 Okay, all in favor and this evening we got some appointments one thing I just wanted to read off this evening. Hello Jean. So we got as far Jean we just got as far as just bringing the meeting to order and we did the the agenda unless you had anything that you wanted to add to the agenda we've already approved it but we can amend it. Okay so before we get started and just make sure if anybody hasn't just make sure you sign in either on your way in or way out. So I just wanted to take a minute to go through you know there's a lot of new faces that have been attending the meetings as well as there's been some different calls for you know questions. So I just wanted to catch everybody up and and we do have you know Jean's a new person so you know I just wanted to kind of go through a review of what it is really this slack word does because everybody has different opinions what slack word does and you know the select word for the most part the select word does three functions so there's the legislative function which the legislative function is you know enacting local ordinances the regulations and the policies that's kind of the you know the non-flashy type you know lots of paperwork type end of things. There's the administrative end of things which is preparing and presenting the budget overseeing all the town expenditures like we you know we signed sign our expenditures are down with Jean now so all payrolls and if we buy Paul's our liaison that looks at all the expenditures on the board level ahead of time and then we we sign them unless he objects to them and and then obviously in our case a lot of slack words while slack words are different in our case with the town managers we oversee the town manager and then the town manager oversees all the personnel and day-to-day operations in a if we didn't have a town manager we had what we call a town administrator similar to like Royalton then the town administrator really just runs the day-to-day operations but not the personnel so if we had that function then the town of Ethel flat where we'd be in charge of who we hire and fire you know those types of things but in this case you have a town manager there's Teresa so Teresa you know we're kind of Teresa boss and she takes care everything day-to-day including all the people in town so and then she does all the work we're just here so when in doubt it's Teresa what are you doing with the other half of your day sleeping and then there's a quasi-judicial pieces of it which is you know determining private rights in such matters as like laying out or discontinuing maybe town highway or reclassifying the road here in the peels so we are the board of other things other than just slack word we're also the board of health with the community we are the local liquor control as you'll see like tonight we have a license and then in Bethel's case we're also the water and sewer pressure so so you know we kind of have multiple hats so if you had you know an issue with something that applies with health or if you have a business with liquor or or if you had water sewer type grievances then that's us so that's basically the function other than that you know you know for the most part anything a private matter that happens in the town is not the board's piece unless we have some sort of common interest in it maybe share a property or something like that other than that the town doesn't have any private authorizations as well as the town so the board doesn't have it trees doesn't have it and so on because there's been some questions that we've had this week in regards to you know there's a hot topic in town about that flag that's put up on the south end of town and it's not the first time we have other complaints that come up all the time so it might be I don't like any you know you know but those aren't the town of Euclid's type of areas where we have any authority we do have an animal that also does dogs but like we had one earlier the week in it was about somebody has chickens but they're free range so then they're going on somebody else's lawn so they weren't happy so they called us in the state we don't because Vermont work what they call a Dylan's rules state we only have the authority granted to us by the state of Vermont so in those cases it was a civil matter and a lot of times that's what it boils down to it's a civil matter so it's between nails but yes if you had a dog complaint about a dog then we do have a dog ordinance about that and there are rules about that and people registering their laws etc but if it was because somebody's chickens are on and we're not going on the other side oh I'm sure you have I know it's funny there actually is a statute about cattle livestock but it doesn't really address power so we just wanted to just kind of get that out there you know there's there's some new people to the process that have been you know taking a good interest in the board level which is nice because we don't always have an audience it's usually no money so it's good to have those faces also you know people come and go new board members come and go so it's good to kind of everybody understand what we do in a manner so and then also the trees you know she has to answer phone calls nonstop about a chicken or flag or your neighbor's house color or something else then that takes away from her day and you know getting the things done that we are going to do so that being said we have our first appointment Tim Tim's here so this time of year you know May June is the time year where we set our water and sewer rates and our budget so this is kind of typical year of doing that and you know as anybody that's followed the town here over the last year year and a half you know we are in the process of you know started and finishing our main street water line project so some of that will be reflected of this budget as we start taking care of some of that that that the fund project that we had anticipated so Tim yes change of hats will water serve yeah I mean what do you want do you want to just if you guys have questions about the budget we can answer that obviously I gave you an overview sheet which is the 2021-2022 water rate schedule so we are we are coming to you with a 2.4 percent increase over last year in the water rate and a 1.99 percent increase over last year in the sewer rate and you can see certainly last year I think in the sewer we had like 25% increase and we had a low increase in water too but as you can see in the water budget we picked up the projected currently projected 16,673 dollar loan payment which you really can't complain about considering that's on a 2.8 million dollar water project so I think that's certainly really good news now I know when we started the water project we had anticipated an increase of well we weren't sure when we put out the flyer originally based it on not getting all of the funding because when you go to the bond half the bond for the full 2.8 million we got 25 percent right off the top and then another 50 percent then the 25 percent and then yeah and because we get 100% of that so when you think about 100% of up in and out so if they're taking it out we get 100% of the entire transaction so so when we ran the numbers at the end of the year last year obviously we're doing well we'll spend the whole 2.8 million but we also got on top of that is a 0% loan for 40 years so 0% interest for 40 years so that's how we 2.8 million at a $17,000 bond payment but I know when we started the process you know kicking around just numbers but you know it was 2.8 or 2.8 that was then turned into 1.2 yeah 1.2 is kind of what we were thinking the budget would be that's now less than that yeah and we make and we've even been able to upgrade some of our stormwater system yes yeah as we can go on and two streets side streets that haven't been done we've changed a bunch of cases on Main Street with black top two side streets full with full width and we're still not done that's prior to what I've been doing in the field is illustrating what I'm getting our best bang to a buck while I built the dirt over the top yeah one of the things do we should say is you know we put 15 grand aside last year for engineering of some stormwater and Tim and the super online they were able to just basically just engineered on the fly and so we use that money instead of engineering went around so it was kind of the perfect opportunity to take advantage of that so yeah Tim and correct they've been working you know to get the keep up on all the lead which is everything that's galvanized we get all so that is not really well we knew we had a lot galvanized in the ground but once it was over we saw just how much so we've you know the project has been moving forward and they'll be back around sometime this month sorry I mean the behind the scenes where you actually see and I will say that I mean on a typical year in this town I mean we did have the water break that happened out you know just off of this project limits that got done this past year but typically I mean if you came through here on any normal year there would have been places where we went in through the winter to fix because of something and at the same time we've lost a lot of efficiency of water and other things that come along with that or that you know really I mean correct me for wrong time but we haven't had a lot of those call outs you know and we did have a reduction in production but we are we've got some leaks that are starting to show up so do we do that it's the leap protection detection is that a yearly event that we do or is that only would we get grant it depends on the state office this year they did offer it but we have enough going on and we're already proposing to do four more streets so by the time we get done those streets it didn't seem fair to apply for it to take it away from another community because we've done it the other years we didn't do it last year because of COVID but before that it was actually very helpful and it is a pilot program the state pays for but Tim's right I mean we're full steam ahead now and we're already in you know full engineering mode on the next level because if the president releases money under President Obama's call they are money but so in there's a lot of times they offer like a 50% forgiveness out of the gate which have to have shovel ready project so we're already going full tilt to design for the next one because we don't want to miss a nickel so that's where we're headed the other thing that didn't make sense either was the line stretches that we haven't got our AC pipe and we can't drill and trace them so it was just going to be a useless application well I know I was you know back to the water rating the things I know when I had taken I was looking at my notes from last year and when we were talking about this and fall probably took really good notes in this piece of it but I know we were talking like somewhere between 8 and 12 cents increase 8 to 12 dollars project so you know right now the proposal is three dollars so I mean you know we're already starting to see some of the efficiencies and some of the a lot of that person who was identified even further than we thought and it's a reimbursement rate of a hundred percent so if you find a hundred feet you get a hundred feet of new line right so the payback was the other thing to we put in this water budget to which we hadn't taken into consideration before is we split the utility truck between the road crew and us so we needed to put some money in the budget to take care of our you know tires different things so that's in here which wasn't before and I had wrote in my notes look that we didn't have an increase in sewer last year it was point two four percent it must have been here before that maybe I think we did freeze one year so for the you know for the water budget that's where we you know the other thing too is you know Tim and I we go through this every year when we're calculating rates it's really important for us because we have to figure out how many people use we have in the system plus we have to figure out how many we have for that are vacancies so if the select word if someone comes ask the select word for a vacancy rate it's nice that you guys are only giving it for six months because the vacancy rate pays the fixed cost but it doesn't pay the full and you know the full boat of the budget so when those get made during the year Tim and I are like all right you know we have to compensate for that somewhere in the rate structure so we go through this every year we send out a survey to people that you might not be aware of it's a residential homeowner we don't but if it's school or business we have a grease trap one was last time it was empty but how many do you use you know how many employees do you have how many what's the business type and we go from there to make sure that every year these are accurate so if something gets changed in the middle of the year you know it's we try to accommodate so sometimes but how we do that too sometimes is the reserve funds because obviously if you don't make any money we're not funding the reserve fund but I don't know if you have any specific questions about the budget quick question on the sewer department on that one line I know the system maintenance 20,000 and 1920 we only use 5688 and so far this year only 5700 is that a typical number okay that that can that number be lowered 20,000 I don't know what you know Tim would have to answer the number system maintenance 20-725-1 in the sewer and see in one year we went over from 85 to 18 and then 25 to 5 but and then 20 to 5 the only thing I can think of that could happen in there is if the I didn't look at that but if there was had been some maintenance that was done that was bigger that maybe the auditors wanted to put into they wanted to capitalize it they might have you know made a reduction but I'm not sure you know where you're at this year Tim what do you normally look on the system maintenance yeah depends on what's breaking and one pump's 12 grand to replace or do a rebuild on mm-hmm so and I've already had one act up this year and the one beside it's acting up again so when I have things like that sometimes they're not every year and so what happens is that what happens with that money if it doesn't get used it stays in their own designate fund balance which is a good thing because if like for this year this month coming up about the money that's come headed toward the town's how to spend it we obviously want to put it into sewer water infrastructure but it's going to depend if they don't open it up so if they don't open up the caveat surrounding that Tim we may have to buy a pump this year and then say okay we're gonna buy one pump this year and one pump next year out of that number so if they owe any money to the town you know we can pick it up there or you know by paying off the do-do-do from or it sits you know it's profit it sits in its own designated fund so we get a big hit for something but since we don't know about that yet that's one of the things