about splitting it up with the deputy. We certainly haven't had a chance to talk about anything like that. Primarily my interest is in the rural uses of the roads in the right-of-way and the impending infestation of emerald ash borer within the municipality. And certainly there's a lot to be done in the residential areas, downtowns, and a lot of opportunity to keep a tree scape landscape and things like that. So I have no idea what you're thinking or what Mr. Thayer's thinking or anything like that. I'd be happy to put heads together if like doing the downtown type things or anything. I have no idea. I don't want to put words into your mouth. We haven't had a community initiative. So I'm open to do whatever to help serve the community in this capacity and help out here. And certainly we'll have to do it in a collaborative fashion, so. Yeah, it was well. And I actually have more interest in the village property. That's what I think is why we're out. This could really wait. This could be great. We'll have a sudden embarrassment of riches in terms of tree warden. And I think it's a really good fit. I think if Sam's interest is in the rural landscape and you've got somebody who's interested in the village, I'd be happy to make a motion to appoint Sam as tree warden and Mr. Trevor, was it? Thayer. Thayer, excuse me. Not Trevor. Oh, it's not Trevor. Sorry to slight another one there. As the deputy, and I think that they could split the duties amongst them, you know, village and rural. I second that. Okay, there we go. Okay, I'm just like, we're moving forward here. This is great. You agree, right? You think so? Yeah, absolutely. That sounds wonderful. Trini, you're good with that, aren't you? You're just going to sit on a second, although it's a favor. I am. Perfect. Thank you, gentlemen. I think that was easy. You're welcome. Thank you. Well, let's you hash it out. Yeah. What are the select board's expectations? Well, I don't know that we've ever really defined what that role is. So it might be interesting to have you guys sit down and propose to us what you think needs to happen and what that looks like. I think the only thing I've seen is the tree warden do is go out when they wanted to cut down the apple tree on the front lawn when they were expanding the town offices. That's a great moment in brain health history. Yes. I mean, I could see things like, okay, so there's issues where there's trees that are a danger, where maybe somebody's got an issue where you've got a tree that's dead at the top and maybe that needs to be removed and it sits over a street or a sidewalk or something like that. And that's where I kind of see some assistance in that area. It's like, okay, who's identifying those problems now until the tree falls down and hits the car? I mean, that happened out here on Prince Street here a little while ago. And so it might be just, if somebody's observing that stuff, it might be like, hey, we got an issue up there and is it the landlord's responsibility or is it the town's responsibility and if it's the town's responsibility that we need to put it on the scope of work and get it taken care of? So that is kind of what I see happening here is just kind of keeping an eye on that stuff. And I think that it's a volunteer job. And any assistance we get, especially considering the position been vacant for a number of years, is gonna be welcome with open arms. And I know that the Conservation Commission had looked into the ML dashboard issues several years ago now and compiled a report and some recommendations and it just sort of fizzled out. So if that's something that you really wanna pursue now, I think that's wonderful and really needed to have somebody, especially with your background and skills to really help give us guidance on how we manage this problem over what's probably gonna be a long period of time now. So I think that if that's something that you're thinking that you really wanna focus on, I mean, I can hardly think of something that would be more relevant at this moment. And Jeff has expressed a desire to look at the trees that we have in the village and to make our downtown more inviting and have healthier trees. And if he can even make a dent in that issue, I think that would also be a wonderful thing. So I think you guys kind of know what you wanna do. And if you follow through on it, I think we'll be grateful. If I can add a couple of things that part of the conflict, the statutes that were rewritten a couple of years ago was that there were conflicting statutes over who had authority to manage vegetation in the right away. And it led to some multi, some million dollar losses. And so that's been clarified, but the town now has, I don't know if an obligation, but the town can designate what's a shatress, this term, this phrase, shatering going back, far back in the statutes, nobody really knew actually what a shade tree was supposed to be. Some said it was a horse tied under it on a road to rest and cool down on a hot summer day and things like that. So as of right now, right now it doesn't have any shade trees designated. It says in the definitions of the statute, what a shade tree is. And so that might be another thing, is that that might be very clear as a miscibly planted or managed tree in the downtowns. And whether or not that spills over into the rural areas and things like that, that's probably to be discussed and a recommendation to come up with either to leave it, leave it alone or to designate certain areas, things like that. So that all can be done. And certainly there's opportunity, we can talk later about the Urban and Community Tree Program with the state has a lot of resources and I can touch there and help. Pretty much like, not to be helpful. So I should go to preserve the trees because I, one of the right ways in town is my property. And so is the goal for these positions to protect them? Protect the trees? Well, I think there's- Save this once, but like, not just cut them down, cause they're in the way. Well, there's the hazard trees, there's maybe infestations, things like that. And I think again, as other things have been often discussed here, there's private property rights too. You know, rural, again, some of these historical conflicts came, farmers wanted to manage their hedgerows to reduce the amount of