 to order 601. First on the agenda is to approve the agenda. I know we have under the liquor license renewals. Teresa gave me there was two others that came in after the packets were printed. We'll also have babes bar and central market. I don't know what class liquor licenses are those ones. Thieves is a first and third class plus an outside consumption permit. One in third and outside. Okay. And central market is a second class. Two. Yeah they came in after I did the agendas in the packets course. So I think that was all that I was told to add. Is that correct Therese? Yes. Okay. Anybody else have anything else to commend the agenda or are we good to go forward as I mean. Second. Hey all in favor. All right. And we do have appointments this evening so we will do the appointments first and then we will go to public comment. I guess if there happens to be a long long gap in our schedule between appointments so we could always go to public comment but every no appointment sometimes they go right through quickly and other times it may take a while so. Thomas do you know if Rita is coming tonight? I was under the assumption she would. Yeah. But I can speak for the equity committee and for the website issues. Okay. Thank you. Yeah I had told her what night I didn't send her the link again but I figured she would find it on the website or something so I didn't think twice about it so. And Nicole do you have any other energy committee members that are going to be joining you or are you good to go? Just Chris and I. Okay. Do you want Thomas would you rather us just go with the energy committee quickly and then we can come back that gives Rita an opportunity to jump on or what do you think? If they're totally up to you it doesn't matter to me. Do you plan on being on for the meeting Thomas? Well not the whole meeting but a good chunk yeah. Well it is Rita. Okay. There you go. Yeah. All right so we were just talking about appointments there Rita so we were making sure that everybody that was going to be appointments was here which you weren't at that time so we were just talking about either maybe going with the energy committee first and come circling back or whatnot but seeing that you're here is there everybody between yourself? Thomas is on is there anybody else you expect to be part of the discussion or are you good to move forward? Yeah I think I don't think anyone else is planning planning on being here necessarily. Okay so we will stay right on schedule then so we have the appointment at 6.02 I don't think we've ever had an appointment at 6.02 but I know well I figured it's a new one you really had that you were down to the minute so and Rita's here just to talk about the committee and and website for the committee and as we had been talking about the last two meetings now I think we were talking about policy for for the website the town town official committee websites that we're working on now so kind of rolls all together so. So yeah I put a copy or a piece of Rita's email in your packet just letting you know that she they're looking to discuss having a web having their own website independent from the town and possibly have donations from local businesses pay for it on the website stated that they hope to include resources work we're doing their story vision bios for committee members and email where people are able to contact them and I had told Rita in advance that we were you know the social media policy I've sent it to Rita so the whole equity and inclusion committee I think has it now oh I don't everybody I've distributed it so to other committee members as well as employees so I'm waiting I'm asking for all the feedback including select board members by the 24th of February just nobody knows where we're at with that policy. Okay I just yeah I I don't think I I missed that somehow if if you send to me I'm sorry I didn't get it or haven't looked it over yeah in the back to you no problem okay it's 17 pages so it's a lengthy one but I will send it. Okay um yeah so that with that being said I don't know how much of that would be I'm sure it surely would be helpful to have that information is like moving forward right now but I think yeah I think we can at least explain like why why why we want a website and then knowing that we also are very very willing and able and wanting to work with whatever the town decides as far as um yeah the social media policies and working with you and helping to helping to give feedback and help form that so we're very on board. That's excellent thank you yeah so I guess in general we we would like a website um and largely because um we want I mean us being a committee that is about equity and inclusion wanting it to be very accessible and I think that the website right now with like the town it would it would very easily get get lost and maybe people wouldn't be able to find it as as readily um having a link from the town website to two hours would be great um being a being a committee that is part of the town and um yeah I think largely we we would like for the town to know that we are we are here and there's we would like to have bios and information about our our mission and what projects we're working on and any resources and that might also take up a lot more bandwidth and updating than what we would ever expect or want like the the town to manage and so we are also planning on and able to do any sort of updating along with the regulations that that are set and any funding of the website we have we have donors already so those wouldn't be an issue um and I think that's largely yeah where we're coming from is it it's it seems like having a an independent site that is also I mean connected seems like it would be more accessible and more straightforward and more um inclusive with with our our mission of wanting to get the word out that we are are here and approachable it's also because uh we were thinking that the town is stretched pretty thin when it comes to uh like you said the last time to Reese when it comes to social media and uh internet presence um so we didn't want to put any more pressure on the town for for that kind of stuff so um we have some ability to develop it ourselves and we would also uh be maintaining it ourselves as the committee and that would uh take the pressure off the town for that yeah I did say that was yeah because we just we just don't have the manpower for that you know for for too many sites the basis of the social media policy while it's large it covers a lot because as I'd said to Rita in an email um you know we have open meeting law there's you know there's a lot of regulations um the bend of the social media policy is basically for us to disseminate information not really get into a back and forth conversation with someone because then it can violate the open meeting law and you have all these records and things like that so one thing that I would like that will definitely come out of the social media policy is like a terms of use so that basically any website or or facebook page or whatever that this like board allows is going to have like little terms of use so everybody understands that it's a town policy and that it's um sorry my husband is cleaning the pellet stove so if you can hear that um so anyways so it's um to make sure everybody has the same terms of use and to make sure that people know what the rules are if you're going to use that website or that facebook page here's the rules also a little bit you know contact information that way there's continuity between everybody between um you know every single site that has anything to do with the town and they would have continuity so those are some things that we're hoping you know to gather um out of the out of certainly out of the policy um to make sure moving forward that that works so um and like I said I was looking for everything to be back to me by the 24th of February so I don't know how the board feels about you guys having your own website I don't know and I think you know you know not talking for the board but you know because we're still working on the policy but you know the intent is is for the committees to have tools to get their information out to individuals as well as individuals to be able to contact people right so that's um and social media is a great tool so I think one thing that kind of has kind of come to our attention here the last you know a few months is that we have all these different web pages out there that aren't tied together and how do we monitor them and and the biggest thing with it being an official town page is that the open meeting laws is big so like if three board members commented on a post then technically you're violating the open meeting um so it you know it gets kind of tricky at that point so I think what we're looking at doing now we haven't got through all the details but in a big picture anyways is to have to allow the committees to have what we're going to call official town committee web pages so they would be linked officially um and each each committee would have let's say an administrator that would be in charge of that web page for their committee um and that that way it's easy for us to let's say if we get a complaint or there's something going on that we can just go to that one individual to say you know what are we doing or you know type deal um so I guess we're looking at like having one person so maybe it's Rita maybe you're the administrator for your page and maybe Nicole is the administrator for her page at least that way Therese can kind of just go to like one or two people to address things um and then you know I guess the way we're looking at right now is you know what type of information should be on those pages you know um you know obviously things like schedules and um uh information that you might be working on inside the committee um contact per people so that you can have that maybe one-on-one back and forth um feedback but we have to remember we can't do it in a group setting so it's kind of tricky so you know emails contact numbers if somebody in the public wants to contact you for more information that kind of stuff um some of the things we have to be careful of being like an official town page is things like um sponsorships um because that could that could really start off as a very innocent thing that could turn into something big um not to mention there's bookkeeping involved if you're taking money and you know those types of things so um there's nothing to say that you can't have an unofficial web page but if you did it would it wouldn't be an official town committee page that would have to be something like you know the BRI you know you have something separate um than that that individual committee um we definitely would um like we've been talking about you know things like you know having other resource tools that might be you know state or government um type ends you know where people can get more information if they're looking for a certain topic or and and I think we it's a challenge like some bigger towns have the ability to actually have somebody just manages the web page all the time we we unfortunately uh you know we don't have a lot of resources um at the office but um you know we would at least like to link it to our page so that people could you know go from one page to the other um type deal yeah because right now seems like people have you know facebook pages I know the energy committee has one conservation so we're gonna you know when I've sent the policy to Nicole and I think my advice Rita to the select board was to have you guys wait because I would until the policy is developed and that way you have all the the language is there so if we have a terms of use or whatever it is we're gonna do I don't want anyone someone on your end to start designing something and then be like dang you know we spent all this time but now we have to do x y or z because basically the goal is to always encourage people to attend duly warned meetings that's what we're looking for and to disseminate information so um I also like I said I wanted to get the policy done approved by the select board and get all the feedback in I know right now I've got some feedback there's sections that are duplicate and we need to kind of you know narrow down a little bit the scope of it but I had you come to the select board because I didn't know how anybody else got permission to get a facebook page I don't know if they ever did I don't know how it worked so um I'm gonna make everybody back through that has one we adopt the policy they're gonna have to come back to the select board and kind of and I think that's that's where we're at with it is just you know you know who who is in charge of the has one because it's town related so it's you know I'm assuming to date it's uh you know Paul's been giving everybody permission or some you know you know it's been you know it's been random you know we've had a couple of different town managers so it could have been town manager it could have been nobody um so we're just trying to find a real good formal system and and I I think um Teresa I mean we're kind of looking to hopefully have this policy moved at the next meeting does that sound right no it doesn't sound right it'll be March because I'm asking for everybody's feedback by February 24th and then it's gonna be you know that'll make another round of it so it'll be the probably the hopefully the first meeting in March that you'll see it again and then we'll see if anybody has any changes you know once we get through the second draft right now I've received input from D tree from Paul valley and that's it so everybody else you know is do the 24th so I'm hoping we'll be able to narrow this thing down from 17 pages to maybe even you know 1314 and there's a lot to it because of the laws but um out of it like I said I would like to have some things that are going to be universal so everybody if they went on to the equity and inclusion or the facebook page for energy or conservation they would see you know some continuity because the terms of use and some few things would be on everybody's page so um as I said I'm personally not opposed to you having a website I just think we all need to be in agreement on it so I think um I gave some feedback down to Therese but I think there are three things that that I key in on the most important being the level of liability that the town would be under if something happened that it was a discussion that happened that got out of hand or somebody took a fence at a certain posting you know the level of town liability the the next thing I I think that is a big difference between setting up criteria for facebook or front porch forum as opposed to an official website I think there's a lot more involved in in a website and a lot more potential so I think we almost need two sets of guidelines one for a website you know if we're going to allow that and then one for facebook you know front porch forum is is looked at there are folks that look at that and they they really tone down the the uh you know possible offensive uh comments and things and then the the third thing is I wonder if we need to get uh after we come up with something that we need to have that reviewed by the vlc vlct or the insurance you know company to see if there's any excuse me liability issues that may that they may not cover if if there was an issue if we got into some legal you know problems so I think there's a ways to go yet before we you know it's there's going to be a lot too and I don't think it's going to rush through any any quick fashion so I can tell you that that it was a base policy I got the policy from vlct that's where the social media policy came from um they give you a little you know it's a model the policy that I started with uh the town would bear 100 liability if you give authorization for these to happen then yeah if something happens um then the town bears all the liability so for sure um and at this point you're correct the only one who has a website is the town uh the energy committee the um conservation commission p vine park um they the other people whoever have have better groups not people are just they have facebook pages so um if this if you allow these guys to have a website they'll be the only ones that i'm aware of with an actual website um everybody else is just a page but I see lindley has her hand up yeah just sort of along the lines of the liability um so in general I'm supportive of the town committee's having separate websites and I think actually even them managing those websites and doing their updates and all of that is actually great because it takes that burden off the town I think the piece that and this is kind of a comment mostly for terese but as as we develop that policy to kind of keep in mind what's what's the sort of transaction between whoever is developing and updating that website to actually making the updates and and then making them live because I could see easily and this is not to pin blame on anybody but just the scenario of I've done a bunch of updates and I'm so excited I just hit live and no one has had a second set of eyes on them from the town perspective and so sort of in in our development of this creating the system of if rita is you know the the person who is taking on responsibility she has a set you know person she goes to to say okay we've got a set of updates we're ready to launch them can you put eyes on them make sure they kind of match what you know what we believe we've done to meet the policies so sort of having that that backup from the town side so it's not taking a ton of town time but is still at least getting a direct look at them before they go live so just I don't know if that had been I didn't see anything like that in the policy because the policy was more the overarching what to do or not to do and not so much the internal system it's true there is I mean I think that touched on it but frankly I don't want to be that person I mean that's I don't have time for that if if the if the website if all of a sudden the energy committee and the conservation committee and and the equity inclusion everybody wants to do updates I don't have time to siphon through all that and so basically I don't have the policy in front of me but part of it was saying basically was saying if you are the administrator for that website it's your responsibility to make sure that you know it's monitored that updates are appropriate that you know what I mean it kind of put the onus back on the person whoever that person is while I