that we talked about was pumps because we could easily spend 70,000 on pumps for the sewer plant so we were talking about that if the money doesn't come in is there a way we can take some out of this budget and then some out the next start easing that burden to try to keep the sewer rates like this to give you an idea of the two pumps of the plant when I rebuild them they're anywhere from 5,000 to 2,000 so they're not cost efficient they've done their time we've done 34 years and as long as it goes into that fun it's a safety yeah okay thank you so the vacancy rate is something that Bethel does says say you own a apartment building and one of the ordinance was amended so that you go we shut your water so that great covers just the fixed cost portion of the budget so it used to be years ago that like you have a big apartment you know you got a vacancy rate without apartment but if your other apartment was full and so now what you do is if the say you have someone and you do have someone in town who's working on a building and say they came to you and said you know we bought this building and we want to redo it a lot of times the slight word was okay look we'll give you the vacancy rate for a month two months six months or whatever to give them a chance to help you know bring those online but what the vacancy rate is it just covers the fixed cost yeah it's basically it's everything from the treatment plant right to your curb stop which which we found normally and it varies from year to year depending on how many you know if we lose a couple or gain a couple of services but it's you know somewhere in the seventy five eighty percent of the cost is fixed and then the other twenty five twenty and twenty five percent is the variable cost so how much water are we using you know as a consumer using that we need to pay for so so usually if you decided to go on vacancy rate it might save you thirty dollars a quarter you know yeah so the other thing on this sheet is annually Tim has to do a consumer confidence report so that the link goes out to people here so that's something that if you haven't seen before it's on the website and it just tells you all about water quality and testing etc we also did a little water project construction update on the same sheet the future plan which was the same on the mailer that we did as well so just to kind of let everybody know so and when are we anticipating Tim Tater to start back up with their probably doing first in that area they've got one through their song window there now that's the one that's coming here and we had talked it's what two months with the work okay do you know exactly where they're gonna be starting I know dense more was part of it but like how how much into Main Street and the curve did we actually get to last year okay but basically all the way to Janice's house it's completed so it won't really because the reason I'm asking is I've had a few people at the school ask will it affect bus traffic in the morning really yeah and we saw the sampling station has to go on but there will be some on Main Street as you said you still got some stuff that got broken at the end of the year so there will be some delays I mean you know time to time but nothing where's the sampling station normally you have to my statewide tie-in before your first connection after contact chamber with Jen in front of a very apartment building and then from school like this and I didn't want to bother any residents so we're gonna put it to 24 and park them off right and we're gonna put the fire hydrant in at the same time so I was moving out of my set to think about that moving forward we're also gonna try and not to get the road we're gonna try to pitch the wind down in the old water if it works we're only gonna have two walls that will happen and we'll see how that goes so with any hope by August hopefully my own project could be you know basically completed any further discussion with regards to the rates just so you know this is effective it's our July 1st so the rates go and G-Tree just printed water bills today so what will go out with the water bills is a notice will go out with the water bills that says actually the notice will look exactly like this it goes out and you get one every year it kind of takes care of our requirement for the CCR as well as letting people know what the rate increase will be effective July 1st a motion to approve the budgets and the rates second all in favor so the last thing is to bear with me Lisa you're tired so I'm taking minutes now so I'll tell you there's an amendment in here number three the motion for me to sign that's obviously the project is extended to a bunch of stuff in the street last year that was all unanticipated this helps this keeps you know someone on the street for construction for doing the constructive documents all that sort of stuff so it is an addition of 229 229 thank you and we already got permission from Cindy Parks at the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund so this is already wrapped up into our so a motion to approve the amendment for the engineering costs for Aldrich and Elliot so moved second okay all in favor we also put in there just as a little heads up for you community revitalization requires water infrastructure investment so this is a little bit of information that came out from the office of the governor obviously Bethel slated to receive 192,963.13 it does not include money in our for the county distribution that will come to us so we're kind of waiting to see what that's going to do after we come in June 2021 half in June next year so we're kind of waiting I guess that there's a I have written to the local representatives to say you know open the money up a little bit more we don't necessarily need to build new it but we need to be able to revitalize what we have for infrastructure so we're waiting to see there's still some strings attached to that money so we're waiting on that obviously so that that would be something that we'd be able to use towards like same hell or something like that well right now the caveats are can only be used for poor things sewer, water, broadband local business some of them are local businesses essential workers but everybody's kept their jobs so it's really not an issue there so right now our my feeling, personal feeling is economic development comes because of infrastructure in the ground so the money that we receive you know my opinion is it should all of them in the ground I was disappointed that it wasn't coming in to go for roads, bridges, culverts I think that money will come and it will be funneled through VTrans but the money that's coming directly to us those are the caveats the money can only be used for these things but like I said there's a training or a webinar on I think it's 18th or 19th that I'm going to go to to see you know exactly what's coming but for us we would love to see it we've already started our mother you know the engineering on another water project so sand hill crystal you know all that stuff that we listed here so obviously for us it would be great if we could tuck all that money into that project because it would help us keep grades even and the thing too we have to remember in the sewer ordinance is any that we take on the sewer goes on the tax rate that's what that ordinance says so it would be nice if we can take this money and put it in the ground for infrastructure because we want business to come here but in order to some of these businesses to do that they need to upgrade the infrastructure to do that so I will have more information on that later but I thought that this was really interesting coming from the governor they're basically saying the same thing you know they want infrastructure for you so I just thought it was good information and I put my power information on the last page in bold so we'll see and we'll have more public information on the 24th about what that money looks like and what the caveats are do that more specifically don't we know now so that's what we have for waters to work okay yep thank you too water rights I have again carried a plan that we're using so it's more public status which we need to see through and we can also we're going to put it somewhere safe this time Chuck I don't know why I can't ever see the plan to say sweet I personally have heard any complaints I do have well Theresa and I have looked at a section and I think it's a combination of quad runners and the Snowmobile Club because I think you access that area the same but we have a stretch road so you at the top of Bethel Mountain we have is it Hooper Hollow Hooper Hollow that you know dives off to the left comes down and as it's coming into the bowl there there's a trail that comes down on the left that right now the the water doesn't properly drain coming off it comes it literally comes down the trail and then it dumps out right across the road so obviously in the early spring or sorry late spring early spring or late fall here is it potential of water runoff and then glazes the road there so I think we were Theresa and I were looking at over at the last ball I think so and wondering if you know somehow we could either partner with a landowner to we talk about to maybe get the water to flow off of that trail and either put in some water bars or something that we can get it to the water it's just not coming down that trail and dumping right out onto the road because where it dumps out is a probably a it's a very unsafe stretch road to begin with when you first go down in I think it's Jack Howdry owns some property right there do you know where his access is? yeah so she comes down to the property so when you walk up it you could see the way the water is coming up so even if there were some water bars on you know Jackson to keep it because it's coming off and then it's not really coming off the road it's coming off right to the left of it down that bank and then all that sediment stuff comes out in there so it becomes you know water and or gravel so we can talk to Alex Reisterer maybe some water bars because the challenge there is it's very legend there like you're going to go in and put a ditch in and get that ditch to flow into the you know the town ditch so I think the only way to do it was maybe put one or two water bars further up just to get it that could collect it and shoot it off yeah because the way it is right now is the water comes right down that trail and then it spills out right across with the hollow road and if you get a whatever cold night or morning whatever it lays that right over and it kind of yeah it comes off it's very steep you know you come down into that I think I'd walk up in there and take a peek you'll see exactly what we're talking about I had a bike contact me about a month ago and he was looking by a piece of property and that was the property he was talking about because he asked if he had a TV trail and I threw it and I said yeah it does and he goes good but he says that's what I want he says I want a proper TV trail so I will look and see if I can find his TV to see if he bought it you can call Pam of the town clerk's office to see if he purchased we've had a lot as you can imagine with the property kind of wanting off the shelf for lack of a better analogy it's been crazy we've had a lot of inquiries so whether or not actually changed hands I don't know if you just called or emailed Pam she would be able to tell you and she would certainly have a name and attach to it I think he contacted me he got my email, personal email and email yeah so I'm not sure if he bought or not but we did have up in that area because we also had somebody no it was Charlie Wilson wrote I think we got some guy that was owning permit out there but we did have I answered a few questions about a property out there so whether or not he ever you know he bought I don't know for sure well that's good I'm glad he was interested so we also talked to Alex about I don't know if you two ever meet or talk or whatever but they were also he said that it's home good but we could also do something about it but I don't know who's going to get to it first yeah I think you both use it obviously they use it in the winter time which now they put water buyers in in the winter it looks like probably the only thing it's only storm water runoff there's no spraying or anything that's coming down off the road it's clearly a storm water surge but if somehow we you know I somehow we could get like some water buyers or something that we could pitch it you know either back towards the ditch or off the side of it or something but it's all lead right there too so I don't know what it can do but we haven't I personally have had zero complaints about you but I do have a question however I was looking for this map and I looked on your website the a or whatever the website the past the website and it says on there that they don't give out like they obviously don't publish about the maps is that because you just so I know is that because you want people to pay the fee to register their ATVs and then they get access is that how it works okay there's someone else you won't find that map if you were to get a map from NASA you would find that on the trails no because it's not 100% legal we have like 3 million numbers that we'd be able to contact from the cook shack over to Douglas there's a section in there and Mr. Webster may not use it and he would never give anybody permission to use it but he would never go after anybody he didn't use it on that trail for over 40 years you know and so but he just for he just wanted to go to Mars I guess he just would not give permission but the stone machine club met with him years ago and he said I'm not going to give you permission so they just kept using it but because they had two people there you know on the conversation they just signed a slip for it because they had two people so we have some things like that we used Harry's everbinds in my map and then years ago we asked Harry can we have permission to use you know we said you can do anything on my name you want I'm not signed a piece of paper so if you guys I mean he said you can go to my field you can do whatever you want I'm not signed on it he just was afraid of the liability and then because of that you can't publish the map because it's maybe not a legal process well we talked but so we have a safe piece for now because the one I thought I had was like oh my god we let that frame it I'm like 12 so we can find it yeah so we'll make sure we well I know we talked about a logging issue there are a few meetings ago and there was some damage to the road up in that area there was concern about and I didn't know if that was any part of the trail there it was the Quimby Forest that we were talking about yeah we were talking about up the top where that log landing was going to go oh well yeah people are driving up there well we've certainly we have since Alan has met with A.J. Quimby the county forester we're talking about going up a range to do they were talking about logging out