crops that were shaded and things like that. So I think it's a, you know, if it's a mature property and you wanna preserve it, preserve the trees there, that I think that's important as long as they don't become hazards. I also think one of the major lawsuits in the state was over the municipality, removing trees in the right away to expand the road, do road maintenance without getting the permission of the landowner that owned the, so a lot of that has been, a process has been laid out in these new statutes for which the landowners are notified and the community, things like that. So there's a process now that's been set forth so that people are aware and can comment, things like that. Yeah. All of these things offer us what we could desperately use, which is clarity when somebody calls and to the extent that whether it's the shade tree ordinance and some of the street tree planning and the Amralash poor stuff, we get a call and we know who to coordinate with and where to go and what's gonna happen. That's a, that would be a huge win. I think something at a staff level would be very, would be very interesting. Pretty helpful. Yeah, because right now we sort through each one kind of on a case-by-case basis and when the vacancy in the warden's job makes it a little bit harder. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think you're just lighting Trevor's load. Yeah, that was in the tent. Yeah. Perfect, less phone calls. That's right. Well said, yeah. No, but you're... Yeah, we can just be a little bit. That's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing. That's why John's... Alrighty. We can do this. Thank you gentlemen. Right, our committee has two folks. They do and I can speak to both. To the credit of the Arts and Culture Committee have actually sort of put together a formal application process that answers the questions that we typically ask here at the select board of people who are interested in serving and you have in your packets formal applications to be on the Arts and Culture Committee from Becky McGallyard and Barbara Mills who's known to people in the town as Babs Mills. Both of them have backgrounds as artists. Becky a jewelry maker and a producer of an agent for rock artists and rock musicians and the Babs Mills has a background as a singer both in pop bands and touring Broadway productions and they're both interested in bringing their arts backgrounds to the Bayer on the Arts and Culture Committee. So I will move the appointment of both Becky McGallyard and Babs Mills to the Arts and Culture Committee and if anyone has any questions I'm happy to answer them. Second, does this make a phone committee? Is that... Does this make a phone committee? I believe they are. They want to be at seven and I believe this puts them there. They may be one shy yet but it's taken a while to replace some of the people that left last year. Any other questions before we call the vote? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. So, same with these areas. Assembly permit for the Green Mountain Stage Race. This is the annual bike event that comes through town. They're using, I believe it's the same loop as last year. They start at the high school and it's primarily I think 12 and 12A. Just one of the two. Gary, I can't see it. Gary might be on one of the organizers. They will have according to the thing more than 500 folks. They coordinate with the sheriffs for traffic control. Those types of things. We have their certificate of liability insurance and we'll coordinate with them on anything they need. And I am on if there are any questions. All right. So we've done this same race in the past. They haven't heard of any issues. There was nothing last year anymore. Four or five times maybe now? Yeah, this is like the fifth year right now. So anybody have any questions or concerns or want to make a motion? I'll make a motion to grant the assembly permit for the stage race. I'll second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? No. Gary. Thanks Gary. I think that there's other business. I don't have any for you. And manager's report? Nothing to add to that. What's written except that as I mentioned earlier the Howard Hill project should be starting soon, perhaps as early as next week. So that's one of those grants in aid. It ties back to item B there. This is the grants in aid project from the last round that we're gonna be completing so we'll have to identify the project for the next round but this will be primarily some ditching, stone lighting, maybe a little bit of road surface work and that will, that's one of the stretches in that area that's hydrologically connected and they're the red areas meaning that they're in terms, they're in need of improvement. So should help us get those all to green is the color that you're trying to go for those, so. North Randolph Road wasn't one of those, right? No, it wasn't one of those. Originally with North Randolph Road, we had, we got some grant money for a scoping study to determine what the action would be and then in looking at it again with the new highway crew capacity, it was one of those with an excavator and some other provisions we could do this ourselves and so we started to look into that price it out, link up with folks from DEC and others and came up with the fix that was there so that slope wouldn't keep eroding because all the study would have produced essentially was your two primary options are close the road or do a version of what we did. The version of what we did was less than what we were looking at for a grant match for just the scoping study. So we save money and jump to the end. Got it done. Yep, which was nice. That was great. Great, entertain a motion to go into executive session. So moved. Well, you need, this is a two because it's a collective bargaining one. We're gonna do the finding and then. What do we need? So the first one is the motion to find executive session is necessary and prudent and that premature general public knowledge would place the town at a disadvantage. So moved. Second. All in favor. Aye. So moved. Mr. Terry. Now you get to enter if you want that motion. It makes a motion to go into executive session. We have a second on that one. Yeah, I think Pat just said he is. Motion to second all those in favor. Aye. Aye. Those. Mr. Terry.