totally get what you're saying Lindley my concern is that you know every but every time somebody updates something I just don't have the time to look at everybody's updates and and really nobody in the office does and that's why we were trying to use in the policy to put the onus back on if the select board is going to give permission for any group to have a Facebook page or a website then it should be their responsibility to make sure it's appropriate it's you know all those things so in a perfect world sure we could lay eyes on everything but it it concerns me that that I'm not going to have the time or I'm going to get bogged down by you know proving everybody's updates so it's one of those things you know what I mean Lindley it's like I totally get what you're saying but on the other hand I don't have the time and hence why we're trying to I in my mind we're delegating that responsibility in the policy because you know if they're a town committee we were like one of them anybody said anything now on a committee as public officials there's you know we have to pay insurance for that but um so that's why I think that the select board needs to be very clear and very thoughtful on do they want to allow non-town employees to manage you know websites or Facebook pages so and I'm not saying you're wrong you know what I mean Lindley I hope you get that I'm just I'm concerned about how we're gonna do it I think the piece of it that was coming up for me was you you saying the town is 100 liable so even if you ask somebody to be a administrator they're not they're assuming some liability but actually at the end of the day it really still comes down to the town so that's what was it does it does and we pay public official liability insurance it's part of our premium and yeah so if somebody's on a committee and um does something and you know we get sued obviously usually the people sue a town and the person because the town has deeper pockets right and so the town supposedly and so in the end it would the liability would come to the town um you know most likely in a lawsuit we would work to get the person to drop any charges against the person and the town would take on the whole you know in the meantime I think you know I mean we're talking about me we're in the middle of you know getting this policy together that we can roll out so everybody's gonna have the same set of guidelines right but we do have some active websites or Facebook pages currently right so I mean I think at this point we either have to do my opinions we have to one of two things either either allow allow the equity inclusion committee to start to move forward with their page or take all the other town pages down because I I guess it's not you know wouldn't be fair either way to allow the ones that are standing and say to one committee that you can't have one not that we're singling out one committee it's just you know you get a new committee that wants to put one on we have three or four bombs so either we take them all off or or we allow this committee to maybe you know dip their toes into the water and at least get their page and build some you know start building some substance to their page you know maybe it's a very bland page but at least you get going or something but yeah I mean what's what's the board's thoughts on that I think we need to uh we need to get another draft at least one more draft if not the final draft before we go any farther if we have to if we have to shut down some others I'm sorry but if we're going to do this policy I think don't I don't believe we can go forward without this policy being in place it means we have to back up what do you think Lynn Lee? I'm torn because I think that we're in this moment where we've been really pushing to get people involved and stepping up and being part of committees and actually one of the best ways to do that is have accessible information and Rita's point about the inaccessibility of information right now that's coming out of our town is a valid one and it's a reality it's a reality we everything everyone on this call probably knows that we don't have the resources to make a a better more robust more dynamic website what we have is what we have because that's what we can afford at the moment given both resources financial resources and people power but I just think you're you're almost limiting the exact thing we've been working hard to kind of get people involved with so I hesitate to just cut it off until we've figured it out I think maybe going for like what you were saying chris of a much more limited and pulled back version you know like a great example is like not allowing comments on Facebook right done nobody can break that law because now that isn't an option for anybody you can't have a discourse because it's not an option so I think there's a middle ground here and I hate to see us sort of just say no one gets anything until we've figured out and gotten our ducks in a row because we're actually hurting everybody in the longer run but it is quicky I don't want to just dive forward and have the town be liable for something unknowingly and unintentionally well I would about it will it take to design the website anyways I mean for what you guys want to do yeah I mean it'll be several weeks before we get anything fully dialed in I mean we could put together something very rough a lot faster than that but also like we want to make sure we have the information we want on there and and again you know in reading through the guidelines as they are we can at least like use that as a as somewhat of a of a framework I think the difference between setting up an independent website versus the Facebook page is that there isn't that space for like the the public comment and dialogue and like the off off the you know off the cuff like conversations like I guess we're picturing this more as yeah as very like thoughtful and consolidated like information about what we are doing who we are what we would like to do what you know we have planned and it does feel like it'd be less much less editing than then maybe a Facebook page and just kind of looking through Rita's email on what they were you know trying to do with their page here I mean I I guess I you know just jumping on what Linley was saying you know if we were to allow them to at least get started right I mean I can't see why they couldn't put you know currently what they're working on what their schedule or committee meeting dates and times and places like that are we can't see you know any reason why they couldn't put you know committee members and contact information for their committee members maybe even the bio piece of that can't see any issues with that probably have to you know when it comes to like again donations I think we have to stay away from that we're advertisers we're still going to figure that thing out my guess is it probably won't happen officially just because of all the red tape we have to go through for that people may not want to do it because they already paid property taxes so some businesses may not want to continue because they pay taxes but we can certainly look at that and I'm all for them putting out the information it could be your minutes your agenda you know all that sort of stuff goes out there along with yeah I mean I was thinking I can't see why they couldn't get started with you know you know their committee and when they meet and you know agenda items come up for the next one or meeting minutes from the last one committee members contacts you know that kind of stuff I think we just have to pump the brakes on on what other resources might be on that page because we're still ironing that out and then I the vision have we seen a vision statement from the committee to recently approved a mission statement when they formed so yes their mission so that that could go on the page um and I apologize I'll have to relook at that I remember them bringing us a statement I didn't know if it was the official but yeah they did and then I worked with Jesse Plotsky and we slimmed it down a little bit and so it was by the select board when you formed the committee so so I wouldn't see there would be any issue with putting that on there to start I mean again that's just my opinion I mean we do have five total board members so well if I could jump in for a second the part that I'm getting not hung up on but one of our responsibilities as select board members is to protect the town and to protect the interests of the taxpayers of the town and I'm I think we really need to get into a lot more detail about assigning that responsibility to somebody who's overseeing a website who is probably very well qualified to do that but by even by accident or we've seen it happen recently where comments you know you make a comment and it's it has a certain intention but it gets taken you know in a different way by somebody so I really have a difficult having difficulty assigning our responsibility to the to that part of the town to try to quickly put together something to get information out to the to the public I think we really have to have a strong structure if we're going to do this of how that liability gets assigned actually agree with you about assigning somebody to be responsible my counter question to you is how if they're just doing a website and it's like Chris was saying information only it would be the same thing that would be published in town report about who are the members and when they meet and they're meeting minutes how is that because there's no there's no opportunity for comment on a website so I guess I'm just wondering like clarifying does that still cross that line for you if it's purely informational and it would be the same thing that would be public information in any other written venue well I think part of the intention on on the website if I really if you can if I heard you right is that there could be an email set up there would be a way to be actively communicating with the website with the inclusion committee via the website so I think there's a potential there unless there's no way for any input to come back into that site that would limit the potential liability if somebody was you know offended or something happened they would then have to go they'd have to get a hold of Teresa or somebody at the town office or whatever to pursue that as opposed to starting a dialogue that may turn into something that nobody intended it to turn into with the right what we had in mind for an opportunity for feedback is also a way for us to you know in to be able to open up to the town like what do people what do people need like where do you not see equity or like where do you not feel included and where do you think we can be more diverse and just a way to get feedback we're also talking about other ways of trying to set out surveys so you know that that part of the website obviously isn't isn't set up right now and I do see I hear your concerns about how all of that information would then be public or what would all of the emails then if we had an email through the website all of that would need to be posted publicly somewhere is that yeah you don't have to keep track of all of it and that's part of the social media policy and like I said I don't have it in front of me but you know if you were going to put out a survey on like SurveyMonkey and you had a link to it then that's fine because the data is being compiled somewhere else and you'd probably be just sent something and you'd publish that data you could also put a survey out you know when we can meet in public at town meeting and so there are certain ways I think that a website in a way is almost better than a Facebook page because the website is static so information you put out is very one-sided I think what we're going to have is contact information for the town on every website that way if there's something on your page that they don't like they reach out to us not necessarily directly to you just like our current website lists you know the members of all the committees and it lists the contact information for the select board and so I feel like there's probably a way to to certainly do it for you to have a more of a static you know website and then you know we'll work out all these things about you know surveys because we're not the only you know the planning commission will do a survey at some point the energy committee might do a survey so again it would have to be we were just gonna have to sort that out it all out I mean technology is great until it's not so I think that if we I will send out an email tomorrow to all the other people that I know of that have Facebook pages if I haven't already have to go back and look and say no more you know do not allow comments on your Facebook page and then we'll get the social media policy worked out if you guys start on your website I know for a fact it's gonna have like a terms of use that's one thing so that everybody knows anyone who signs on to your website our website or anybody's Facebook page these are the rules that govern that site here's the contact information so if something's wrong with your site maybe that's also helps where Paul's right I mean that way instead of reaching out to you guys I'm aware of what's going on because that contact is the town so I think we just need to get through the policy and come up with some criteria so everybody who has a social media account is using the exact same criteria and you know we go from there I mean do you think I was just kind of writing some stuff down do you think that we could just you know allow them to start start a page and I think there's a little confusion here because I think what they're looking at trying to do is they want to create a web page not a Facebook page so right it sounds like the information is going to be going one way not two ways so they're going to be posting their information granted it will probably have a contact it could be the town manager if someone has questions but it's not going to be anything where someone's going to be able to post something to the page that other people are going to see and you know 50 other people are going to comment type things so it's it's an informational page I mean I guess I was just again writing down I can't see you know I guess I would be in favor allow them to start get their page started you know put their approved visioning statement in that was approved by the select board you know they're committee members you know you could probably go as far as you know that committee assignment she had some subgroups in there what those subgroups might be for the you know the committee schedule when you meet agendas meeting minutes and then the contact could just be you know could be you for now Teresa or the town manager's office email to start and at least it gets their page it's going and then once the policy comes out then either they can add more to it or not you know I mean because I again I'm just kind of looking at it's you know it's just not it's not fair to not allow one committee not to have one while there are other ones out there regardless of how they got made or approved or whatever but at Lindley's point you know we do have some very important information on all of our committees that needs to be out there for people to see and to shut them down temporarily for a month or two while we do this policy you know just kind of maybe detrimental at this point so the other thing to consider too is the fact that while yes she's you know like you said it's a website and it goes one way if they were going to put out any information a survey or have an event they have to get select board approval anyways so there is a kind of a process for anything you know she could they can't put out a survey or hold an event until they have select board permission so you would have already vetted the event and the survey you know I'm thinking about just now so I'm fine with it personally and like I said I bought the 24th is the big day hopefully everybody gets it in and then we'll we'll work out some the some criteria and right I think in many ways a website is safer because I do not do Facebook I don't completely understand Facebook except I think somebody can post something maybe on your wall and you have no control over it and so you don't that's alleviated by the website because they're just putting out what they're putting out well I want to clarify I'm not I'm not against having a website set up I just want to make sure that the structure it's structured in a way that that keeps the town from you know getting into liability issues and that there's a I I know we need to get the information out there and I'm you know I'm not I'm not saying I'm against websites but I think we really need to do dot our eyes and cross our T's to make sure the liability issues are addressed that's all yeah I mean I think everybody's made very valid you know points towards the argument of the discussion it's I mean I guess at this point I'm good with moving forward you know with allowing them to start their website with the approved information that has been officially approved through the select board which which I just went over um and if you know if I could get a motion or a second on that we could move forward with that um if not we'll you're saying Chris that all the other committees can formulate a website right now well Mo unfortunately all the other committees have a website they have Facebook pages or they have something you know I mean actually the web page as we were talking about Mo was it is probably the better way to go anyways you can you can have better agree with that nation um but what you know everybody should have the same opportunity right exactly I'm saying you know so so everybody all the committees can form their own web page right now sure well didn't stop them from forming their other pages you know that doesn't because you make a mistake doesn't mean you keep making a mistake that's right I would make them in front of the select board if I was aware of it I think that they should be approved you know certainly by the select board and as I stated at the beginning energy conservation whatever else I'm going to ask them to come back in front of the select board once we narrow down get the social media policy hammered out that way they can you know have the same conversation with you um and then I think it's you know will be a blanket as part of this social media policy we should stay in there that no one gets anything until they come to the select board um that