of there logging could be out of there putting a parking up area up there but Alan I had met and then we just said no way we put a bunch of money into a range with the April 2019 flood and I'm just like look I get it my stepfather's a logger and they're crazy but we won't even plow we're not going to seriously put a log truck up up in that area it was just going to trash the road so it looks like they're looking now at the woodland at the other herds I didn't know if it connected at all with the ATV yeah so right now it doesn't look like we're going to do that we talked to the county forester they met with them and they walked in we put a bunch of money in here we don't really want to do that and they're looking at the other access to the property which he was a little bit concerned of originally because I think it can be kind of in a wet area but we just we got to look at something else I'm like because we went all the way well we went as far as we could up to class three and then we stopped and above that you know there's just that house up there down there so but it looks like we're not going to so we hired everyone yeah and well through so it's not set in stone yet I can email you once I find out a little more because some of the other access they were concerned about one part probably being a little wet trying to figure it out but I think since then AJ Almsby the county forester is going to meet with class four road committee and take a peek at that and see how else they could access the property because what they were trying to do was establish where they had the log landing at the top of range would be to establish a parking area because they also want to use the conservation commission wants to put some hiking trails through Quimby so they were thinking we could do a little parking up there so that when people would drive an engine in the summer and fall and park at night so but I'm not sure right now because you know I mean there's a part of the range that's straight down they're logging on the class four section of the class three there and they're logging in and that goes pretty narrow we can put up signs we can even call the section a trail per period of time if we need to I'll make a note here to get a hold of you once we figure out once we have an hour how late do you typically run the trails May 15th to October 31st we're talking about going up and logging that it was winter so you guys probably won't even be active at that point right I don't know if some of the we all have access to that I think so but what we can do is I can let Chuck Ken and Alex Christover know what the plan is going to be so at least once of January so yes yeah so we'll let you know how it affects the trails and what we're going to have to do there once we have said no to range and walk I think the county forester kind of went back with the conservation commission let's check out the other access it's more doable it's less treacherous so we'll see maybe some rather difficult it was hard for us as we were like we just put money we didn't want to damage anything on roads any other questions for quad riders or just need a motion to approve the annual use of the roads for central brahmat quad riders as noted on the map second motion in the second all in favor all set thank you yeah if you could just take a look at that case there and just let us know if there's anything to do with that because you guys typically work with the landowners more than we do so something simple a water buyer or something would be awesome thank you Chuck I didn't respond to your email it was kind of right before I came here about the Friday morning thing I'm happy to come talk if you want to talk about jobs and municipal government I'm just thinking too I may be able to probably know Ryan Slack maybe I could harass him I've already had the state come in so they've already been in and spoke to the class because I knew they had a training program at one point they do so which is nice I'm certainly happy to come in and tell them all the great things about working for us I don't know if I've got anybody I've got a handful of seniors a couple that went to college I think I've got two that are going into the work force well still any time if you want to do that this year even next year you want you know I'm happy to come in and give the kids much about municipal government actually next year would be good to have a female in my class next year it'd be great to have you come in then okay just reach out to me Chuck any time and I'm happy to make Chuck up awesome thank you any greater operators would take those yeah hopefully you're doing that unfortunately I don't you guys don't do any most of the stuff I do is maintenance and repair I did just buy a low buoy trailer so I can load equipment onto it which I do have two pieces of equipment they're going to load the equipment on they're going to chain it down they're going to hook the low buoy back together and set up an obstacle course in the parking lot so do you help them get their CDLs I can't help them get their CDL can you help them get their permit yeah of course I know we're trying to partner with the state Stu Johnson from V-Trans and he's going to come down and do some greater operator training in person he's getting his second vaccine here soon so that's certainly a need I mean as you know I'm on their listserv and jobs they're just looking to work people I had two phone calls this weekend looking for help in the field greater course I took that years ago because I worked for well at the time I was working for Stockbridge but it's you don't learn to run a greater in it this guy's actually going to come down and work with them on site I think he can do and is to bring in get this guy to come from the state and see if I could so we talked to the Hodges and maybe Gary Slot kind of get a couple people they all have a different approach it doesn't make it wrong it's just different so that each person so that the new guy pays and then we just hired Gabriel Feeney who graduates from BTC soon because maybe we can get you know them to kind of get a feel kind of part of my you know plan was to think about bringing in a school and stuff is helpful they need to ask him to see well and that's what these guys are going to do is they're going to be in the seat and he's going to be there kind of working with them and you know and talk them through it so we'll see but I also think yeah getting Gary, getting Sid maybe come in and just kind of give them some pointers put them out on a road and say okay this is what you got to do that's what I'm expecting from Stu just like you said is do we have a guy out now in Payson and it's do you know just start doing it and he's out kind of working on the sides and this looks good the first time he did a road it was a little too light but you know what he did it and he got the feel for it and so I think it's just time yeah that's the point it is yeah so but I appreciate it so yeah just let me know Chuck read down to me next year okay awesome all right and our last appointment of the night we have our equity and inclusion committee continuing our discussion that we've been having here with the last couple well not the last meeting but two meetings ago because we had some back and back meetings here because it's somebody's birthday it's all my fault you're welcome somebody's vacation yeah birthday vacation so all right do you want anybody from the committee want to start the discussion or anybody from the board or how would you like to do it hi how are you I think where we left off last is we wanted to facilitate a couple of conversations between the committee and various left board members so we suggested the idea of pairing members and I wanted to clarify that in the proposal that Christine and Jerry and I put together we weren't suggesting that each of you would meet three times we were suggesting that there would be three pairs of two and that each of those pairs would meet once and we would have one conversation we did talk about a definitions document that we're preparing to share with all but still everybody we're still working on making sure that everybody we feel like we all understand the document and agree on the terms we also talked about potentially sharing a book with y'all that has been useful to some of the committee members which is called Through White Eyes which was written by Robert Wall she was a former state representative and a former high school teacher in Vermont just sort of talking about the issue of race specifically in Vermont which we thought would be useful it's a pretty short read actually and we have some funding based on the book recipient of the funding but it's from they all to do some community conversation work around virtual justice so we were thinking that we could use that funding to purchase the books for folks and then maybe we could use that for our conversations but I think really the question on the table is just you folks do you all want to meet with the committee in this kind of circle conversation way and one time in your buddies if that feels good to you and that would just be the kickoff of hopefully many years of conversation so I know we're all our own voices here just one fifth of the voice so I really appreciate the information that was passed out I think particular pieces of discussion like you had put it before they they mean something a little bit different to each person in their own journey so to speak it might be a little different than Linnley or anybody else I think it was kind of nice Paul and I got together on Sunday I think it was and actually we had discussions with Linnley and Dave as well just from the popping in so I think I definitely welcome the documents I kind of like that at this point see it grow like where are we taking that so can we get it into a community setting how do we because my whole thing is like how do we apply this because I think we have really good backing on the board on moving forward being positive getting things done constructively how do we now like start applying this more community wise you know what's the proper setting for this like you know can we can we have potluck you know get together where maybe you know certain pieces of literature that you know people want to come and be a part of and then at the same time the committee can collect some data you know here are some of the discussions and topics that that are part of their life you know so that the committee can develop some sort of baseline like we talked about with our community to see how how can we best use this information to serve our community and I think Jesse and Owen at the beginning I had this has nothing to do with your guys' committee but because we have a lot of new people that frequent the board meetings now as well as you know team's new committee member I was just kind of listing off what does the select board do so people know we don't police people's thoughts and feelings and flags or spews with their neighbor but you know we do have control over the legislative part which is ordinances and regulations and policies you know we talked about administrative which is preparing budgets so if we see something that is the group that is constructive like hey you know we'd like to I don't know make something up but you know we'd really like to expand Ford Festival and maybe have an event like here that you know what it's going to cost us $400 you know then those are things that we can talk about budgeting to help out the committee on you know how can we best you know spend money to create a gathering you know those types of things like you know because the board really were we need something concrete to be able to do something with so I through this whole thing I'm trying to process this and thinking okay like how do we move this into something concrete that then five of us members can then take and start working on like that we have control over so that's kind of the way I've kind of been approaching this I think that's true and I'm just kind of the dark because you know what I think maybe the town needs is probably different than on Linnley or anybody in this town you know I unfortunately I'd love to talk to all 2,000 members of the community but you know it's a lot of people we don't always get to see everybody so one of the conversations that Chris and I had after you know because obviously Linnley and I met and we talked about there and then Chris and I were talking too was so and it was good it was an interesting article and I'm halfway through the book that you recommended and but for me certainly it was how do we put it into practice you know I think that I'm a fixer that's what I do that's my I'm a fixer so for me I going back to that survey were you doing the phone book and I'm not sure if you did the phone book but certainly the survey is when we have the budget for example and we have social appropriations right like for example we give money to Red Cross gets a little money and maybe the food shelf or the central money agency or something like that so what are we missing so with a survey if you guys were to talk to people which is an undertaking right to get the survey to get the answers I can't fix something that I don't know right so if you did the survey and you could find out maybe it's what is the need that comes out maybe it's something we're not on we're unexpected one of Chris's things was what if it's maybe for refugees or people coming to the community Rutland does a great job welcoming people maybe we should be doing that better so maybe some money needs to be appropriated to that maybe it's something unexpected what if it's small children that aren't being taught to read or map so we need to we need to go because of the results of your survey we can go find an agency and we can say hey we need to partner with you we want to give you an appropriation we want you to provide services in our community so I think the article is good and I think it's interesting to have because we go in the packet we hope everybody reads our packets and now I do so that information gets disseminated and if you're doing community potlucks and outreaching so if you got a grant from Vaze to do an outreach a community outreach that's great so what I don't know and where you know what are the questions that need to be asked to find out where the need is that we're missing how do we simultaneously in my brain tackle getting people information that as you've stated is a very personal journey for them to read in the privacy of their own with people they're comfortable with to talk about so we get them information but also maybe get some feedback to find out what we're missing how do we you know what I mean does that make sense so I'm working here on the I just want to say I hope it's a little bit more excuse me yeah please I just want to say I hope it's a little bit more important for you the town looks at you as a group that's a mayor that's expressive that helps leave the way that hurts part of this circle part of finding the