way um you are all aware of what's going on just like anything we've done you know in the past Mo with you know if a committee wants to do uh an event in town or something like that you know they have to come and get permission from the select board you know that'd be the same as the web page um or or anything else you know if they want to I just don't see it then I'm writing myself so what do we Teresa what do we currently have for committee pages out there and what you're on mute I could read my not that good at reading lips I am aware of the conservation commission has a facebook page energy committee has a facebook page divine park has a facebook page that I have no idea who manages um and then alisa does thank you and then the town has a website the town has a facebook page the recreation has a facebook page that's all I'm aware of obviously and rec rec has a facebook page you said yes and the transfer station has their own website that's a website website yes that somebody they pay somebody to manage gotcha I mean I guess my my personal opinion is that I would rather see us have official websites than facebook pages um just because you can control the information a lot better that way yeah the other thing too is I mean we could look into it is the fact that right now where we have committees listed on our website maybe we could link I mean I'm sure that we could people could we could link people to the page so they could have their own pages that they maintain um so I think that there's a possibility that we we could do that as well so if someone came to this they let's just use the recreation committee um you know they could certainly if we go on to the town's website click on committees recreation they could have their own web page so they don't do you know there's a pretty static I think that Detre uses her facebook page to let people know when the ice needs to be shoveled and things like that but again she doesn't have comments turned on I don't believe so it's just a one way you know street well there's still comments on the town uh town facebook page yeah there shouldn't be because I and the Bethel and the Bethel community page too I'm not sure who runs that page is not us oh okay so I don't have anything to say over the Bethel community page and um as far as the town page I've told Kelly not to allow comments and I think uh we had this conversation last week so but again we'll dry you know everybody's gonna come back in front of the board I think just to make sure once we get the policy everybody's on the same page and everybody understands it I'm leaning with the direction Chris is saying of allowing a website but actually doing sort of the inventory of what else is out there and asking them maybe to pull back not stop their pages entirely but pull back on things like comments and I also think like Rita said earlier it's gonna take them some time to develop their website and so they could be doing that behind the scenes and not necessarily have it live while we're working on the policy if we give them the go ahead they can be actively working on developing it while we're actively working on developing the policy and they may actually kind of align in timing on on launch so I think if we say wait until the policy is done then we're kind of holding them back even further than just the policy we can't give them a go ahead to do any development work I'd be in favor of allowing them to you know start to put things together and to create up an outline a skeleton of the website and start to I think as they get into it they'll find that they'll be much more aware of what can be there what can't be there and by the time that comes around we'll probably have the social media policy pretty much nailed down and go from there that sounds good for for me for us I think that would that would be great we can start there and definitely as the as the policy gets get fine tuned work with that and just I guess to clarify for like the domain and name like cost a certain amount it's okay that we pay for that we just can't promote it as any sort of like donation from any certain business but it can be a private private funded situation is okay well I think we're gonna have to talk about that because if you're I think it's going to be tricky for you to accept I just think that could be a slippery slope is if you're accepting money to host your your website I'm just concerned about how people are going to feel about that in the community you know what if I'm just not sure I think that's going to be something that we need to think about further as far as how we're going to deal with that because if you start taking donations from a group you know when somebody else is upset by that because you took their money you know to promote your website I'm not really sure I think it if we have an idea of how much the domain name and fees are going to be maybe we can come up with the money out of the town budget or something I'm just I think I'm just concerned about that as far as that being a slippery slope about who you're taking money from um what does it make a difference if the businesses are also uh or members of the committee also have businesses or if it just came from personally like for example um I read a champion also run a farm in town so like I have a business and like I can very well pay for the website domain personally and or I could say that the business is doing it but also whatever works better it's fine um and I know it's it's I'm trying to think about it because we accept donations right I mean they fundraise the rec committee fund raises for different purposes so they go out and they fund raise whether it's a you know bake sale or whatever um and they fundraise when we bought the bill of due land the town took private donations to buy that so um but having a committee member you know fund the domain costs could be considered a conflict of interest we could you could take because they are at a town you know a town sponsored committee and they're a conflict of interest the statutes and things that we have to be aware of too yeah so what we could do is you maybe um trying to think about this maybe we we have you know donations could come to the town for the equity and inclusion committee and they could and then we use the money to you know from there that way it's kind of a pool of donations right it's not just one person it's several people that are donating money we've had employees donate money for different causes um so I'm wondering if we could just you know the town accepts donations and then you know when the bill comes in we pay it with the money that was donated you know so I I think it's I don't know how much a domain name is a year or or that sort of thing I don't know do you know Rita what we're looking at I actually did some research on it and uh I came up with about uh $60 a year that includes the domain name registration and the um by posting 60 60 yeah oh so I mean at this point I would just say that we would just you know do that through the town funds or or a committee member pays for it and then get free and birthed by the town or whatever however that system works and you know register the domain name um so I mean I guess again I'm you know it just sounds like to me that the committee is looking to be able to put the information out there on uh you know so others can grab it most of our committees right now are using Facebook pages which we that's the whole other can worms that we haven't been to not many have web pages um but you know I'm good with going moving forward with them doing a web page based upon the you know using the official approved information that's already been been in front of the select board and and have the web page funded by the town directly for now you know because we still got iron out the rest of our policies and figure out donations and can you do that and how do we do that but at least this gets you guys started um so I'm willing to do that I would you know our appointment is running over quite a bit so I want to get back on target here um so you know if unless any of the other board members have anything else they like to say it Mo was trying to say something a minute ago um if not we would just take a a motion to allow that um motion to start with a a web page um based off of the the official approved information that's been brought before the select board um to be funded by the town directly um you know they have to pay for the domain name before you build the website because I'm now so I said once you go live I think yeah I would I would hold off on the the town you know the town paying for it right now until we worked out of hammering that out a little bit more other than that I'm good okay so it's been moved by Linley do we have a second I'll second Paul second it so all in favor uh Dave that he isn't on he's back he's on the bottom there he's muted oh there he is okay so we have a uh we have a motion with a second Dave or or Mo he's one of you have an approval on it I'm gonna say no no Dave I'm gonna say no okay I'm gonna vote yes on it so we'll move it I'll I would just ask Rita just make sure that through the process that you keep Teresa in the loop of you know maybe hey this is what we have this is the information we have maybe somehow if there's a way of sharing that information with Teresa let her see it so that she can get a second thing of eyes on it before we move forward you know the next step of you know actually putting it live and go in that direction yeah great absolutely yeah I think we got a ways to go before it's gonna go live I would put that yeah it's not gonna go live tomorrow you're gonna have it popped up you know it's gonna be a couple weeks of getting their page put together we'll keep working on the social media policy and you know hopefully they'll come together kind of at the same time and then that'll allow the other committees to get in line and you know have a web page and maybe transfer from the web page to the Facebook you know or whatever we gotta figure that out but Rita can you deliver a message to the equity and inclusion committee I know that there's some members of the select board that are interested in once you have your education piece hammered out I know you guys were doing that that you come to the select board select board like to see it first and be able to you know be the first guinea pigs to check it out and see how it is and how we can work it out and so if you could just let yeah yeah they'd love to see it first okay yeah we'll do thank you sounds good thank you for this evening and I apologize that the discussion was probably a little bit lengthier than we all had envisioned but it kind of encompasses the you know we're going through the policy right now that's going to be an umbrella for everybody you know and unfortunately in these times that we live in right now it you know all it takes is you know a comment or something that just could ruin it for everybody so I just want to we're all kind of pumping the brakes right now to make sure that we're we're doing everything we should be doing so but so thank you for coming if you have any other questions feel free to read everyone off with the other board members or trees so great thank you thank you all right Nicole you have about a minute and a half no so so Nicole's next we have the energy committee was going to go over kind of the annual goals and talk about some of the information that they've been working on so and if you read the your packet then the information's in there Nicole prepared a nice statement it's their vision mission and strategy proposal and so she did a nice outline for you here which is very interesting they were great they did a wonderful job working with the town plan and and were you know obviously did a beautiful job on that chapter so I know that on page four that one of the things that Nicole was hoping to walk away from tonight is what recommendations um from the Bethel town plan in 2020 should we pursue in 2021 so I have a list um but Nicole if you want to give them a short version of the overview they did all read their packet so they have all the information so you don't have to go through line by line great yeah um so I'm I was really glad to hear all the social media discussion you know when I first started on the energy committee in 2018 um you know I had no guidelines I had to find open meeting law I made social media guidelines within the group um you know and I was really looking for the town to be providing so I'm glad that we're all getting on the same page um I think the process of approving the websites is a really great idea so as we kind of think of where we are we we've been through one hell of a year like 2020 was rough we're still meeting online I would prefer to be in person with everybody right now um and you know we're really at a point where everything's kind of new we just got a new federal administration the pendulum has swung back in favor we rejoined the Paris climate agreement um you know on the state level we have this new global warming solutions act um making stricter regulations about climate change solutions um and here in Bethel we just did our town plan for 2020 so everything's really lining up where we're um at a beginning I kind of like this as a beginning um and hopefully if the energy committee dwindles down again they will see in our minutes and in the select board minutes that we have this annual review um and hopefully it will help people get back on track um so this really meant to get us all on track make sure that all the select people here know what we're doing um and Chris is also here and so he'll just kind of go over our general outreach strategies briefly for us if you're ready Chris for sure and good evening everyone hope everyone's doing well thanks for you know joined tonight but just as far as general outreach uh speaking of social media we've been posting on that regularly every month and I believe we have a local high school student up I'm not mistaken making those and not anymore no oh that's unfortunate she made a few and it wasn't her thing fair enough fair enough um we're still pursuing that um as far as the in-person events of course that's been suspended you know due to the uncertainty of COVID um continuously again posting on Facebook about the opportunities to join the energy committee and other volunteer opportunities there and I'm just trying to look over this quickly sorry I mean frankly again some of these things are pending at this point and a lot of it is due to again COVID and the uncertainty there we hope to do the participate in the Bethel Forward Festival um hopefully the National Drive Electric week will occur and we can pursue opportunities there for outreach did I miss anything Nicole it's a pretty light year for outreach um most of the in-person events were canceled we are hoping towards the end of the year to be um teaming up with the forward festival committee and bringing National Drive Electric electric week back in some form I would honestly love to utilize the parking lot I would love to fill up the entire municipal parking lot with non-profit agencies related to all energy committee stuff um and when that gets closer we can see if that's actually possibility um kind of thinking in terms of parking what else is going on with the forward festival um but if if it's possible if the COVID stuff has eased would love to make that big um and you know bringing the electric vehicle outreach kind of in as a separate thing um it's kind of its own and I we have been using Facebook a lot um especially this year we have some meetings it's just we just meet and approve our Facebook posts um and we try to do a balance right now so it's like if there's six Facebook posts four of them would be um like efficiency Vermont or fuel assistance and then two of them are going to be electric vehicle information um usually I can pull something from DriveElectrics website and tag them um and that may change seeing how these social media things uh play out but we try to do have a balance where we are getting EV stuff out there um and that kind of brings us to the mobile home energy savings program which is happening now right now um this is hosted sponsored by vital communities and they did this for like kind of two reasons one of them is that there are so many statewide and regional weatherization programs there there's a 15 on a list right now and they all do different things so the purpose of this program is to train like volunteers um mostly volunteers from the energy committee and um train them on those programs and then kind of just do like a hotline it could be by email by phone um so if someone needs to reach out to us they can get us um and then the second part of this is in the research they found this you know correlation between um mobile homes and low-income families and they're thinking how do we focus on connecting resources with this specific group um because there's so many groups to connect with so they just zeroed in here and so they are doing a survey that is going out specifically to mobile home owners um and we got the list I ran over to the town office like way before it closed pulled them from the grand list manually I really do think we should digitize things at town hall one possible that's totally a different discussion um so we got the list from the grand list and over these next few weeks the mobile home owners and renters will receive a survey and vital communities will process the data and then they will give it back to us so our job is to you know one encourage people to take the survey um and two to you know volunteer and be that resource um so that is pretty much what that energy savings is about does anybody have any questions at this point I would like to say I really appreciate how third I first got on the board we had a meeting with the then energy committee and it was the more of the discussion of maybe you'll come more regularly and discuss what you're working on and I think you've done a great job of really putting it together um and and getting us the information about what you're working on I also really appreciate that you have quite a range of things that you're working on and it's not just aimed at certain levels of the community but there's you know almost any member of our community on any strata socially class wise could find something that would benefit them here and I think that's really a hard task and you've done done well with it so thank you for putting all of that together really thanks yeah I mean it's a big category you know one of the biggest problems is that we have too much coming at us 15 weatherization programs I mean how do I know what to you know if vital communities didn't put this together we would be swimming through it um and it really speaks to Vermont that we're trying so hard to do something um so that um yeah that's what we're doing with that um and you'll also notice at the beginning of this you have everybody's phone number and email address um and that's you know for us to use in our group that is for the select board to use to contact us um I've sent this document to other energy committee chairs we share what we're doing um and I think it's just really about being available um and so kind of going on to window dressers if no one has any more questions about energy savings well you were still doing weatherization Wednesdays right that was the tip that was going out on Wednesdays that was in the fall I think October through December and that was through button up Vermont yeah I thought that was great information too um that you were doing that I thought that was a neat way to do it and so I liked that I thought that was interesting and as far as uh forward fest yes definitely reach out to Mary Floyd um you know we've talked about some use of that parking lot for maybe food but we're not really sure yet but certainly there's always a place there I like the idea of inviting state programs for outreach during forward fest I think that's great and I think that you you know besides Facebook um certainly you put stuff in the town record and you know ways to keep in mind we do as I've said before offered this to other committees um you know we put out water bills sewer bills quarterly that's about 300 and some odd people it's not everybody but you know it's something if you ever have some information that you want distributed you know let us know and we can we're always happy to get that out if we can yeah thanks and I definitely think when we get more into like in-person outreach we will have more things to share yeah and I read about the window dresser's program you'd explained it before and then in here and I think that's amazing and I do the town office definitely would be interested and we could even be a sample you know what I mean is a starting place because trust me we need it bad there so I saw that when you were writing about window dressing and it was interesting and oh boy and I have to give full credit to window dressers to Casey Hess um the the other member of the energy committee she wrote all of this text um and I I can take absolutely no credit for any of the window dresser's text um and I really like what she wrote and I think it's very complete um yeah and I think it's great to get it in the town office um but it's it's actually it's a COVID pending still Casey's on the window dresser's board so where like right in touch we'll know when it's when it's ready to go um and before we kind of open up the um energy efficiency thing um I just wanted to there's two other kind of tentative outreach ideas um one of them was like a solarization solar saturday and you know kind of thinking of town-wide events we don't have a lot right um kind of like right around when the farmer's market starts and when it starts to get sunny um so if that were to come together we would want to use the band show um and just invite solar installers invite the whole town um Leo on the energy committee he works at a solar company and they have like a solar oven that makes cookies I mean that's classic um and I think if we just call up solar companies and invite everybody equally and let Bethel residents learn about this on our turf we're not going to someone's office they're not coming like to our house with their clipboard you know they're coming into our downtown um and kind of just breaking down that that barrier yeah I think once that COVID releases we can do that sort of thing you could just reach out to Kelly and reserve the band show that would be great public but you could still you know use the show itself and um and we have Scott on the energy committee Scott Putney he works at the high school and he's been trying to just kind of make connections um and it's it's been a hard year for that so he's he's still there he's still reporting back but nothing's really happening um so that's just kind of a tentative we don't want to let it go but we're not making any progress um and that kind of brings us to um another part of what brings us here is in the town plan there was like 18 policies and recommendations related to the energy committee um and you know we want to make sure we're going at an appropriate pace we're all volunteers so we um within the energy committee we thought that um creating an energy efficient purchasing policy was something we could start to work on um and Teresa I heard you say that you had a list of ideas um so we're ready to listen now I mean I have a list of policies need to be updated I sent you the current purchasing policy that was adopted in 2018 so certainly read it over and send me any recommendations that you have I don't have a problem with that and um I already shared it with you so yeah some of the stuff I was looking at obviously I think you're you know hampered a little bit due to COVID but um I liked my note was I think that um just working on increasing public awareness of energy efficiency and energy conservation would be I think is something a target for you guys um I'm curious through some sort of survey whether it's survey monkey or how you're going to do it good chat about it but I wonder what information people are looking for you know you have a lot of opportunities I think you do a nice job advertising that and certainly during COVID one of the big things we received information was we were trying to get information especially to seniors um and people in need how to get you know food how to get do they qualify for fuel assistance do that you know and certainly when we did that big mail or during COVID um it was good information so I guess for me I think it would be you know is to continue on continuing on basically getting information to residents um conservation whether it's water conservation you know we could do something about that if you guys came up with a short thing we could run it by uh Tim Mills the utility director about you know water conservation and put that in the water sewer utility bills um as that still ties back to the town plan um I have something in my head where I'm thinking I may have read something where we're not supposed to talk about water conservation um and I'll have to figure out where I read that it was some sort of guideline um I'm into water conservation because it does save energy um and I can't remember where I saw that guideline and it may not be necessarily low flow toilets all that that people know about it could be a little stuff you know like don't leave the water running while you brush your teeth you know or whatever anything that would save people um for obviously saving money and the water system is basically you know electricity to pump things like that so conservation does you know have some some benefits there but um and like I said whether you you know I just think you have to continue to try to increase public awareness and let people know where they can find if they want to maybe they need to get new storm windows maybe you know people like that as long as you're getting that information out there and certainly working with lisa you know through the herald and um you know getting that information out would be great yeah and when it comes to outreach I feel like outreach is kind of just like breathing you know it's something we're always doing in the background um and you know I've you know done a lot of outreach projects in Bethel over the past few years and I'm kind of seeing that we really seem to place the climate change burden on just individuals you know we're like you have a low income why don't you spend more money you know and I really think that um you know outreach supports infrastructure and having like bigger infrastructure projects you know takes the burden off the little people kind of saying like we'll pay taxes we'll put in this pool you know how do we give back and um some examples um Sharon they have a thermal imaging camera that they bought and they have it at the library so if someone wants to a home project they can use it to see where they're losing heat um over in brandon they're thinking of doing a like revolving loan fund so that residents can borrow money from the town for home improvements um and I really like those bigger sort of things but it's also important to remember that their energy committees are have been running for longer you know so I really think this energy purchasing policy is a great start building the foundation and I think that's where we're at right now yeah but I do encourage everyone to think big yeah and we do have a revolving loan fund um it's usually right now for businesses but I'm not sure if back uh it was a few years ago all a lot of towns were um there was a process through the state by which uh there was a plan so people could do energy efficiencies and then they would pay it back through their taxes but it got caught up in the legislature and it became a real mess and I don't think anyone actually ever put it into play so um but certainly um I know the fire department has a thermal imaging camera uh for you know so when your house is on fire they can kind of stop but um but those are all great things to think about certainly yeah the more we just kind of like learn what other towns next to us are doing um it definitely helps see what we can do um and in some ways we are one of those towns people say to me hey I heard you were doing this and I said I didn't think anyone um and kind of also just thinking on a bigger level like the town plan we are act 174 compliant um and as we the global warming solutions at climate council they will come out with their recommendations in December so kind of whatever we're doing to get in shape uh before them we might be like avoiding some sort of I don't know what but um I think it's just kind of good motivation and I didn't know if the select board had anything any like concerns or thoughts or input for the you know purchasing policy kind of what the plan is for the energy committee to just look it over see if there's something we can do you know we have Chris and Casey who are law students and cannot provide legal advice but do have some insight into what other people are doing um so yeah that's I think that's just a good start but I just wanted to hear if anyone has any you know concerns or just thoughts or wants to join our meetings while we discuss it I had a few things I had written down prior uh well one I think anytime you can you know get a second eyes on you know if it's a policy in town or you know anything that can be more efficient with is is is always great you know uh worst case scenario we don't do it you know but you know more often in times when we do have you know we do make revisions to policies that's all we've been doing the last two and a half years right to race is making policies that have been in place since the 70s that didn't make any sense anymore so um uh so a few things that I just had jotted down Nicole um and Chris um just thinking out and being on other calls and things is I know the school and the school budget they plan on doing some renovations or uh I won't say renovation some upgrading some systems at the school so there might be some opportunities there to partner with the school um I do know that we are in the process of you know moving into the next phase of our new municipal garage maybe there is an opportunity there for uh you know uh localized building energy consumption you know solar or something that may be able to go apart of that I know entries already mentioned in our town office uh can always use uh pretty much everything when it comes to winterizing or and that again is another outdated dinosaur that we've been trying to update this year um and then um and then the other thing I just had was you know I know it's challenging to kind of do the individual homeowners right now because of the COVID but maybe some of the bigger projects in around town might be the better you know bang for your buck um and then the other question I just had on there and I think you talked about a little bit was just I know um there had been some discussions back um before you had come on to the board about some partnerships with some of the local um energy committees um I wouldn't say making it like a regional committee but just having really close relationships that they could you know you could move information from one town to the other and how how is that coming um I have a list of energy committee chairs um there's also a uh like a master list of Vermont energy committee chairs I think it's vital communities who put that out when the pandemic first shut everything down um so I found the chair for Sharon Ryan Hack um over in Barnard we have Liz Ferry and Randolph there's Jennifer Phipps South Royalton I don't think has one and Chelsea Tumbridge there's just a few people out there um but you know what I've done is compiled that information so that if it can be easily passed on and I think that's really the the most important and yeah some of us like this vital community's um energy savings there are three or four towns um doing this all at once so like we're sitting in meetings together and we just get to kind of have like our side chatter and stuff and it's I would say it's going pretty good as far as networking with other chairs um can go at this time if I could jump in I have a couple ideas um I could either share now or Teresa I know you mentioned that we could send them to um just ideas something to think about nothing obligations obviously um I think you're purchasing policy ideas or just general ideas yes purchasing policy ideas um and then also I was talking to I believe it was Dan I cannot remember his last name from buildings and general services just on my own prerogative just because I knew this meeting was coming up and I had interest and learning more about everything that goes on behind it and um he had mentioned something about a new state law I believe that was enacted recently that was something about a revolving loan fund and he mentioned that there was a potential benefit that could come from that and I actually set up a call with him for next week I believe but at the same time I'm you know trying to tread lately because honestly I don't know how far I can go without um you know kind of talking with other yeah if you can get information about the loan fund from Dan just you know send it to me a link that'd be great I'd be interested to read it and as far as your um comments or you know ideas about the purchasing policy I'd wait till your next energy committee and kind of bet them all through there so um you know like I said I'm not I'm not looking to rewrite the entire purchasing policy because it's not as old as some of the other ones we're tackling but certainly some ideas would be lovely I mean the town itself Dave Eddie donated a Dave Eddie Mo Paul went in and changed you know the lights in the town hall and you know anything that we've put in you know we're trying to update to you know LED and as we replace things make them more efficient and Dave Eddie's done street lights and you know all sorts of things so take an advantage of some of the efficiency Vermont pre-bates and things like that but any ideas you guys come up with after your meeting would be great but yeah if you hear from Dan certainly let me know I'd be interested in what the revolving loan is that he's talking about whether it's for us to use or for us to you know vet applications for people I'm not sure but it'd be great to know yeah I will definitely fill you in on that thank you yeah and I would I would just say you know always feel free to you know run ideas through to reach on you know just like you were talking about if it's policy or something else I don't want to volunteer him but you know Dave has probably more experience than anybody on our board when it comes to type of energy so he might be a good resource to bounce you know information off of from time to time as well so sounds great I appreciate everybody you know being here and listening and I do appreciate that you know previous discussion about the social media because it does tie into all the outreach and just kind of thinking like you know me municipal garage town office you know how do we get involved in those conversations like you know one way is to read the select board agenda every single time it comes out but I don't know if maybe we just set up kind of like you know person A on the select board gives the heads up to person B on the committee and says maybe you should be at this meeting you know we're gonna talk about it I'm actually the one doing the RFP right now so I just barely drafted the RFP I finished on Thursday or Friday sent it to a town member to look at so once it comes to that obviously we have to hit all the state energy code so there's no doubt that we won't do that and it's a metal building so we will have to to adhere to all the state standards but whether we're going to what we can look at as far as you know whether we're going to be able to use any solar right there on that site I will definitely reach out to you guys and have you take a look because I'm sure you guys could look into especially with Leo you know I'm not sure that if that's a perfect location for it or not but my plan was to reach out to you but it's just early stages right now because like I said I'm just I'm just drafting the RFP right now to look for an architect so but while you are on my list of things once I get there I'll reach out to you guys and tell you you know and have you look at a couple options for us and see you know what we could do but we're upgrading doors and lighting and so part of it was already dealing with the energy deficiencies that are existing but maybe we can do solar there I don't know but that was my question my question for you guys to look at so once I get there there are just a bunch of resources you know and just just having that extra set of eyes being we can use this resource or you know I I learned this math formula to figure out how to figure out your return on this or you know it's something that's actually helpful right yeah I'll