information starts within you all doing that you do that parody now talking with us that's what we're going to get the first initial ideas because you're also part of the town you're also an individual in the town so we have to start somewhere and the best place to start is with you because your idea is what you think when you be this book blue-eyed eyes what are you going to look like then we get idea then we get more information to put because we are talking about putting together a circle but then there's more questions that's going to come from you for that you know not just us just from you from that survey as well so I just want to say I hope you're really fully derived from how much you're looking forward to to help you it's not just from sitting back here it's also the town looks to you if you speak up about this and if you are active in this more people will become active they will definitely want to take a part because they look to you they look to you in government's town and you just think of your what you actually do with the perception of who you all are on the board to the townspeople you're like the mayor of this town the government of this town not just financially but somewhat morally somewhat economic so I just hope you understand how much we look towards you for that so I have a pet just because I don't so if I misunderstood this please tell me so the conversation the circle conversation if those conversations are private and just between the two people that having them then I'm not sure how that furthers your goal but what I think might further your goal is what if there's a community breed versus just the select board because it's my understanding that it's my understanding that those conversations are the first seat and from those conversations there is a bigger discussion amongst those groups and committee that is taking too further out so it keeps bouncing out it doesn't stay just between the two of you so those thoughts and ideas that you had or those things that you were questioning to each other you now have to bring them to the committee to people in the committee to talk to to further so appeal back the layers of what you were thinking or what you were thinking where we meet, where people stand where different people are do you understand what I'm getting at? okay yeah because that's not the way I mean obviously we don't have a big there wasn't spelled out anywhere what the circle was and I just understood it to be kind of where you could have an open discussion and an adventure in my I'm going to say in my ignorance without feeling embarrassed or someone labeling me in a way that is unfair because so maybe what I feel comfortable saying to Lindley I may not be comfortable repeating that to somebody else but I think that's the point the point is that you were comfortable saying to Lindley now the two of you and we get you comfortable saying it there and then the great comic book, the great more people into that and more people are comfortable really being truthful and talking and having a civil discourse truly civil discourse about mutual interests so it grows and I think you know let's tell 2,000 people that we can reach 2,000 people that's a lot of people, a lot of people are really good so I think it's important the idea is Lindley said it's cumulative so it's been a huge win I think that we've even been having these conversations here right we've discussed you know last time we talked about this David Fair share an experience that he had being pulled over and ran off and we really sort of concretely discussed that this is happening here we also raised the issue of you know homophobia transphobia in our community and these are just the powers in the conversation the power is in the fact that we're talking about it and asking questions and the goal is not that we all necessarily come to some unified place where we all think the same thing but that we're practicing talking about these issues out loud and so I'm definitely hearing that it's something we should be doing community-wide and I think the thought was that we've heard from you that some folks being in the select board feel like they need more support in understanding what the issues are before they can talk about them and so we kind of thought okay we can support conversations between you conversations with the equity-included committee and you and then we can have these big community-wide conversations right so it's like stepping stones and you know the other cool thing about the circle process is that it's something that's used in our school system and I don't know if I can speak to this but it's a process that is really rooted in sort of making sure that everybody has a seat at the table and everybody feels like there's not one expert or a teacher who's coming in saying this is what we should think but instead people saying you know I have a question about this or I read this in the news and I don't know how I feel about it and that type of vulnerability is expected of everybody and the equity-included committee would be asking the same questions and sharing one of the things with you, Therese, right so it goes both ways and that's sort of the idea of circles. Yeah so sort of to respond to both of those because I am a believer in the circle process and active participant in it through the school but also through other community endeavors it can be a really great process and I think that there's just learning what that process looks and feels like right, anything new is scary and easy to just say never mind I'm good. So I think to sort of address what Lenny started with is we are very forward-facing members of the community so to be the first to take that step while it is a big deal it's also sort of this big scary like what if I'm in that circle and I say the wrong thing so I think there's the sort of push-pull of that hesitancy that yes we're in that role but also there's a lot of well we're forward-facing and it's scary to take that first step into it. I would sort of even pair that with as much as I'm a believer of the circle process I've also had some experiences when I've been paired with somebody who I'm not comfortable with it actually you don't open up and so then the process sort of falls apart if not well led, if not well orchestrated if you like let's say Lenny and I had a fight out back an hour ago and now we're sitting in a circle process I might not be ready to enter a confidential situation with him you know we've just sort of duked it out back and I'm kind of sitting here going I don't want to tell him my deepest dark his fears or open up so I think there's a little bit of the hesitancy that's sort of being experienced tonight is that it's that we are forward-facing and it's a new unknown process to a lot of members and you know and not that that offers any solution though but it's interesting because I've never heard of the process and then when Lenny and I met would be now obviously we're talking about the article and thinking about any questions or whatever brought up for us and many of the readings and of course when we were taking the other class it would be very helpful but so for me she also helped explain it you know a little bit but we hadn't gotten dealt into it to what it looks like and how it is and because you know while I was talking we were talking to my oldest daughter it's like when we were on vacation I'm like here's some stuff I just don't whatever get or I read this and I'm confused and so she was giving me her opinion obviously it's very safe because even though I can't ground her anymore she's probably not going to you know my mother is such an idiot you know she's already said that I already know that so she's stuck with you a very comfortable space for her to say you know this is and I was able to be comfortable and so I wonder if you're not you know have that how valuable the process so that's why I wonder if the process is maker so it's more of a community ride read and then you're kind of encouraging community members to speak with other not necessarily you know with other different community members or you're trying to set up this thing you know this participation because that's one of the things he talks about in that book is that he participated in this circle in Burlington and how it worked and what he took from it and this and that so it's a hard thing to figure out and what's going to make everybody comfortable it's going to make me comfortable isn't the same as somebody else right so but I appreciate your explanation of the circle process because I did not know yeah I made a couple picking up on what I heard about these things I think there is there is another role for the select board and that is to provide leadership to the community over some what controversial issues and that needs understanding those issues as deeply as we can on a personal by a public level the second is I wonder what the people in then different might have thought if they would have been aware that some of their employees were acting in a racist way toward then senator for the state filed suit against the time that they paid $34,000 out because the community leaders were not aware of what constituted racial harassment and this kind of conversation might sensitize us to the kind of things that might be happening that we're certainly wanting to because we haven't been exposed to it and may it impact the as leaders in the community this is something that really really needs to come the circle process as I understand it well first of all if I understand correctly one of the reasons we're limiting the conversations here to two of us with somebody else was because of the history of us together it's now becoming commonplace to mourn the meeting and if there is any way for us to not be engaged in the pounds of business but to engage in this kind of conversation without having to think about how that might be desirable and I think the piggyback on that and I believe what Lenny had said and no one had said as well I think we all agree that the select board as well as the town manager are usually your face in the community and but we have to be careful too because we want to make sure that our committees are designed for the people so we have to be very careful we want to lead by example and be a part of the process but we don't want to dictate the process we have to be very careful that and we've seen it here in the past with other administrations that that steered the ship but in their own way right so I think we have to be careful and I did like I mean it's been said a couple of times I think there's a way that we can do it where we do it as a as a community but have the select board involved in that community process as more of not so much leaders but supporters because we have to be careful because if we start if the select board starts saying alright alright Ellie we want you to build a basketball court this year right and your whole committee has just spent your whole time saying jeez you know we're really getting a lot of use at the skate park and we want phase 2 of the skate park right so I think we have to be careful because we delegate you know to the committees and we select you know the delegates based upon you know how we feel you represent the town in that and I think we have to be careful that we if we project too much we can steer people in a way that they may not want to go right so I think I kind of like the I kind of like the committee the community involvement piece where we can bring more people into the picture but also have the select board be a part of that conversation right I think you also have to allow each individual just like the select board and the community to kind of make their own journey in this process but at the end of the day you know I would like to see the rep committees is then the committee comes to the select board and says hey through all of our community involvement including you know UFOs you know here is what we're seeing, feeling being told you know and this is what we think the next piece might be just like the rep committee will say we think the next piece two hours is we really want to move forward with the skate park number two and then that starts a conversation of something concrete that we can talk about right so that might be okay well how do we fundraise, how do we you know how do we do this next piece do we do some budget do we you know just like you know and Ellie's been down this up until he talks about it but you know it's also sometimes that because we want to be successful too that sometimes we're going to reach out to you just like Ellie, I mean from around Ellie once in a while we might reach out to you to say you know what are you guys up to you know let's make sure you're on the right we want to go forward and have that path we've said it to Ellie before when are we going to get the skateboard park done we've been sitting on this thing for four years so I think there's that piece too where we're going to reach out to your committee and say what do you need from us and you might say hey we really want to do this thing that's going to cost $300 can we earmark that budget and then we're like then we talk about the budget session and we get that through Thomas you guys can leave those down I'm going to have another meeting in here you're okay that's fine I'll wait for that later but thank you so what we've been hearing is what might make more sense is to have broader community-wide conversations maybe those conversations can be in a circle format maybe a circle has to be consensual otherwise that's not the point it's a forced circle it's really something that's in the mind of restorative justice which is kind of what the growing movement about accountability for harm that happens it's rooted in a lot of schoolwork there have been a lot of funding around it so we're seeing it a lot in elementary middle and high school levels in the country as a practice and so it's kind of connected to this idea that we think about punishment so there's kind of a cool piece that's like modeling the value that the equity inclusion committee is really committed to about thinking about how we hold each other accountable so what I'm hearing is we can do those as a larger community invitation and then also invite select people to be a part of those conversations if you choose to and also kind of invite more to be supportive of those conversations to happen and give nothing else so like, yes we're glad that those conversations happened about these issues we're not just dictating what people need to think about but we think that the idea of the conversations are happening is a good thing and then at the same time the equity inclusion committee can take the lead on this bigger project which is going to be a big project of this survey which maybe community conversations is the part where we collect that data, right? Like not just beginning somebody to form but having asking questions and things like that so that's kind of what I'm hearing as opposed to the individual circle conversations with the equity inclusion committee and not to interrupt you because I am but one really cool thing that took place in the downtown when we were doing a lot of we'll call it brain sessions for projects in the past and they used to bring it to like Bethlehem University stuff because they always had the big blackboard which was kind of cool and anytime they had something going on they took the blackboard like say you have it here they put it in the corner over there and then people were free and you could have a topic, right? So to get some information back from the community instead of passing out a survey it could be one question and then people are free to go up right on the board a word you remember that? and then over the course you might get like say 40 people come you might get 10 people write the same word or circle the word or write a new word what we were doing was the fish what we were doing was the damage so then you could have like a community involvement discussion maybe write a question and then as the members or as the community comes in you can announce it during it feel free to go up in at your own time put a word or two on the board and then at the end you can kind of collect that because that used to be downtown or in some cases they put it out in front of a block and stuff like that where people maybe walking downtown and they see the question great sometimes you get people that do things they shouldn't do but at least people can be part of that discussion without necessarily like some people are shy some people may not want to some things might be a little more private to people but it gives them their own opportunity to give you feedback on the spot we have this big white board we for a while are holding meetings here well we will continue to hold here but like I have a planning commission DRV so maybe it's something you put in the corner the BRTS which is two towns our combination of two are meeting here Wednesday so even if it's something in the corner of the hall that you leave up if you were to do these larger circle conversations it sounds like you received a grant through babes but certainly the town we can partner with you to say okay we can obviously do Facebook we can help you advertise we can use the hall for free there's ways to help if you're going to do either a community read or just an excerpt or however it is you choose to do that I don't know but certainly could help you do what we can to partner with you to partner with you to help you say you want this open to the public and you know first maybe three people show up but maybe as those three people tell someone that kind of you know garners a little steam or something so that you can and as they get better publicized or things like that there might be opportunities there might be opportunities to work with identities that already have things that go on like we'll have the concert on the green series pretty soon you know maybe you could have a piece of information there with question that people could come at their own time and you know write some information on or you know we have fall festival you know we have different formal events that are already set that you can partner with and it seems to me that the equity inclusion committee has come to us with the that we engage and that we and that what I sense of people is resistance to what that committee if we are resisting it fine that must just say it but I think that I'm feeling that they came to us with a proposal for a month with we had time some of us spoke with one on one we had time to think we keep coming up with other things to do other ways to become other ways to what I feel with it at all and saying to somebody else who's got to do I would like to pursue select for a conversation for an hour that people cannot wait to a community that that really said we as a select form as the representatives of the town think this is important and that we engage because we all come from different places and there is a we have a sense that there are some things as community leaders that we can step out and say some things are good some things are not and the right community can come along well I mean I would have to say you know regards that that we already are doing that you know I mean this select board has been nothing but positive and forward thinking through this whole process since the opportunity that Jesse and Owen and others have come to us about starting a committee and going down that path and I think what you're hearing from the select board at least myself and it sounded like a conversation is that we would like to we'd like to broaden the discussion to not just the select board members but to include the community into these discussions and for us to be a supportive role in that discussion rather than like almost dictating a response to it you know let's be supportive let's get behind the discussion let's be part of the discussion but we're you know not necessarily being like Dave and I or Jerry's and I or Wemley and I or you know discussion piece I think that's what I heard tonight I also heard understanding that it would be helpful for us as a community to find a way well just to say that we evaluate that response but to take ownership as leaders of the community for promoting a role that is equitable and inclusive of all people which is what the community is supposed to do and yes we are supportive of that I was just simply suggesting the next clarity among ourselves about what constitutes racism what constitutes transphobia how does it manifest in itself in this opinion how are we because of our own life experience individually insulated from the technique of lying to what's going on in the town why do we have to be told by somebody else that homophobia exists in that how do you see it why is somebody putting an offensive word and tying it to a political speech why is that opening for something we can't speak about I don't I guess you've lost me Jean I don't know how you tie the flag on south main street into this I don't want to put it on this room because because all I'm going to say about that flag down there and I don't agree with it either but you know what when there was similar sayings that were sitting in Richardson's store for months nobody in this community gave two shits about it and now that somebody is flying a flag that is of the opposite party let's call it now it's a big deal right and we had an individual in this community that came to the town office and to summarize it said what are we going to do about this flag right I think it's offensive it's not something I would put up in my house but you know what what I think is offensive doesn't mean it's wrong it just means it's someone else's opinion right and this individual came to the town and said what are we going to do about this flag well one it's on private property it's not going to do anything about that flag okay two when this individual who is kind of higher up in the community was told well what about the stuff that went on at Richardson's store for months on end and this individual to summarize it says well that was different right it's not different all it is is your opinion might be different from these people's opinion on the South Main Street but that's not the select one we cannot control what somebody wants to do on the private property there's a difference between public property and private property they're separate we don't govern them at all I mean if they put up a flag that said they want to physically harm Gene then we can step in we could do the proper change but to do that there's nothing about that and I don't even know how we're tying that into to this discussion because it's not the same discussion can I bring it back to something that Owen had said and it sort of actually I think bridges a little bit of what Gene was saying and Chris was saying earlier just give me a second because I have to collect my thoughts we went on a different train and I have to get back to my original train which was I wonder if there's sort of a middle ground from what the last thing that Owen said and so I'm going to try to summarize it to get myself back there which was like hearing what the board was talking about of broadening the conversations and the thought that occurred to me was yes that's you're acknowledging yes that's the goal and we're acknowledging yes that's the goal and we back that and I think there's sort of this middle piece and it was Lenny who kind of started it and you commented on it later about the process of the conversations which actually I think is exactly like this has been a success in that you tasked us to have one-on-one conversations and we actually all kind of not all but we went and had additional conversations and we reached out to other members and like in Theresa and my conversation which by the way it was four hours long and it was fantastic like I don't even think either of us noticed how long it was until I was like oh shit it's fine but one of the things that we talked about sort of just for the for the two of us was that we wanted to continue our specific unit of a conversation even if we go and do other pairings with the with other members right we wanted to continue ours and she specifically said do you think next time we could invite Lyley into this conversation because she might bring some things that you know the two of us were kind of puzzling over that I think she'd have some some interesting thoughts on right so we were already doing exactly kind of what you're hoping to see and I think where Jean was going was Jean was you know expressing feeling like there's sort of a stop being put on that and I don't necessarily agree that there's a stop being put on that I think that actually in fact we've all sort of gotten that bug now and we're going to start having those conversations so my thought and this is sort of the question to individual members of the board is would that next conversation would you feel more comfortable if you picked who you're paired with from the select board or Teresa or equity and inclusion committee member plus another person so make it a group of three with only one other select board member so we're not breaking any laws but have some choice in that and so then you know Jean and I could say yeah we'd love to meet and Owen would you join us right and I think some of the hesitancy is like who am I going to be paired with am I going to be you know and instead of navigating that cut that piece out and give some autonomy to the group selection so I think I'm sort of posing that question to board members like I think we're naturally doing exactly what equity and inclusion is asking you're right because now I asked you about that then Chris and I had a conversation Chris talked to a co-worker I talked to you I talked to Dory I talked to Chris Chris talked to a co-worker and he told me I think the discussions happened and then I talked to an employee the other day about it and said hey how do you know so the conversations are happening because of this information and this and basically you giving us that was like okay so then it got me thinking okay well I have a you know how does this work and then Chris was like oh I spoke to this person at work and I was like well can you tell me what they said because I'm curious how that fits in with our conversations so even though you only you know charged us black but to work with just you know each brother we've already had you know more conversations which is probably should have said that out of the gate you know so I didn't think to say that so I think it's kind of in this great catalyst but I think like what Linley had said before is in order to keep this moving productively that that you know like myself to be as productive as possible is I have to be as comfortable as possible with my partner right to get the most out of it like Linley was saying if you just you know if you've got a partner in some way that really you either have that experience with or something at that time you may not get as much out of your conversation you know I found you know starting you know starting off with Paul and then you know and then quickly I wanted to get because I like the feedback so then I wanted to get more feedback from other people so you know I'd ask people if they mind or you know Therese and I talked and a co-worker of mine who's from Jamaica you know getting like many different you know feelings from different sides not just Bethel but you know talk to my mom you know I mean like you know those things and they don't live with you but you know you get different things going through the middle school piece of it so you're getting different information I'm just afraid of and is like okay your partner would be so and so and we want you to partner okay it's going to be you and Linley and one kind of you know because I don't know if I'm going to sit there and be as constructive and have that conversation because not like what people have had I just don't know you or not like I feel safe with that conversation where I really like the community I like having information and I like to be able to interact with other people than just board right and then I like to take that information and share with people that I feel conversation goes well and that could be friends family other community members co-workers whatever you know and that's what I really like about it but I think personally if you told me how to sit down with a certain individual or two or three I don't know what I agree with Chris I'll just jump in for a quick second I'm really learning I mean I like to learn I like to learn new things I'm a fixer and things are broken that's what I do and this has really sparked a lot of interest for me because I'm not from here you know I grew up 40 years in a big city so I have different experiences with all sorts of different ethnic backgrounds and religions and and I've always operated a certain way with people and I think you guys can attest to that because we've had some conversations when you first came to town you know we, Linda and I were one of the first ones to put our hands out so you know I have those standards that I live by and I treat people a certain way and this has caused me to think about some other things that I hadn't really thought about before but it also brings me back to the purpose of the Equity and Inclusion Committee seems to be focusing on one certain area one topic and Lenny said it before let's say the hard words focusing on racism there are so many other aspects of Equity and Inclusion you know the plight of the Asian Americans right now the farm folks in Sudan are moving into Vermont and the struggles that they're going through and I think the committee is maybe getting focused in on one part where there needs to be also a bigger conversation like Chris mentioned the community activity would help to bring out some of these other things and I think people are uncomfortable talking about racism and because I know the way I live my life and I'm cautious about somebody