let you know when I get there that was my plan is once I had something on board we'll you know we'll have a meeting and be outside the select board and we'll we'll um you know talk about a little bit and see what we're looking at great yeah and it's just kind of you know sometimes we all just get so disconnected it's easy to just kind of be oh well we're busy so we're just not going to do that step so we just want to make it known we are here we're enthusiastic we are educated we are just ready to go right no I knew you would so and I knew you'd help so that's that's just um it's one of the things that I was working on so I finally got to that stage so as we get closer you know I'll let you know and we'll set up a time where I'll just come to an energy committee meeting and we'll talk about it there yes anyone come to an energy committee anytime reach out to us you know just um small town we have a lot of informal communications so just bring it all in um and yeah I just really appreciate everyone's time if no one else has any questions we can let you move on to the next item on your agenda I have a comment uh this is Jean Krauss Nicole it might be helpful for the energy committee to look at what it would cost it seems to me as a layperson that the the site where the town garage is is high enough and open enough to be a good site for solar arrays if there is a possibility of even overdoing a solar installation up there that could recover additional energy that could be banked for the town hall and the town offices oh for sure yeah my father along has a trailer he has solar panels on one side and that powers his trailer and our house and some extra so that's just a little strip there's I'm just suggesting that the energy committee might want to look at that at that possibility what that might mean for the town yeah that's a great idea and there is a map I mean I can look it up in five minutes if that's a good solar site um and I can actually forward that map link to you um tomorrow can I email that to everybody can actually hang on to it don't yet there's some issues with that that we'll talk about when I come to an energy committee meeting so what we're going to be looking for is probably you know panels to go on the building itself just because the site is actually pretty full and there's some issues up there with the existing site itself and then what we're going to do down the road but um like I said I will reach out to you and um I just need to get a little further out but definitely um we want to look at solar options for the town garage currently we're part of a net metering so we are part of a solar array so the town um does take advantage of that so um we do that with green back or green maple and um but yeah definitely we'll look at that lantern when I come to this um energy committee and we'll talk about the town garage and I just need a little more um information from the architect to kind of let you know what we're what we're looking at so but I have we definitely look forward to opening up this conversation and getting more into it yeah me too it'll be interesting and I think we'll find you know some options there that are hopefully we can you know with enough return that we can take advantage of well thank you for joining us this evening I know I apologize that we were running behind um which we're still running behind so it's the Theron and AJ that are patiently waiting for us um but um you know and and Teresa is your go-to person so any I mean you feel free to reach out to the board members at any time but Teresa is great to funnel information through she could you know rather than waste time on certain things she could tell a yes or no yeah you know type you know and then she'll bring it before us um to look at it thoroughly so yeah thank you all so much we definitely appreciate um just how responsive Teresa that you have been and just how like motivated you have been to get through the town plan and all of that um that that energy kind of has been missing so we appreciate it 100 percent absolutely well thank you I appreciate you and Chris coming on and volunteering and doing such a good job so yeah once I get a little more information I'll I can provide you with some information about what we're gonna build what we think you know because we obviously have a very strict plan and very limited money and so um but I'll send that to you so you guys can get an idea of what we're you know looking at and how should about months yourself especially with Leo and all you guys who might have some ideas that we haven't considered yet well thank you thank you that can be called thank you Chris and we will be moving over to Theron uh Theron's got um well conservation's got uh requests here for some potential timber harvesting and Quimby forest is that correct that is correct yes thank you and then and then AJ is the county forester um apologize AJ's been patiently waiting for us we're about a half an hour uh over agenda right now but uh thank you for waiting yeah no problem so I just want to say I read this and um all of it it was so interesting and I really appreciate all the work that you guys have done about this um I'm not sure how you want to do this Farron if you just want to kind of go over you want to answer quite you know quite I have a list of questions and things right yeah absolutely um I'll just start out here with an intro and uh hand it over to AJ a little bit he has a bunch of information for you and then I have a list of logistics that I thought of already that might answer some of your questions right away and then I was going to you know field some questions and you know AJ I'm sure could answer some questions as well um so for anyone who doesn't know me I'm Farron Griffin I'm co-chair of the conservation commission and um yes we are talking about a timber harvest in the quinby town forest which is located at the end of woodland road which is up on sand hill road just past the town garage you can also access the forest from ringe hill road in liliesville and also the Ongstead road off of brink hill road um AJ Fallensby the Windsor county forester and he does some of orange county I believe as well um he did a resource assessment for quinby town forest in the summer of 2020 this past summer and when he presented the information to the conservation commission he recommended a timber harvest and so at this point I'd like to pass it over to AJ and he can fill you in on that and then I'll go over my logistics so AJ thank you for joining us yep yeah thanks thanks everybody excited to share uh what I learned about quinby uh my computer's having difficult difficulties the video's not working I do have a powerpoint that I can attempt to share here not starting off in a good put here with the camera but I could try this and see how it goes is it the one that you created that um Farron sent to us yes all right I did print it out so the select board all of them have a copy of it so if okay if you struggle don't worry about it everybody has a copy the fallout fails here we'll see oh I guess I can't share my screen so green sharing him access to terry says the most hi or you could present it and AJ could I know I don't have it let me see um sorry yeah I didn't okay let me see wait let me see share screen um okay here we go well I just I it says that multiple participants can share their screen simultaneously so uh but it works here it is okay there you go all right let's get this we'll see if this works there you go uh all right can you see the started presentation or yep point okay cool um so uh Karen said I'm the Windsor in Orange County Forester I cover the northern band Windsor County towns and I head up the white river up into Randolph and all the way up to Williamstown um I've been County Forester with Forest Parks for five years now I've been working with the town of Bethel since 2017 on the various town forests that you guys have my role and that's just to explain the county forester's role with town municipal lands is I'm a resource for the town to help manage these these these public lands and that's in the form of educational stuff writing plans uh periodic timber sales um all that it's it's in the legislator it's uh it's a directive from the legislator that county foresters are here to help manage these lands no charge to the town um so that's kind of my role in these how this works here um so uh Quinby Quinby it's located in Lilliesville uh as Karen said it's located off of Wrench Hill Road and Woodland Road and also um right now you can't drive a car up there um you can get close to it but you can't actually drive a car unless you have a four by four big mud tires um and I'll get that a little bit later it got you almost probably take a 160 acres in size um and it's entirely forested just to give a sense this is um I added this slide today but this is uh these are the four the three town forests and where they're located um in the town um and we're talking about Quinby and it's like I said in Lilliesville there's also Camp Brook and that's off Camp Brook Road that's 220 acres I wrote a plan for that in 2019 and then um and then there's Branley air which is located in I wrote a plan for that in 2018 both Branley air and Camp Camp Brook Camp Brook has some legal access there's some accession issues there that need to get sorted out Branley air if you've ever been up there it's really steep um it's nothing it's great for hiking walking there's some VISTA improvements um that have been done but really nothing can be done commercially um uh for forestry um for logging or anything like that and there's no reason to anyways out there but um but Quinby it's got legal access right away right to it um and based on my assessment there's the potential to do some timber sale and so timber sale out there and some logging um so that's kind of why we're focusing on Quinby didn't want to interrupt you but um for some reason we can't see anything other than just the introductory slide thank you thank you for sharing so I did one of these and I went through the whole PowerPoint and someone at the end was like you know we didn't see any of those and I was like yeah so thanks I'll go back just to show you uh this is the map I was just kind of gives you an idea of where he's down for so brief history I have a pretty thorough records um for a lot of town forests in Windsor County Quinby's one of them um it goes back pretty far we we've had uh um in the 50s and 60s there up into the 70s FBR had a um a municipal forester and their job was to manage uh town forests throughout the state it kept really good records so I have good records until about the 80s for most town forests um so what I could find with some digging online and through my records is that the town purchased this in 1934 it was designated as a town forest in 1957 um and at the town at the time when the town purchased it there was no there's a home site there with a 12-acre field um and since then it's been um growing into forest and maturing the field was abandoned um some some of it regenerated naturally and some parts of it were planted over the years I do have it there's an interesting thing and whoever read it who's read the plan saw the bit about um the logging the 60s quite a bit of logging in the 60s on Camp Brook and in Quimby and in 1967 the town of Bethel got a certificate for of good forest good forestry on municipal forests um for the management of the three forests which is kind of neat I thought um and that was the last time anything was done until the 1990s on Quimby um and it was the last time anything was done at Camp Brook too I know this is about Quimby but Camp Brook hasn't been harvested since the 60s either um but in 1996 state land uh state lands forest through forest parks recreation rick white um had a timber sale at Quimby and that was the last time it's been harvested so it's been 25 years since anything work has been actively done at Quimby um so uh that's the cool thing about the records I have I have old area photos of of the area so this is I have photos dating back to 1939 uh so this is Quimby in 1939 here's the here's the um the white on the screen is the field for the most part later areas uh our field white and as they progress you get the grays or the hardwoods and then your softwoods that field is the intersection of the roads is where the house site is and there was a barn there I mean as we progress here um next photo I have is from the 60s a little smaller but you can see the the field now has got trees in it they've got plantations uh the plantation you can see here um let me see my pointer um that was planted and it's still here it's a white pine plantation it's on the on the east side of woodland road and that's still around most of the other plantations were liquidated um through various harvests and harvests um in the future here so pretty cool it's a really neat stand of white pine out there throughout you walk around uh any parts of Quimby there's times of the past land use uh there's a really cool house foundation that's in the lower right corner here um that's the the house foundation um across the road is the barn foundation and that's the picture up in the lower uh right lower lower left is the house upper right the the barn like the only field there is it's like a tenth of an acre is an opening the rest of this um the rest of it's come back to forest there's there's stone walls throughout um there's really really cool piles of stone from when they cleared that um that field back um when they first settled that the land out there where the 12 acre field is there's you know a number of big old piles of stone which are cool and then in the and the softwood there is the um kind of results of rick whites harvest and in the 25 years ago regenerated us um softwood regeneration so um kind of what kind of a brief history of the land use um out at Quimby uh so this is what it looks like now I I like maps so there's a lot of maps here uh kind of give you a sense of the tree cover now so uh the darker greens here conifer cover um and the browns are um it's leaf off so that's hardwoods that are out there so it's mostly hardwoods there are some mixed wood stands but the majority of the forest is um hardwood cover mostly sugar maple ash um peach and red maple that uh pine plantation like I said is still there that's in the lower uh that's in the southeast corner of Quimby it's nine acres in size uh so so let's see so this spring I went out there we did uh I did an inventory uh month of May it was really nice time to be out there a lot of spring of thermals were out um and so I I split the stand so the way I went about this is I split the sand uh the forest up into eight different stands and a stand is just a group of trees with uh characteristics that are similar um so based on my assessment there's there's there's eight different forest types out there um and so based on that in uh and measuring so when I went out there I did uh point sampling so I measured tree density size height um a basic forest and Mr. Inventory out there for each stand and then I developed this plan okay um uh sorry I'm a little gotta click here and turn the page over here so there are some issues out there um this is what the roads look like so um the Woodland and um Wrench Hill Road um Woodland Road is the puddle my doc's running through there that's you're not on quite on townland it's just be on the puddle in the in the background of that picture is town it's where Quimby starts on Woodland Road um and this is the second of two large puddles you have to get through um the the middle picture here is further up on Woodland Road it's a huge dugway lots of rocks perfect for utv's to go a bunch of uh uh up there so um Wrench Hill really deep dugway now um and which makes it hard to get the water off the road so it's wet most of the time um so that's the biggest issue logging wise not a big deal really we can we can work with that winter time logging we can get in there with trucks have this open for the public there's gonna have to be some improvements done to the road to get to Quimby um I've got uh an idea of the best way to access Quimby so this is the southern part of Quimby and this is Wrench Hill Road the black line here the ax on this map is where the town maintains to now um and the white line there is the town line that red line and then the kind of grayish with the dots that's that's the boundary and there's uh the the road's okay until you get to where the stream is on this road uh here it's kind of washed out above that and it's not I don't have exact measurement something I can I can I can get to how far we need to get up to onto Quimby and then off to where I have circle there I think we can put a parking lot there doesn't have to be large enough to get a couple cars parked so you can enjoy and hike around out there um my thought is maybe we do a timber sale that's where the landing would go we then convert the landing to a parking area potentially uh the landing um so I obviously I'm looking at the same map so we do not maintain Wrench in the winter we don't plow it um we deal with it in the summer obviously after the April 2019 flood we did just the class three portion of it because FEMA won't pay for class four road repair so we didn't do the top of it but where you have the red circle is that where you're thinking the parking lot would be yep yep right yeah so um and it's it's still a dugway there um for a little bit but it's not far to get off into the into the west there up west of the road so just on the property put a landing there a small parking area um it's and the road's not bad from where it's not maintained it's pretty flat it's where it starts to climb once it gets to Quimby is where it's washed out and if we had the logger repair it I mean we would just if we're gonna have them do something obviously they'd create the landing so but if we were gonna have them repair that section of the road couldn't we just take that out of the timber sales yes yep that's what I would recommend um we would so the way it would work I would mark the timber sale get an estimate we get bids um however we'd want to sell the sale and we would deduct I'd get the logger to give us a price to fix that landing fix the road and give us a price and deduct it from the stumpage so that's what I was just going to say I had mentioned to Farron that if the select board went ahead with this that we would have to do an RFP and he thought maybe you could help with that and um that's what I assumed is we