telling me no you need to do this and if I don't agree with you then you're some kind of an IST word and so I would be very comfortable talking to you guys or what not but have it as a select board function I'm uncomfortable with that because we are the leaders of the community but I think we also have our boundaries of what we can actually do and what we can't do and we can do both we can show by example and conversations but not necessarily do it in a meeting format like here as a select board member you can do both so that's my opinion for it and again that's exactly what I was saying with the select board being a part of a bigger discussion on a public platform not a meeting like this but a time date you know community involvement and then there can be the other parts where as information is coming out and things are starting to get more concrete then we have these you know just like we do with you know Ellie's committee and others is that we can actually start putting things down on paper right like to construct the things what do we need what do we you know how do we do the power of the select board right at that point you know and I mean I think it's again we're all we're all entering this journey a little different you know we come from different backgrounds we see things a little different I think personally I get way more out of a community event where I can pick and choose who I talk to or learn from right it's all about learning and you know sometimes okay you have to prepare this one person I mean I've been like this in school well I think it's a comfort level right you're right there's so and so you know personally never does that at all so I apologize to make sure I had this right for the minutes but I just want to make sure I have the sense that you're saying uncomfortable having a select board only but you're thinking you want to kind of continue as a person not as labeled as a board member is that if I kind of I just want to make sure I have a great context up here because that's what it boils down to in the end I mean next year well I've got two more years but you see how excited he was but once things change things change you know next somebody else could not be here and things change and to put that onto a select board member coming in with me not have the same kind of background or feelings about it you know I just don't want to get into that you know that's I don't know what the word is I'm trying to come up well I I guess on behalf of the committee because I do think that really the goal was conversation and it sounds like you all are having conversations in your lives and that's some of the material that we've given you has been useful for that and I think we're in a new committee right so like it's really helpful to hear from you all that maybe we should be talking about more things and that is something that's come up in the committee as well where you know the committee was kind of birthed out of a lot of what happened last summer around conversations around racism and and that's not our charge to talk about that so I hear that's really important feedback and I think we're really just trying to figure out how can we be the most supportive to you all and these conversations around inclusion as we're also figuring out like what are what should we prioritize which is the which is our first big step to be and so I really thank Eugene that is what we were proposing and we also we want to be where you're at that's cool and we also want to position ourselves as experts in anything because we're all different people as well we've made very different people with really different backgrounds and that's what's really exciting about the committee I think so one of our charges is that we want to get the town more involved in this life board we wanted to answer the question how can we help more young people and how do we bridge those gaps in our community and so on so I appreciate the conversation so much and the intention that you all put into hearing us and being willing to have conversations so I think this conversation is really useful to me I know that we'll ask the select staff at the select board that's you we'll ask the equity inclusion committee to look at this conversation and then it will be generative for us to be able to meet the needs that you have I think community conversations sound like a big piece of it and also this idea of survey and collecting information about our people and a whole bunch of different ways I love the idea of the board that you talked about so I think we're really listening to you and I feel like I'm hearing all of you and I appreciate what you said well we appreciate the ongoing conversation with the committee and as we do all of our committees and again we obviously are facing town but we also want to be there as a supporting mechanism for the committee and in my opinion anyways is not try to interject my thoughts exactly to support the community's thoughts on this project and then whatever we can do to support that in our power which is not as wide range as some people because it's money or policies or procedures and how do we do that so I look forward to our next discussion wherever that may be and I think too if you have other information like when you get the definition of different things anything that you come across that you could certainly provide to me and I can put it in the packet and it does sound like the select board is willing to continue to have these conversations amongst themselves or with other people in their circle which is kind of what you want right because it's you want these conversations to and the one thing I can attest to where they're all different and they don't all run in the same circles so that if Paul's talking to someone it may not be the same person that Chris Jarvis is talking to or Lindley so if we're having these ongoing conversations the circle is bigger and I was having this conversation about one of the readings actually an excerpt of that book which I thought was a couple in particular that I've kind of gone back to highlight how that right there is just in itself this one thing is just such a great talking point and you know talking to employees and also BLCT is as I'm sending the information on is starting to do this too so I actually think or what I'm hoping to see and I'm going to reach out to BLCT is when they start to develop their committee and their information they will do trainings which will be great and that would be nice for not only for myself but employees as well to and the great thing about BLCT is they're going to take this information like they do a lot more trainings and they will you know once they sort it all out there's a lot of information I go to them when I after I talk to you with Christie and Jerry and they were like oh that's great you guys are starting this committee because there's not a ton of these committees in Vermont right now and I did say you know as you get information we want to be a part of it and they will do training so it would be nice to have employees go and maybe even there's going to be some stuff I will reach out to them tomorrow or this week at least and say hey how you coming along over there because are they going to develop they do develop a lot of model language model policy are they going to be developing a survey or some other stuff that we I could get to you or that we could all look at too so it might be you know they you know we obviously every town pays them some news and they get money for grants and for things they'll be something there too you know to generate some of our own materials like not just the definition but we really heard you even if they we heard you say like I want to hear what's happening in about the online community and that feels like something that we can help generate whether that's YouTube videos of conversations we're having or yeah just different ways of sharing the information so we've been really listening and I think you want to say that we're just really excited to continue these conversations in the form that feels right and I appreciate this as you're coming us to be able to have this back and forth about how are we going to do this how does this work how do we you know and you're open and helpful and facilitating that so I feel that makes me happy that we can sit here and have this great conversation without anyone nobody's mad nobody's crying you know that's great I really like that so thank you for that all right we have your score would you be providing the people in the community like you don't read what are you putting it out there yeah I can give I have to look um that's my car so I can't because I was part we do it so I've been like halfway through reading it so I can certainly get the information the author because it's a good I've enjoyed it actually there's some pieces that I've gone back already and read a chapter and then I can reread some stuff so we can certainly get the information out on people or it might be good I mean you guys are establishing a website you know it might be a good opportunity to link that to your website on some you know reading material yeah the other thing too you know what I wonder is because you can do um you know that book and the other one you recommended so you want to talk about race which was great I wonder if you reach out to Kathy Day because I'm not a member of the Bethel Library but I'm a member of the Brookfield Public Library well I'm also a member of the Brookfield Public Library and if you join the library you can get audiobooks and I wonder if she does that through there because then that would be great for you guys on your website because Thomas sent me the thing to the Bethel Library to say hey this book is available or on a waiting list or you can get audio books or um you know everybody you know a lot of those audio books so easy to get things out of there but um certainly um yeah you know and then who knows you know the other thing too I thought about it or you guys probably too is that we have a you know a shared resource right so I think some people if they purchase the book maybe later we'll need to donate the book to have maybe at the library so she has multiple copies yeah we're actually in conversation about she reached out the recommendations from our committee and maybe maybe I mean we used to have I don't know how active it is anymore but we used to have the book swap locations in town too you know that might be a positive way to get there are folks that monitor the different little libraries yeah that might be a good opportunity to share information I feel like I think they're partnered with the library I think they are I think Kathy and Lisa work with them and then you know give certain people certain books and they go fill the library yeah there's like one at Louisville yeah they're all over but we appreciate your time this evening and we'll let you get home before we start we're going back to Mark we forgot to open that thing we're going to make some money no time we'll have a good evening thank you we had our public comment piece so if there's anything that wasn't on the agenda this evening that anybody want to bring up now is a huge audience so with that clarification I was not here when Rickerson's story was supposed to be just right down the road because I don't believe that they were they did not use that as a rival they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did they did I don't think it is an opinion to say that the use of that work is contrary to the interest of that I think we could say that it doesn't mean we're taking sides to political speech, freedom of speech, we're simply saying it is offensive and not appropriate in public. You want to use that Facebook? Go right ahead. You want to use it in private platforms? Go right ahead. It is inappropriate in public. Well, I mean, I think we all can agree with that. I mean, Facebook is public too, right? No, Facebook is not public. It's not public in the same sense. I have to choose to go to the public to the Facebook. I don't see it when I write that. See Facebook when I write it on the phone. Whether it's in Richardson's school or hanging out with persons. Right, but I think we all can agree. I don't think there's anybody on this board that's going to agree that they agree with the terms that are on the flag. I think what we all can agree with is that the privilege of the select board does not govern private property and I agree 100% with that, but all I'm saying is there's nothing that any of us on the select board can do about that flag. Nothing, not anything. There's no ordinances in place. There's nothing that we can do to do that. And again, the terms, but how it offends one person may not offend the other person the same or somebody might take it completely different, but we've had so many calls to the town about what are you going to do about the flag? Well, there's nothing we can do about the flag. Unfortunately, even though we don't agree with it, it's a first amendment rate of that individual and the owner of that building. I mean, there's nothing we can do about that. You know, I think Therese has done her homework and she's checked around with law enforcement to see if it, you know. I'm not arguing that there is something we can do to force or make the place we make the flag at. That's not my concern, but that doesn't mean we can't say as a select board. I know, but what's actually happening, Jean, is you're talking about it right now, right? So you're talking about it. What is this actually doing in some ways? It's actually promoting it in some ways, right? I mean, you're looking at it as trying to, you know, look at it the same way I am, right? It's offensive. But in some ways, by talking about it in a public forum like this, we're actually in some ways incentivizing it, right? Like there might be many individuals in the community that think that's fine, right? I mean, my thing is we police every single thing that somebody puts up, you know, a flag, a banner, a political statement of some sort. I mean, we're going to, our heads are going to spin here at this board because, you know, unfortunately there's people that like to do just about anything on the property, you know. But I don't know, I mean, what does it think that the board should do about the flag? I mean, not having jurisdiction. I think it is appropriate, however, that we say something is offensive, when it is offensive, when it does not meet with our policies or where statements, it does not meet with our personnel policies or how personnel should behave. I don't know, I mean, unfortunately it falls under that, you know. I mean, I can agree with, I mean, if this is a, if it's related to the town and say if it was a, if it was one of our personnel that, you know, did it or, you know, there's action we can take as a board or trees can take as a person, you know, in some ways. But like private property, we would just be chasing this rabbit down the hole for years. I mean, there's so many examples of this, maybe not