were gonna be we would just bid on stumpage right yep yep but I do that with a bunch of towns I've done timber sales yeah any idea of what the current mill prices and what you plan on harvesting what that would what's it what is it what are mills taking right now uh they'll take just about everything but pine pulp uh pine pulp is um really hard to sell it's been hard to sell for a while and then we've lost some paper mills in Maine which is affected yeah or what economy but the good good thing here at Quimby there's not a lot of softwood pole it's that's a really nice pine stand that is mostly saw logs that we would thin the hardwoods are actually really nice so sugar maple ash always pretty valuable so it's been well managed throughout the years just it's been a while so the density is pretty high yeah so it would be there'd be some saw logs it would it would be uh income you know it would gain it would get income it wouldn't be something the town would have to pay for a break even by right I was curious I know it's kind of at times right the market can be a little bit difficult as far as what you know what people are paying for when so sure you know I understand that it makes sense yep yeah um just like uh I sold just a reference uh uh Crawford Town Forest in Royalton we sold a pine job there and that was really heavy to pine pulp and that's still get thousand dollars in the positive range for the town so it was what I'm sorry I didn't hear that six thousand dollars for a pretty crummy pine stand so uh yep the quality of Quimby's way better so I I don't know depends on how much we do this first round right but so so basically you would use that same landing for all eight stands yep I would yeah I would um it's the only I would rather come from Woodland just for access for the town like it's easier to get to the village we're gonna have but it's just so wet there's actually like I'm pretty sure if you got a wetland person it's not on the property it's on the neighbor's property they classify as a wetland and there's a road going right through there so I don't really want to deal with that yeah I think it all could go this way I'm not that far of a skid for the landing all right and then just out of curiosity so you oversee the operation obviously you go out and mark the trees you walk it with the logger and then whoever you know gets the RFP awarded to them I'm assuming you work with them and then when we get mill slips and stumpage are you looking at all that to make sure I out okay yeah yeah I would uh I'd oversee the whole thing makes sure the town's getting what they're supposed to be getting um check the mill slips and all that I can send some sample contracts and kind of the agreement between the town and myself that I've used before okay yeah that would be interesting I was because I was reading that about obviously doing reading your proposal here for all the different stands it was interesting and I'm assuming that you remove some of the infected trees that you talk about as you're going through and you made your recommendations for each you know stand and how should be managed I'm assuming that's when you also clean up some of uh maybe besides taking the good harvestable material you also cleaning up some of the stuff that you think is infected that's my question yeah yeah yeah so definitely wouldn't just take all the saw logs or anything like that be a mix of poor quality and hopefully you have more poor quality we mark you know it's always want to be improving it so like beach park disease that I talk about ash a lot I'm just gonna skip ahead here just to look at this this is kind of my proposal my list I realized I was looking at this tonight and I had some errors in there that's what's in red I changed that to what I said I don't know what happened my years were different in the plan than from this uh summary so I just made it match what I say in the plan to this so that's why it's a looks a little different I'm proposing stand in it really we could we could take how many how much we want to do in where we want to do it but I I would think one should be part of it um and potentially three um and the reason for that is the high amount of ash in both of those stands stand one has 14 percent of its basilar so it's density made up of white ash um and stand three has 15 percent of its basilar made up of white ash and um I hope you all know about emerald ash four and the threat that poses to that's an introduced pest that's it's kind of decimating and killing all our white ash and it's found in vermont not found in Bethel but it's you know it's close so to lessen the impact on those stands we would reduce the the percent of ash there grab the valuable trees and try to regenerate them so the the harvest I I described in there would be an attempt to promote um young ash in the future so try to get some trees to be regenerated in the future because that's kind of our hope for our ash so it wouldn't be to just completely take out all the ash it's to keep some harvest what's valuable and set it up for the future um so that's why I have one in three would be up on my list for for stands to target first and and so in looking at that four in one and three we might as well do two and seven just because they're on that side of the road and then I'm thinking you do four five and six later the composition there's not as heavy to ash it's not as the densities aren't as high there maybe you do that later in a couple years after things get established so that that was kind of my proposal um I think I had I have a range for three and seven they're not high on the you know if you could do them you can do them now I mean I should be two and seven but anyways I think one and three would be the ones to go for and if we're there we might as well do seven and three or seven and two so and then later you do four five six and eight yep four five six and the thing with eight is I think that's uh that's an area that's just no logging and that's something I want to mention not every part of Quimby is you know conducive to logging so it is very steep it's a hemlock stand yeah rocky I think that's a place we just leave alone I actually think that southeastern corner it's wet where it's not softwoods it's just an area we just leave alone let let the you know advantage itself so yeah four five and six would be next yeah you were talking about a tree release right um on eight I guess oh yeah yep so uh yes uh with eight there I there's potential to do so it'd be more habitat driven there um it's good deer cover there's some mixed in there so my thought was uh the release would be volunteers um game of logging classes uh Votek uh Randall's got a Votek kind of class some people out there interested in learning how to manage the woods out there cutting and dropping trees where we won't ever but they can release some reto oh that's a great idea and I think too game of logging that would be a great place if you could do it there too that would be that's good I like that yeah yeah and and big thing goal for me overall like not only is it like I'm supposed to because the legislator says I'm supposed to but I really want to do outreach with these so um anything we do I would promote it I would invite people from the community out just to check out what we're doing um it'd be hard initially without the parking lot and road you know fixed up but we could hide some people out there show them what an active job looks like uh show what a stamp's marked and then just have people interacting with with logging who who might not get a chance to do it normally get school kids involved all sorts of stuff like that that's really what I'd like to do yeah I think that would be great and and certainly Lindley like we're members she is a teacher and she teaches um uh wood shop so she Lindley you could tell the kids this is where this is where I come from start them at the base Lindley oh I that's exactly where my class starts because I'm a hardwood nerd and yeah that I they get to learn all about where it comes from and how we harvest it and it would be great to have an active logging site that we could go out and actually see how it's done and and speak with you about it that'd be really cool yeah it would be that'd be awesome and maybe trying to get some wood pure cure you know so get some wood from the forest to your class would be really cool too oh that'd be nice yeah that would be good I had a couple of questions um yeah I just wanted to make sure I had it right so it sounds like between the timber harvest and any of the maintenance that needs to be done on the roads of the trails in the area and the landing landing slash parking area that we would come out net positive on the cost of the project does that sound right uh yeah it depends on I'd like to get I think Farron's thinking too to get a road former just to look at the road like I'm not I don't know what it would do to get the road passable for like people who actually want to go out there in park so I don't know what the cost would be but for logging getting a landing getting that triode up and going wouldn't be a big deal it would be would be net positive but but getting it improved enough to get people out there using it it might I don't know um yeah we could look we could have um Alan you know or somebody look at it in the spring I mean I don't obviously it's nothing that we would keep open all winter um you and I've been up there Chris but at least we you know at least in the spring and summer if we had enough for parking so people could access Quimby if they didn't want to park you know somewhere else and walk up I think it would be good yeah let them have some access for a few months a year or something right absolutely right so so the logging trucks would be going past that hot that home that's there on ringe road see that home down in the center yeah so the logging trucks would be going back and forth across that road that home was pretty fairly close to that road so do we have to do anything as far as the property owners there be good road so we have we can certainly direct you know log trucks can use it it's a town road yeah I've been up there and it while you guys have been up there too it's it's basically in their front yard yeah I think as long as you know we'll check out how the road is improved what the road looks like now um in front of their property because we don't go all the way up there now so we could you know just make sure that if they've put any money into the road certainly we wouldn't want to we'd want to leave it in better condition than we found it for sure or is woodland a better route to pursue you said that woodland has some wetland up there so you really can't access it very well there it's somebody else's property not ours but range at least um it would be nice if we could have access there and those homeowners don't live their year round aren't those though they come up just a couple of times in the winter and right they're not they're not full time right yeah I I actually know those people who live up there on range hell they're the Vaughn oceans right and there's some previous clients of mine in fact we were talking about a project right now but um I do know there's a little section of trees between their field and the road so there is a little buffer as far as that goes and you know as far as the access it certainly is I think up in the air these are kind of you know some ideas that we see and we're kind of shooting for but you know there's wet areas on both sides so um yeah my plan was to get with Alan Patton the foreman and bring him up there in the spring when we can and kind of do some more assessing and you know anyone including AJ it would be welcome on that trip as well you know so those are my two cents as far as that access point so the the work it sounds like from going through that the work would be in late fall or winter of 21 is that yep I would say fall yeah fall sorry winter get them started late fall yeah okay improvements but they'd be it'd be a winter I'd be too wet there to do anything in the summer and then being we haven't I think you said on there we hadn't done any timber harvesting since 96 in that particular forest is 25 years is that the typical timber harvest windows that later early it's pushing it a little bit about 20 years it depends on the site it depends on the extent of the harvest before so if you do kind of smaller scale little lighter cuts want to be in there a little more frequently if you're pushing it out like 20 25 years you would be it would change it a little bit but I think it's definitely time that pine stand is is starting to close in on itself they're starting to be mortality very large valuable softwoods in there they're standing dead so time to send that again ash trees are it's it's pretty mature so I think right makes sense to do something and what do they need from us oh to respect what what do they need from us do we actually have to make a motion to allow for the timber harvest or how does that work trees yeah you would have to and basically we would move forward with an rfp because you obviously have several loggers in the area alone so you would want to make sure that we had an rfp and we'd have to have an agreement that I'd sign but with aj about you know managing it so yeah so you would have to um to do that but I have a question aj um on page 33 you talk about stand three and you were I think part of it was a conversation saying there's their options for how to manage the plantations into the future either passive um you know and decline naturally or a more active management and then on page 34 you have your you know plan so are you what's your recommendation a more passive or more active you know management yeah yeah um I I I would favor a little bit more just because I think it that's those plantations it's the last ones that are out there it's a it's a glimpse of the past land use we can keep them going um and growing I think we should if they start to go particularly at pines they stand seven if that starts to go the other way oh large too but forget about the large and stand three so uh the large sorry I'm thinking I'm sticking stand seven the large and stand three there's not a lot of it there small patches dotted throughout and um you know they're like I said that that gets back to the land use piece there so we could kind of promote them keep them on the landscape or we could just take them all now and collect the the solid valley so those are kind of the options there or we could kind of let them do so being more passive sorry I was thinking stand seven I forgot about the large so your recommendation is that the select board is use the more passive approach to the large plantations yeah yeah but that's to keep that historical land use out there um you know there's like no large like that is is natural um and if we have large or tamarack in our forest it's more in a wetland area okay well I think it's interesting sorry so I think that that's so a more passive approach okay I mean I think that's I think the select board would probably do what you recommended I just just read it through your presentation and saw that you you know that was part of the conversation but I think that's interesting I was just curious about you know about that so well I don't swear I've never heard of large that's interesting tam yeah uh you're large in the tamarack yeah okay if you guys I got the one more slide and that's where the sex is this is a view that I found uh someone cleared a little patch here and you got a view of Ico to the south which is really that the small overlook that there's been a conversation about this about the small overlook if this is it about sometimes uh I think snowmobiles want more of an access but there really wasn't a good place to turn around it was a little more dangerous so I think people were kind of just going up partway maybe with their ATVs it looked like there's ATV tracks to a point and then people would go out walk and check this out like eat their lunch or something that's yeah that's what I thought yeah pretty cool pretty surprising I didn't think it was there and then suddenly had a point right the clearing was turned around and so just out of curiosity have you ever done one of these plans force management plan for brand lear or camp brook yep I have um I've got the brand lear one is not as detailed as this because it's detailed it assesses the resources out there it really doesn't have management active it's so tough to do anything there more so I think we I recommended maybe some vistas I know Farron and I have gone out and looked at them you know what trees we got there's a cool spot for a picnic area it's the top of that that I recommended uh for camp brook that um there's legal the deed research he's in probably by a lawyer someone you know survey or something to figure out where the legal access is there because there's an old road it's on maps but on the ground there's like three roads so I don't know which one is which how we get there so that needs to be resolved for camp brook but that that has a more detailed plan and has recommendations but I think I in everyone I say we can't do anything till we gain access here is that something that you could send me could you send me both of those for brand lear and camp brook yep and I could just out of curiosity have you ever spoken to Carl Russell about camp brook access or because I we have a class for road committee now up and running I have no I I think I did with brand lear when he was on the select board that's what I wondered yeah well if you send me both camp brook and brand lear I can always um I can ask the class for a road committee to do a little research maybe on the camp brook access yeah that'd be great I just I don't have the time I like I looked as much as I could did a little I think the conservation commission does indeed research but it needs a more it needs like a legal I think okay recommendation all right well well if you send them I can take a look and kind of um either ferret it out try to get the class for to take a look at it and then eventually I can get a legal opinion if I needed to stop sharing that's all I had for the point but great thank you AJ um I'd like to tell you guys about some of the things that the cc has been thinking about quimby with that um you know our overlook point there and being close to the school we have a grand plan of connecting the trails behind the school up to the quimby town forest and you know making that some type