that exact example, but there are so many common examples of some things like that that do get posted, you know, throughout the community. But unfortunately, I mean, I don't agree with it, but there's nothing, you know, at this point that we can do about it other than talk about it and get annoyed. I just want to clarify what you just said. I just want to, Gene agrees there's nothing we can do to force them to take it down. He just wants the board to agree it's offensive and inappropriate language. Sure, and I haven't sent back that up, that is. Yeah, we've been there. Yeah, I think everybody will agree. But will we be correct if we as a board agree to that individually? I think we can do it and do it right once we, the select board of Bethel? Well, I don't think we need to make it right. I don't know what to say. I think if, you know, we, you know, I think we're all on board with Gene. And I spoke with the, like, serving the peace. So when the constable had another reason to call the state's attorney's office, he asked them about it. And we don't have the ordinance to govern this sort of thing. So the state's attorney said, unfortunately, is, you know, you can't, you're not guilty, you can't touch it. So I didn't talk to the gentleman today about it and just said, look, in my world, would I like this thing to go away? Yes, because I've had at least 12 to 15 contacts, either phone calls, emails or whatever. So would I like it to go away? Absolutely. And he was like, look, he's like, would I apply in front of my house? No, but I, but he supports his tenants right to display. So that was the way he, but I provided him with a copy of his paper and said, I don't know if you read the Herald, but you're the levers to the editor. And he did not realize it had gone to that level. So I did give him a copy of those today. And he's like, well, here it is. And he's like, look, I feel bad that it's taken your time. I appreciate, you know, the relationship I have with the town. And, but he stands firm in his belief and I hope that people just ignore it and don't look that way. And then something else will come up and maybe eventually once the shock value wears off, maybe it will disappear. So I, you know, I have, and I called him originally when I had the first day I heard about it and said, you don't look about those with just in case you don't know. And he was like, no, I do know, but, and again, it was a similar conversation. But we had, we had a very similar conversation about it today. And he knows that I can't do anything about it. But he also, I said, you know, I feel like he's going away. And so, but that's where, you know, so we have had a, you know, conversation. I did give him that, so it's kind of where we stand. And so I don't know what will, but that's where we stand anyways. But I want to make sure I put that in there accurately. I think sort of the irony, not irony of this is I've been thinking about this very issue for weeks, seeing that flag and thinking about students of mine reading it. And I think that like one of the only conclusions I can come to is clearly that person is dealing with something that they need a venue to express it. And they're doing it very publicly and very aggressively. But actually it's the circle process that would be kind of the way to bring them in. And it's probably not necessarily somebody in a place of authority, but somebody who's like-minded to them who could sit them down and say, but what's going on? Why is this, why does it need to be this way for you? What's happening in your life that's bringing it to this place that you need to put it out there and do something that is frankly offending your neighbors? And maybe it will, you know, will. We had, he and I had an conversation today. Maybe he wants to read the letters to the editor and have a chance to do that and we've had a conversation maybe he'll- And I think, and that's kind of the point that I was saying with you, genius. I think people a lot of times in these cases they want to attract the attention, right? You know, the more people talk about it, they're getting their message or whatever out to people. You know, it's kind of like the unfortunate issues that happen, you know, let's say a shooting or something. And the more you talk about it, the more you politicize it. And, you know what I mean? So I guess the way I've always dealt with that is I drive by it, I don't look at it, you know. And, you know, unfortunately there's nothing, you know, we can do about it. So I just try to work on something more constructive that I can do about, you know. But I mean, wouldn't be my first thing that I would put up with. And Ford also, you know, he said that. He said I wouldn't, but I put up with my house now. So hopefully. But anyway, I just want to make sure I quoted Jack here, sir. But I didn't want to clarify, because I was not here. So I did not see any of 70s from quote the other side. It was last summer. And I also want to be very clear that my objection is not to the political stance of the person. Right, it's a word. It's the particular use of a particular word that I'm not just offensive, but trying to conduct a political issue that our democracy requires. I need to say one thing. You could go take this so deep down right now that you, I don't know if you've ever been out of it. But unfortunately, younger generation uses this word the same way that I did when I was in school. This word now is not an offensive word to the majority of this newer generation. I hear when I grow up, when I grow up, places of employment that has men living, all that word. If I don't hear it going down today, I rely on it. Unfortunately, it's an important thing, but that's part of what's happening. Alright, any further discussions with any of that? Anything else, public comment? Great. So we had a few things that we had to follow up on in the last couple of meetings. We had the hazard mitigation plan. Yeah, so last time I apologized again. I gave the person Paul Hart about it, but it didn't attack me. So I sent out the obviously the hazard mitigation plan. We know who your favorites are now. Yeah, that's right. Chris has got a smirk, he's like, yeah, that's true. So I know it was a good thing over there. So anyways, obviously it's a lot of data. It was not, you know, I took the template and added the added data and research topics and stuff. So luckily we had a contact with a state of Vermont hazard mitigation planner, very nice, Carolyn. And she had reviewed it and I already incorporated her notes. So this is one of those things that you need to adopt and we have to do it every X amount of years. And it helps us keep, as I've said, for our ERAP from 25% to 12.5%. It goes to the, I had to send it to Maybrink Towns. I had two rivers put it in their newsletter. I've had the emergency management committee read it. I've been there tomorrow night. I go over it again to the planning commission. So the thing is about the document, there's not a lot of, it's just a lot of data. There's not really a lot of subjective things to change. And it follows me a bit. Right. And it was a, part of it was a bear. So, you know, obviously if you have any questions or comments, let me know. Otherwise there is the certificate of adoption and you have to pass this resolution adopting the back of Vermont 2021 local hazard mitigation plan. Is Vermont County still with the local? Yes. Well, I think a piece of them did. Part of it sold, but they're still there. Yeah. Part of the business is still there. All right. I just. No, I know. Little piece. Yeah. I thought they left and I saw that it was an ERAP. Okay. Yeah. No. They still have a little piece. They're actually not castings anymore. Why do we send them the bill? We send them the bill as Vermont heart at home, but they still operate under. Right. I'm not sure how their name changed. So what do you need on this? Just a motion to adopt the resolution? Yes. They have a little grip. Pretty in detail last time, like you said, it's mostly data. Yeah. From all these different events. And then obviously we'll talk about like authorization and what we have with equipment. Right. And things like that. Yeah, but we have to adopt every five years. And it had said before, but this time we're actually going to do it. Yes. We're going to look at this thing every year when we do the LEMP. We're going to look at this with it because it makes sense to. Is this the copy you want signed? Yeah. Or you gave me? This is one. I'm not sure who's this one. Is there something on the back of that one? It's not on the back page. That's where we're working. Yeah, I think I have a hard copy. So it's just a two page? No, this is one. Oh, okay. Sorry. It's like a show game. Okay, so we just need a motion to adopt the hazard mitigation plan resolution. Don't move. Second. All in favor? Aye. All right. I'm going to pass it that way and then it can come back again. Well, I do. Yeah, if you need something, I'd love to know. Once the planning commission gets it, it's going this week to the. Beth, the elementary piece. Well, I guess that's Bethel. No, Bethel elementary is still Bethel elementary. So is that in your gene? Right off of that. The school must have lost out on some funding for that. Yeah, there's some. There's something. And I didn't even think into it. There's like a public trust. Yeah. Yeah, and I chatted with him about it and he knew. He knew more, but we didn't have a chance to talk more about it. So they still get the appropriations even though it's not. It's going to be. Oh, no. It's. Well, I just. I do know. I appreciate that. So I would make those changes pattern change. Well, half the building is. Well, yeah, you just say. It's Rudd is White River Unified District is technically. I mean, that's what it is. White River Unified District. With the Bethel elementary school. There you go. Yeah. You just gave me must be. This is the. Oh, this is. They are playing a shell game over there. I know. No, here. I swear it's permission slip for a school trip. She doesn't stop attaching their. And we also have the. We also have. We also have the social media policy, which we have been talking about for many ones. And we've. We've edited it a few different times. So. And the final version has been. And what we have now. So we just need to adopt. Motion to adopt. Once we improve it. Yeah. Oh, did you make a motion? I did. Thank you. Thank you. He trained me well. Hi. And. And we have an outside consumption permit. For the test. Packet. I think I made you know they haven't changed anything. Tessie's Tavern is reopening. Attach their outside consumption permit. They've not made any changes to the permit that they had. I put back. And has kept several years. We'll go back and make sure it all was the same. They're asking for the same thing. He's going to. He's doing a soft opening. He said he publicized it once they reopened. I'm going to do a soft opening. He's going to be released from the house. And so he said we offered the information out for him. As soon as he was in Elwood. He said he'd let us know. So I don't have a date to add it. I guess at this point is the board good with. The outside consumption time periods. I mean, I know there was. There was no complication from last year. Yeah. No. Yeah, it was right. Maybe two years ago. It was like two or three. Neighbors here. Yeah. And what their complaint was was the lighting. Lighting. The outside lighting. Okay. It wasn't. I've been back and read about it. And they did make those changes. Okay. So yeah. So there was no lighting. So other than that. I mean they're asking for a slightly smaller window. Then the one we had. Approved here recently. So. So I just need a motion to approve. Move. Okay. Move by Jean. Second. Second. Paul. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. two, I think, of 33 towns involved in the regional planning commission. The meetings move along very quickly. There is very little room for discussions similar to what we have tonight, for example. The fellow that runs it keeps a very strict schedule. I'll open my stop lunch in the next one. Wow, for example, the presentation that we have, we always have at least one or two presentations of some kind, usually from staff members that come in. And each staff member is specializing in a certain aspect of the commission. The one that we have for the COOP presentation, that plan is kind of a love child of the hazard mitigation plan. And the LEMP is just another layer. But it was put on by Rich Caglania. I'm not going to get it right. He did the LEMP. He did, if you remember, he came in and let us through the LEMP process. And he could make paint drawing exciting, you know, his presentation. But he got cut off, the guy who was leading just said, you know, you need to wrap it up. We need to move on to the next one. So we always have some kind of presentations that run very well. The Zoom with 33 people has actually worked pretty well. We're going to continue to have Zoom meetings. They're putting off the annual meeting until later in the year. And if anybody's interested in what goes on with two rivers, I can get into it further with you offsite. We're involved in all sorts of strategic planning for the area. They're involved in funding. Therese works with Rita Cito is kind of our link there. And they're involved in all aspects. They're getting a lot of money sent to them for this, the CARES Act money that's coming in, and also money from the state. They're involved in the legislature. They're involved in Act 250 permits. They're an interested party and all of those. Their fingers are out into all the towns. They also approve town plans. Which my first meeting there became very controversial. Because two rivers was, they're involved in dictating where business areas, enterprise areas, and where your business district can end and begin. And the folks at Quiche, where the Quiche Gorge is, that whole business area there, the town wanted to see that expand. And two rivers said, no, you can't do that. You've got to do this and that. So it was very controversial as to whether two rivers has the authority to dictate like that. And also over in Bradford, Bradford wanted to expand further down group five and they put the brakes on it. And come to find out they do by statute, two rivers has the authority to dictate these things. Yeah, and they sat down and they negotiated and worked out a deal that was a little better for the towns, but in the end, two rivers, those have the statutory ability to do that. I didn't know we had, I thought they were more of a liaison between legislature and the towns. Yeah. Well, that's just on part of it. Yeah. Because when I reread the statute after Paul told me about it, I was like, Mr, I would have been living. Yeah. Well, they were. The representatives from. Because when I reread the statute, I felt that Bradford's interpretation was correct because they were advisory because of the language up there. But I'm glad that they worked it out because. Yeah, they, you know, they came to compromise, but not what Bradford wanted. And not what it was. White River representative is where actually Quechie is part of that district. So it's an interesting group of people. So I just wanted to give you a kind of an update. Thanks for representing us. And they, we also did the, the regional energy report card. You taught him too soon. Thanks for that piece of information, Paul. All those in favor? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. There, there is something going on that the executive committee is speaking about and, you know, behind closed doors. It's being addressed. I'm not sure about the, they have not given out the details to the commissioners because it's a, it's like us discussing a personnel issue. You can't do that in an open session. So, but there is something growing that they alluded to, but they would not. They wouldn't get into details. I got a question. I guess I don't hear what the grade is, but when you have a less than stellar grade, are they ready to step forward and say, okay, that's what the translational energy use sucks. But this is what we think we can help you with. Well, when we, Because just saying you got a bad problem is not confirmed. It's a place that now has authority. That's enough. You got to come back to something that says, okay, we can help you. Well, that's what I said, because this is the county wide. And remember, we had done the Bethel one, a couple meetings ago. And I had reached, you know, I haven't said the same thing. Because if you remember, our beloved car was down like, well, we as a town can't do anything about that. That's the state issuing incentives. You know, they don't offer any financial incentives at this point to help you get there. They're just kind of pointing it out to you. So I didn't forward it to the energy committee and to Nicole and said, you know, hey, and Nicole was great because she got back and said, no trees. There's some other things, people that don't take advantage of, like, if there's net metering, like we had talked about that because we as a town participated in net metering that's out with a lot of the phrase that's not in Bethel. So I said, are we getting credit for that? And she said, no. Because so there were some gaps in the gathering. But no, they weren't. But they must take this report card just for a side note. It gets even worse than that. But they must take this report card to the legislature and lobby for more money to, you know, to invest into the report card. They must have this thing about, you know, look down on me and say, you're doing horrible, but it's giving me no resources to do it. It's giving me no resources to get back. Well, I think, too, I'm going to need to kind of look at it in the statewide. I wonder there, because this is obviously the state's goal to become this. So eventually, they're going to have to look at A, their goals or their goals may be unrealistic. Or they can just look at these report cards and say, wow, you know, we are really falling behind in cars. And so they're going to have somebody's going to play. Of course, you don't know what this report card looks like for others, right? So we look at it as saying C minus, you know, C minus, right? But the other areas might be a D, you know, you might be ahead, you know, but maybe the goal is so lofty that people aren't there, you know. Or maybe everybody else is a B plus. My understanding is it's statewide. Yeah. The report card leaves a great deal to be desired. Oh, sure. But part of it is the point that the transportation question is not being pressed very well by the state of Vermont. It's just statewide. Oh, God, yeah. I mean, that's probably the whole thing is how rural it is. I mean, it's not just that. It's the car manufacturers. Like, at a case point, I was hired to put in a car charger, a number two car charger for the school district because they have an employee who loves your car. Well, that car manufacturer makes a special charger that only works on certain things. Oh, yeah. So the voltage that we all have around here in business doesn't work for that car. You think they would have some sort of converter or something? The guys don't think they would have to be happy to get it. What I'm saying is these people, you've got to do this. You've got to do that. Well, help me. You do your part. Right. Yeah. So that's part of the controversial statewide. Yeah. That was a long time ago. I mean, I had a big income. And the farmers, they would come in and say, you need to do this and you need that. And then we had to get the money and do it ourselves and credit ourselves for the figures and our income and so forth. And then two years later, a different market was issued. I said, why did you put those in? And I said, because the market expected, oh, we had to. And we somehow found the money and we did it. Well, the other thing that, like we've seen in the past, is the state's so quick to pass down legislation with no resources. Right? You need to do this with a period of time. However, we're not giving you the funding mechanism with it. Like you're saying with putting in fire suppression. And then that's what happened with the start of that charger because we started as a, looked like it was going to be almost 100% funded. And by the time we got it done, it was like, okay, you guys are going to be on hook farms, everybody. So then it became this like, you know, it's just amazing how quickly it reversed on itself. You know, money talks a lot of times, especially in small communities like ours. Anything left there, Teresa? You have left for us? Just brief. So, yeah. So I just want to say thank you, she's camped out, has taken a few minutes for, I think for a long time. So she's resigned from being the board secretary. And so I just, you know, sent her an email and thanked her for doing that, for her services. Sometimes it's a thankless job. So we figured out. I did secretary duties for the DRB for, I don't know how many years. My first exposure to municipal government. Yeah. $7. $7. Yeah. $7. We're all about $7. $7. Okay. $7. $7, $7, $7, $7. $7. $7. $7. $7. $7, $7, $7. $7. $7 and $7. $7. $7 UTI for everything else. so I wanted to do it, but she's still editing them anyways, so, but, yes, I'll put something out, potentially, but I just wanted to say a couple of big thank you to her. So, also, I gave you this thing about Sandville, I'm telling you, I thought my head was going to explode. So, I've written Sandville, I got denied my transportation alternatives, I say mine, the transportation alternatives grant, they had four million dollars in project, only two million dollars, then Rita, my friend at Two Rivers, calls me up and says, if you drop everything right now, you can write for Peter Welch's project, so I did that, I got denied those over vacation, then I got an email from the Sanders office, I called my contact there, Haley, and I'm like, look, don't yank my chain about this, I've already written this project for, no, Sanders has different, or Sanders has bigger parameters than Welch, I'm like, okay, so I've written that thing for the third time, so, maybe the third time's a charm, I don't know, maybe, so we'll see about that, because so it's pending, and I did chat with Sandgate when the other day I was driving by, he was outside, so I told him my tale of woe that he was not, that was not, well, getting about him, I'm just trying to find money. Just a congratulations to Richard Manny, he's now level two, water operator, he's really been putting the work in, and he got through one of two, and now he's going to start doing his studies, we're getting his wastewater level one operator license, and he needs to go to, at least two, I think, maybe higher, but, so which is great news, so I'm very thankful for that. I saw him on the new mower today. Oh good, so he's such a great person. So I'm calling it, I didn't see him on it. He is just a positive person, he's just such a lovely, lovely staff member. Good neighbor, too. Detry, we're going to be opening the pool in July, and we are still kind of working on what that's going to look like. How are you making out about lifeguards? We're not making out about lifeguards, so it's really, I think what we're going to do is we're going to have challenges that are not COVID related, they're staffing related. There's shortages in the workforce right now, so early on, and as you just said the other night, other towns and pools are calling our lifeguards, do you have extra lifeguards? No, and the problem is, too, they're red cross, they, you know, they, there were some certifications that people couldn't get, so we may have lifeguards, but they, we may only have one, currently we have one person who can teach swimming lessons. Yeah, so we may end up changing what that mix looks like, or and I've talked about changing pool hours, extending hours over, closing later, because remember, you've got to keep these, they have to be fresh. You can't stand there and watch that pool for 10 hours straight, so we're still trying to see what that looks like, despite the Governor, you know, ripping the Band-Aid off, which is great, you know, we still have our own concerns we're going to look at because if the numbers start to go high, the COVID all of a sudden and the Governor put the brakes on, we want to have some sort of a semblance of a plan here. We're also looking at maybe doing the possibility of doing only two family fun Fridays, but in a different way, kind of a different thing, and then kind of waiting for next year to do back, to do the bigger things. So we're looking at it, we'll have more information, we are talking about it, but it's going to be staffing, it's going to be six, ten or minutes, too. Yeah, yeah. It's coming up. Because she's talking about not doing the small age group. Right, right, and so before we get rid of the, yeah, we're kind of waiting to see what it looks like, yeah, but that's right, exactly. So we'll see, we'll have more information after future board meetings, but not for the big things I want to talk about. Lisa, I heard a report the other day that the community is having a problem with the short call week. Having our, the DRV or PCM, I mean, public hearing until probably can be July, because there's a report through the whole process of that has to happen, a report, they have to get the information about the town, and it's like doing the town plan all over again, that process. But we're getting there, and it's a great group. It's a great group that, you know, it's a beep on M. I'm concerned, we need public hearing. It's going to be a six out of eight, because everybody's so happy to see people. Yeah, because it'll beep some. So that's it. Everybody bring a dish in here. I hope you don't, don't suggest it. So anyways, those were the highlights that I wanted to mention about the town manager report. And we had this like board meeting minutes from the 19th as well. We had the joint board with the World Tent and the meeting minutes from the 21st. Just a quick addition to the select four minutes. Owen is not listed as somebody who's present, but he's in the first, he's referenced. And so I was trying to remember, but I couldn't, was Jesse also on the call? I want to say they were both on the screen. Yeah, I think they both were, but I couldn't for the life of me remember or confirm it. So then it's an addition of both of them. Okay, so I will add plus the 19th. Okay. What other than that, I'm good with it. All right, so we'll add some of that. Plus, come on in. She knows there's some of the challenges with Zoom and stuff. Like somebody could come on and then go off and you might not get them. Well, that's like why we started from a separate thing. She's like, I'll just leave you on your own. That's the challenges with that. Do you think Lisa left because you made too many edits? No. And anything else in regards to the minutes? Motion to accept. So we're using a motion to. We just said that motion to accept is correct. Second. Okay, on favor. Aye. And then motion to approve the minutes with flakers. So moved. On favor. Aye. And we had some meeting minutes in there. EIC committee had theirs in the area. There was a ERB piece. We obviously had the joint board meeting minutes that were in there. And then four class rooms. And the board festival committee. Yeah. Yeah. That would be good. She's got her really fun there. Yeah. Watch them go. Didn't my bucket yet? All right. Any other business to come before board? I don't know if it's real business. But just a heads up. June 28th meeting. July 12th meeting. And August night meeting. I will not be here. Say 9th or 19th and 9th. 9th and August. Okay, Dave's on the road. All right, so feel free while Dave's gone. We can sign him up for all sorts of things. You're going to be appointed to all kinds of special boards. You're going to sign and do him. Okay. We'll come up with something. Yeah, we'll create committees just for you. That's a problem. We award you with all the compound. You can handle it. Yeah. Didn't we have that issue before? Didn't we have some issues like that years ago with tires and stuff like that in that same area? Yeah. But that area specifically. Finlay Bridge. Yeah. We actually had a bad one in Bristol up on the upper notch. We had all those bad. I think we had some fire department members that partnered with the road crew. But it was dangerous. They were down from the bank. A few years prior to that, it was a couple of Eagle Scouts that got their families. It was appliances. We were trying to organize a real big cleanup. I don't see any appliances in the program. I'm just asking what are any things? Dependence, Gene. We could try to. I've seen road crews clean it up. I've seen volunteers. Basically, you get a group of volunteers that come in. And maybe you own the property. And then your neighbor's property. And maybe you find some people on the same road that says, hey, I want to work tomorrow. We want to organize a cleanup. And then we can talk as a town. Maybe we say that we'll let people take it. If you're someone organized, we'll eat the feed. Pay for it to clean it up. I've worked with another resident. Oh, my Lord. He's put up cameras that people have stolen. He put up lights that they've smashed. I gave him, I've lost some of the names that I gave him. Well, thank you. Thanks. Well, yeah, if you want to, you can work on it. If you want to try to organize, maybe you could organize a group to get there. And then we could talk about it as a select for me. I don't see why the select would just. Or maybe you can talk about something with the transfer station. Well, they don't have money. The staff do it. No, no, I meant like accepting it for free. You know, like. But we could, we could, you know. I mean, I've paid for stuff. I've paid for stuff. I've paid for stuff where people have cleaned up it. Oh, yeah. We find that the gentleman owned it. He thought it was our property. He said he found it. But. Yeah, absolutely, Jean. And, you know, the other time, some signage all of it. You know, it's seven. I use the clock in the morning. It.