of you know just cool loop or run um or what have you and um you know one of the the biggest thing here that the cc wants to ask the select board is you know we've talked about this product you know this timber harvest landing in the net positive and we're hoping that the money above the road improvement in the log landing making um go to the cc in our quest to build these trails and everything and boost recreation in Bethel that's one of our main goals and um that's what we would love to see it could be a great help to accomplish these goals and we think be a big boon to the town and to the area I agree I think that it would be a great boon I think that that's something that's going to be a key to Bethel's um economic development is going to be the trails and I've I've seen the plan that you guys had done or someone about connecting the stuff behind the school up I think it's a great idea I know that Theron um because I attended a conservation commission meeting and we're talking about it I know that Theron um not Theron uh Thatcher had written a grant um you know to do that and we talked about his match and you know coming up with more you know matches we do it but I certainly would love to be able to get Ringe the top of it you know so people could drive up there if they didn't if they weren't able to hike all the way from the school and go that way and have a little parking area I think that would be great to to do that as part of you know when they clean up the landing um but I I know right now you guys have a conservative obviously you put your 2500 a year into it so into your capital fund so I'm assuming that's you would want to put it in there earmarked for trails yes that's correct yeah you know we find the 2500 that we get um pretty small it's usually just gone before you know you even know um it's funny just how things come up you know how it is so yeah we're hoping that um you know a good chunk of change like this can possibly give us you know it would be great so that's that's wonderful I think by the time that you know once you do it and see what current you know pricing is and once you pay for the road improvement in the parking lot I don't know how much money would be there but um you know certainly be the select board's decision but I think it's I think it's a I think frankly I think it's a great request I think it's a smart thing to do with any of the money that's lost over I think you you've got some great synergy happening within our town not just what uh Teresa was mentioning of like the rec committee wanting to work on the trails but the school the middle school has just uh for two years now had has launched an outdoor ed program which is going to be eventually expanding into the high school but really the Bethel site has the better set of woods for an outdoor program so they really want to make it the center of that program um and I'm happy to help connect you guys I work really closely with the woman who's currently running it um and I just think you've got some really great kind of connections happening at the moment and it's kind of a great moment in time to just launch that and start making those connections through through the different patches of woods and getting them connected as one longer trail it's really it's awesome by doing by doing the uh am I can anybody hear me yeah go ahead mom okay by doing the logging you're going to already establish some some good walking trails anyways through the wood roads you know so that's going to save a lot of money for for the conservation commission because you are going to have some trails in there already through my opinion that's a good point you're right once they skid them out and everything you're gonna have little log roads so you're right mom I think that's an excellent point Dave did you have something yeah looked into the uh I don't believe they've done any of the uh a harsh behind the school that's right next to it within a trail is that something that the forester would look at yeah absolutely absolutely uh I I think that is something I that's nothing that you know that hasn't come to our attention on this project yeah but absolutely I tried to get him to do something when I was on the school board and just it never happened if you're going to be up in quimby and you want to make trails to the attach to the school a log road going down into uh skid row going down there pulling some of that pine would be a good start on a trail yeah that's a that's a great point there are we've looked at the map and there are um two I believe property owners between the school and the quimby town forest one of them is one big one is uh Dennis Wood and I think you have no problem with him right yeah yeah we we feel like we can uh you know work with um other residents so you know we've had pretty good luck so far with everything we've done you know everybody's been pretty open to stuff so yeah no that's a great point though thank you now you're gonna do a whole tree piracy or just solid piracy uh that that's up to the conservation commission um and I can lay that out for them uh however we we can put it out to bid to anybody you know uh I would recommend kind of local people just to kind of keep it local economy so that there's plenty of great loggers in the Bethel that region put it out to bid that way and I think you could do cut to length you could do whole tree with a grapple skitter you could do a cable skitter but there's not many cable skitter guys around and that would take a little long so probably they're cut to length or with a four because I saw something where you're gonna not lock the tops uh yeah um yeah that's a good point yeah uh so in the group so I'm calling for groups to get regeneration going so in in those groups any tops or anything we can leave to kind of get deer not to come through there and munch on all the trees trying to grow better off we'll be it regenerating it so leaving some tops and debris in those groups would be kind of the goal it would break down eventually and you wouldn't see it it's really good a lot of good benefits for that not just to deter deer um soil health um okay thank you what kind of equipment are we playing on in there fairly heavy substantial equipment or lighter lighter uh logging equipment skitters whatever yeah yeah um there's just not that many lighter equipment anymore uh the skitter guys skitter and chainsaw are there there's one guy local there's one guy local that's got a four of her yeah who's that Derek Paul Dragetti yep yeah yeah I was thinking I don't know uh Judge Scott I think I know him but yeah I mean um I don't think uh it's pretty flat and I think you could kind of equipment be appropriate um out there but it would probably be on the heavier end just based on the upper equipment nowadays um and if it's competitive really bad the people with bigger equipment can be more productive and faster but we could always set it to a certain type of equipment too I've done that with um with talent so we want a cut to length system we want a small skitter you know chainsaw operator we can do that do you have a preference small if we're gonna well I was just looking at distracting this to the land because a lot of logging operations you get equipment in there then pretty soon you you've got ruts that people fall into with a bigger equipment and I'm not that type of a person liking that I believe in well if you could find somebody with a horse be a lot better way to right well I think what we would have to do is um you know go with obviously what you know AJ's recommendations about what we put up there I do like the idea of local obviously we have you know plenty of loggers in the area so I think that's a good idea and then um too we can always talk about as far as um with AJ part of the RFP we um certainly can talk about what's you know left behind how it's managed and and you know that sort of thing so but I do like the idea of being able to access that and having some parking so people could get up there and do more walking and obviously our big hope is eventually people park at the school and do you know the whole walk um but we'll see what we get it looks like it looks like there's a good you know laid out plan here and you know I there's probably some smaller details to iron out between you know the bid the bid end of things um and equipment and things like that you know access near near the property owner or something like that but um I mean I'd be very comfortable with you know allowing this to move forward and and continuing for AJ and Farron to work with Therese to to make it you know happen and and I think you know speaking for myself but I'm sure the board members as well that you know between AJ and Farron that probably have our best interests at hand and and everybody else's so I would uh I would make a motion and to allow the timber harvest for the quimby forest I would second that all in favor hi hi okay okay so then Farron we Farron we talked about this when I was on the conservation commission six years ago seven years ago the very following uh-huh great yeah thank you for bringing it back I know the conservation commission uh actually disbanded there for a couple of years or something and I think you and Mary got it back together right that's great thank you so I think then Farron I'll just wait and hear from you and AJ um about um you know recommendations and RFPs and then AJ has signed an agreement so that we can that I can sign for an agreement to move forward with him I can read that over and then um we can work out the bid details together obviously there's some RFP language but I'm sure that AJ you probably have a sample so we can work through that together so yep yeah I can send you yeah I'll send you all the samples I got and okay and worked on the language and all that so all right that sounds good so um yeah you'll just email me and then three of us will stay in contact and we'll get ahead in the right direction awesome great thank you yep thank you again for your patience this evening we were a little behind there Farron and AJ but um glad you guys stuck around and we're able to move forward with our goals here for our town force so thank you yeah thank you for having us appreciate it thank you thank you all thank you all right good evening have a good evening well we can open it up to town uh to public comment now if there's anybody left so yeah so you know if there is anybody that's on that uh has any comments that's not on the agenda we're just going to be getting into our non-pointment agenda items now which it looks like a majority and we're probably going to get through pretty quick then we'll go over the budget discussion some budget information so there's anything under public comment now's the time to do it only see Wayne and Jean and Lisa out there I think so keep keeping everybody awake so here and none we will move on there's therese um so we have the better connections grant resolution it was in our packet so that's just another part of what we talked about at the last meeting I told Rick Benson that you guys were gonna probably adopt it tonight and he needs to sign it as the chair of the planning commission um it's at the back door already on a clipboard for you guys to sign along with liquor licenses and um like this is just another piece of what we need I may have to write a letter of support I don't know um so that's okay that in there but um this just you know moves along the process sounds good so just need a motion to adopt the uh better connections grant resolution okay all in favor all right therese quick question for you yeah on your town manager report you talk about asking for $30,000 in clean water funds is that yeah in addition to this from last time we talked or is that part it was on the um the thing that you got last time in your packet it was the grant plus the 30,000 in clean water it was all on there with the same match so this is just part of it it's just a resolution to adopt but um so yeah we're still moving for with applying for that money okay thank you yep all right we have a we had Mackenzie Hills resignation from the equity and inclusion committee and there was uh there was some communications that was in our packet for that so I just need a motion for that so moved second all in favor and then we have Jody uh I'm sorry and then we have uh Judy and Mo bring them's resignation from the solid waste board um which is effective uh March 3rd is that correct Mo yep they have to stay on the board and we'll never talk to me again it's an automatic renewal so I know that Dave Eddy has attended at least one if not two meetings and you know basically it's a discussion for you to have because currently there's two select board members and a member of the public on the Royalton side so whether or not you want two members on yours or just um one select board member and and another volunteer I know that we're expecting Bobby Young's rec um resignation also probably you know Wednesday after their the RTS meeting so for the same time so we'll still be looking for community volunteers um alongside either one or two select board members so I mean I know ideally I mean it's you know it doesn't really stay in the in the guidelines but you know the thought was that we would have three individuals from the Bethel community that would be our representation there other than select people and I know over the years we've had you know it seems to be the norm is to have one select board identity on that board that can be a liaison between between the two boards um you know I I would you know I guess my opinion would be to try and stick with you know one select board identity and then two um you know citizens of the town that are not select board um in a perfect world and we all know it's not perfect and sometimes we can't find volunteers that want to do it but um I don't know who we're going to get have we had anybody that's interested uh Mo or Therese nobody's approach nobody's approach me no and of course we just got the resignation so if we put something out on front porch forum listing that we're you know still looking for planning commission members and looking for um you know two two members of um for the BRTS board then you know we'll put that out on front porch forum and see what we can get along with um so BRTS and the planning commission yeah I mean we it's probably you know something that we probably should have somebody from the board that if either they are just filling in an interim capacity well while we look for other members or um or if they want to get on permanently I think it's probably good that we do get somebody on the board if that's either you know Dave or somebody else or you know either Jean or Wayne or whoever wins Mo's seat um I know at least right now because Chris Chris and I from the other board are are talking about some of the potential future of that site that I know him and I have both um said that we would like to like to stay off of those boards um so that we can have a kind of a non-bias take on the whole process that we're trying to go through so I I I wouldn't uh volunteer myself at least now um Dave are you willing to continue on that board for you know for either for a while or for um for a while anyway it's only a year appointment correct right well there you go that's great one down two to go still outnumbered oh very much so yeah um yeah I wonder who we have in the community that might be you know willing to do that and uh we'll put it out on front porch forum and see you know who we can see see who responds yeah so I'll make sure we do that this week in the perfect world you wouldn't have a slept board member on it anyways as Chris said because I never considered myself as a member of the slept board when I was down there I was representing Bethel and uh not the slept board per se that was sort of my feeling and knowing that Dave was um stepping up for the year I wasn't going to but if we really just felt we needed to have representation and have equal representation to South Royalton um I would be willing to I just think that you know like Mo and Chris have both said I it felt weird to be a slept board member on that board um but if it's needed yeah absolutely well we can put it on from forum and see what we get and then if at least you could fill in you know after you know at least for the April meeting or something like Dave if we don't have anybody signed up by them what about Lylee I just sent Chris a message separately saying that I was working on yeah okay so we uh just need a uh motion did we already do the motion for Judy and Mo we agreed we weren't going to yeah oh that's right so move you're not going to no I don't that you accept our resignation I'll second that was like it sounds like you have a conflict of interest in this Mo you might want to excuse yourself while we uh put you back okay up all of steam I would second that and I'd like to thank Mo and Judy for jumping right in there through all the recent turmoil that's going on down there and uh they've been there on Saturdays and and you know did a fine job representing Bethel and helping out down there so much appreciated I spent I spent two months down there while Jen was in with her me and it's been a who really well yeah they definitely they've gone above and beyond you know their duties down there and you know especially with Jen and her being in and out you know but I see him down there often so he's definitely earned all his comp time that he has now all right then we have liquor licenses I get these wrong trees feel free to just stop me but so we have a second class liquor license renewal for Champlain firms and we have a babe babes bar we have a class one and a class three as well as an outside renewal yeah and then central market is a class two renewal yep does does anybody have any questions in regards to any of those licenses renewals I think just the only comment I just had on the outside renewal for babes bar just like we've talked about in the past with any events that are outside the buildings to make sure that they you know obviously they get a stay up to code and make sure that their site is well well marked and supervised and things like that but we don't run into any issues with alcohol leaving the premises or people coming in that's not supposed to be there or well looks like they're trying to expand their outside consumption because of covid so well so one thing is yeah the dlc approves it so the department your local liquor control agent is going to come down and scope it out anyways so they have currently have a 58 foot by 16 and a half foot area attached to the west side of the building and the area is enclosed it includes fenced porched area from 12 p.m to 12 a.m but if you look at their application they're adding additional space so I looked at the back of theirs they had a map and now explain something to me now so it looks like what he's adding is their including the front of their building now oh wait a second yeah so they are so they're adding the front of the building right up to where the sidewalk you know comes they're adding the front of the building plus they're adding the side where where their camper is so they're based they're really enlarging this quite a bit and I'm not sure liquor control is going to give them all that space what I wish that he had asked or which he had added in here which he did not a measurement for that space but I can see right now where he's you know he outlined his parcel but then as I said he's going outside so he wants to do the front as well as the side so I think the only way that um well wouldn't you think that the I mean I I don't know I mean wouldn't you think that the front would be very hard to do anyways because you have to have a you have to have a permanent non-permanent you know barrier area of you know and right and people drive they don't take it down every day how does people drive in then you know well and that that's what is people drive in through there you know what I would say honestly I would say this um I think that you should approve all but their outside consumption permit and Jesse because I um I didn't catch this until just now and the front of it does not give me enough description for me to recommend you approve his so I would say approve everything but the outside consumption permit let me speak with Jesse and Owen and understand this a little better because yes they can take down you're right they would they only have to have a barrier so they could have temporary fencing but they're talking you know if they're thinking about taking it up and down every time I'm not sure you'd also want to give them 12 p.m to 12 a.m access for the whole property um so that's my recommendation is give them all but the outside consumption permit they certainly have time and we can add to your next agenda I can get more events that we had down there too they had to obtain additional insurance and there was a whole series of regulations about letting people in having a monitor checking IDs and no alcohol leaving the premises I mean it was quite a bit more involved liability wise it is and and it's their hoops to jump through and the dlc you know liquor control guys or gal whoever it is is gonna come down for your area and go through it with them and and they that's exactly right they're gonna have to have people outside and making sure that alcohol doesn't leave that nobody's buying it and handing it to someone underage so um I would suggest that we get more information from them um because this what I'm seeing here is not enough and it doesn't even have any dimensions or on how he's gonna deal with it and I didn't catch it until just now so my bad so let's just get him everything but that okay so let's um we'll run down these we'll have to get motion separately on these so uh we'll need a motion to renew the liquor license class two for Champlain Farms so move taca anyone favor hi and then um I'll need a motion to renew the liquor license class two for Central Market so move second yeah on favor hi and then last but not least um I'll need a motion to renew the liquor license class one and class three for babes bar so moved now is that amended no we're not gonna do the outside application at this time just the one and three okay right please so um who made the motion uh who moved it all move that and then we second it okay all in favor all right okay um trees I just had one quick question about the babes thing before we move on I'm entirely sure what I'm asking here but is there sort of an order of operation of like they get a pre-approval from the liquor control board and then they get approval from us or do they have to get approval from us like I guess I'm just kind of curious us first really the first step you are the first step yeah because you can say no you can say we'll make it smaller we'll do that so no it comes to you first and then um as local liquor control board and then it goes to um the department of liquor control and they will they'll and they could still deny it even if you've approved it but um they'll put more caveats on it but of course the adhering to the law is babes sole responsibility but now that I see the back of this um and and so we could check correct me if I'm wrong but technically we could look at their request and say we won't approve this but if you made it just that side yard piece and extended your fencing yes absolutely the adjustments at this point okay yep and you can also set the hours um I've that's been done before you know you can also say yeah no if you're gonna do this much space or then you can't have the hours that you're requesting and because they're right now they're doing noon to midnight um and that would be seven days a week so but so you can and you can make those adjustments but they're certainly looking at really um changing it so I'll talk to I'll send Jesse and Owen an email tomorrow and just haven't come to the next select board meeting and yeah um I'll hash it out with them anyways just to see what they're talking about and it it would be nice to know well not only what the dimensions are the locations that they want right but also they're intended uh barrier temporary measures in place for that yep I agree want to know what type of barrier they're gonna do how yeah they just kind of do snow fencing or yeah you know put up a little fan I don't know you know just I agree find it very hard that they'll be able to do anything in front because of the whole drive system and I don't know I managed that but what Dave high voltage electric fence not collars put this on you'll feel fine right if you get too far away it'll zap you yeah there we go trees I guess my other question with that loss I'm sorry for asking all these things but like I know that they're maybe they're maybe not pursuing the food truck in the same way but I think they're still pursuing food does that play into this at all in terms of like outdoor seating and eating or is it really just we're just sort of weighing in on the liquor piece of this you're just weighing in on the liquor piece of it about where they can you know do that as far as food outdoor food yeah I think that they're I'm not sure about the the trailer what's gonna happen there I've had a conversation with them over the winter about that it's not what they had hoped it was gonna be so you want to make it go away well but we don't really have a say in the outside food no no policy no Department of Health will have say in that great not really not right now not as far as this we don't anyways there's an issue with the trailer and the bylaws they were telling me about I've already talked to them about the zoning regulations there and they were you know because it wasn't a permanent fixture and they were thinking about moving it and so there was you know I think they're kind of just maybe it wasn't what they had hoped it would be and so I think that's still kind of up in the air sounds good anything further in regard to any of the liquor licenses and we're good move forward and we have the budget information there's a very large crowd up there so of one whole person just briefly what I want to bring up other than you know we can dive into you know department by department if we want I do know that kind of overview wise when we were looking at the budget we were looking at a you know one to two percent increase in the budget and then you know which which would be probably around a little over a cent increase to the taxpayers one thing that Theresa and I did find out through we did have an increased grand list so the the proposed increase which the net increase this year once you figure in the revenue and cost the net budget increase was about $16,000 over last year which normally is about it's just slightly under a penny a penny is like usually 19 and a half thousand per penny but we also had an increase on the grand list by 34,000 so 34,000 is actually a pretty decent increase on the grand list and that has all but taken that increase out due to the grand list and that actually has given us a slight decrease in the budget now yeah and so like I said I mean they don't lodge the grand list until after April 1st because April 1st is you know they have to have all the PTRs and stuff and so there still could be a little change in the grand list that was just what it was at the time when I filed it so we'll know better when you go to set the tax rate in June so what would have been a you know before we were looking just a little over a penny increase yeah with what there's predicting to be the grand list increases yeah at this now will actually be a net decrease of about a little over a penny yeah so we'll know for sure once we go to set the tax rate in you know in in June when you set the tax rate once the grand list has been filed and you know all those sorts of things if you have any people who challenge you know once you go out and do your grievances you'll be able to see if anybody challenges the value of their property so you know that's where we stand right now so and I'll just go over it just briefly just I know we don't have Jean I think is the only person left in Lisa but we do have Orca so there are people that might want to see from home so I'm just going to do kind of a you know a high level overview of the budget I think that's a good idea if anybody you know Jean or somebody you know just raise your hand if you have a question or something we can answer that revenue wise our revenues really didn't change much from year over year we're predicting about three thousand dollars with the more revenue with this budget as we did in the previous budget which where I say revenues that's the local revenues from you know money that you get from you know highway revenues your revenues that come in through the town clerk and things like that getting into the cost side of things you'll see that the public works right now I mean overall was a net decrease this year we were looking at I mean of course you know it's kind of hard to do right now of you know we have some position you know positions to fill and do they come in with a family plan or not a family plan so there's a lot of things that could swing one way or the other terry says budgeted to you know if you hire somebody they're going to have a family plan and if they don't then that's a savings to the town so you know you do we'll see some public works personnel proposed budget increases mainly because of that the there's a couple areas where we kind of move some money from one one section of the budget to another with some of like the hired services and things like that some of that and some of the time associated with some of our labor has been moved from you know some of this to like parks parks and places and things like that materials it's probably the biggest thing that that went down but the majority of that is the result of the e-rath the e-rath was you know we had 118,000 and our last one where this one we were we were just budgeting just for the e-rath that we did this year which was a little over 43,000 so that leaves us just the e-rath for panello yeah budgeted so we've done everything else and we actually received like 344,000 so I'm going so we're going to pay off our line of credit because obviously that was the agreement with mascoma was if we had we get paid we pay them so we have another payment so we're going to pay off our line of credit for mascoma which is great because we'll need to use it again when we start panello and hopefully that rfp will be done here in a few weeks i've our last i'm actually chris bomb from the state has been doing a working on it and getting their structures people to look at it and he and I had a good phone phone conversation about that and other grants that were eligible for the other day so so just so you know that will be the last of our e-rath will be for panello and just so people that may not know what the e-rath is all about you know we didn't have the spring flood of 19 sorry 19 right spring flood of 19 did approximately a little bit over a million dollars worth of damage to our roads and infrastructure we have done a majority of that work to date we have the panella bridge that is left in the past we have you know you know right up quite the the bill and we've either retired that in a alone or something like that we retired um 118 000 of it last year and then this year we're going to retire 43 000 which is probably going to leave us somewhere around I don't know another 40 000 or something to retire next year but I think it'll be more because we still have to do the temporary p vine our p vine temporary panello and the permanent panello you know so it'll be the e-rath on both so we had like you know out of all of it I mean we're usually on the hook for what around 12 and a half percent exactly 12 and a half which is roughly say around 200 000 or so um so we we have not taken a loan out on any of this we have you know you've got a line of credit oh yeah we've kind of we paid some interest as we've gone along you know but um like I said we've decided to pay all this e-rath money off you know um so we have pretty much all that paid off through our budgets other than the little bit for panello um fire department really did change much um constable department went up just slightly um you know there was some savings that the constable department overall um but the big ticket item that went up was the replacing the solar speed signs that were outdated and these will be with a better model that will actually charge itself so we don't have to worry about you know charging it bringing it in and out um so that's in that budget the recreation committee or the recreation department is pretty much lovely funded slightly up the parks and public places is up um but some of that has just been a portion of that is the money that we've earmarked in there to do some updates to the stone wall in front of the municipal parking lot and then I think there was just a little bit of some wages and stuff that was moved from one department to another um but a majority of the change there is just doing the um or at least starting some of the maintenance of the stone wall that we're probably gonna have to do some more but at least I'm still waiting for an estimate from um Justin Klein so we'll have a better idea what I'm looking at and the municipal budget it's pretty pretty much level funded as well it's up uh you know almost four thousand dollars um but um you know Therese nothing's really changing them in this law office other you know we just been continuing to um I think retirement was the biggest mover there the budget budget for retirement town hall slightly down um you know that's not really a very large budget anyways town officials uh uh Paul check and doubt again this year didn't give us an increase so we're still levely funded there um but all the comp time that you could ever need uh the Lister's office um pretty much the same budget as last year and um as we had agreed it put ten thousand dollars in there for assessor services um just you know the Lister's office is still um still a short body um I guess a body and a half because we will have you know a retirement at that position so so there's some money set aside there if we need some outside help the government operations is down um you know I might just go through these items just kind of briefly because we kind of moved a lot of this stuff around here I mean overall it's down but um um legal we took the legal down by half we've been budgeting twenty thousand dollars a year we brought down to ten legal is a really tough one because one year you might need forty thousand dollars and then the next year you might not need anything um but as we learned we can't build a fund is that correct right so we talked about maybe doing like a fund where we just don't you know put whatever ten thousand dollars a year and if we ever need it we could use it then we talked about establishing a policy for undesignated fund balance and try and deal with it there um I think service is pretty much the same and then some of the bigger movers at the bottom we put more money in there for the reappraisal fund which I think we all agree that the uh the real townwide reappraisal we're probably looking at two years or yeah post out from doing but I and we only have a little more than half of it set aside so so we've upped that by fifteen thousand and the capital reserve fund we have brought that slightly under this year but some of that is going to be balanced off with the the potential loan payment for the new municipal garage so yeah the biggest mover let's see that oh appropriations there everything was pretty much the same other than we do have the Bethel library um that had an increase there in regards to some of the computer systems that they had there that needs some updating so that was the really the biggest mover there as well as we did put two thousand dollars in for the Bethel Ford festival this year so they have a budget hopefully we'll be able to have it COVID will get out of here and we'll be able to do it human services um you know kind of a same type of uh increase that we usually see whether somewhere around three percent a year it goes up um which was uh you know a little uh which was uh not quite a thousand dollars White River Valley ambulance was about the same um so the appropriations were all about the same as last year and then you just see at the bottom there the the debt services there some uh some of the long term debt went down but we did have the payment or potential estimated payment of what we think the municipal garage would be that is budgeted in here so if you're just looking at the cost wise cost over your over years about nineteen thousand four hundred dollar difference from last year but like I said once you factor in the the increase in revenue of three thousand it's about a net increase of sixteen thousand this year um and then again usually sixteen thousand dollars is you know just under a penny increase but with some of the grand list potential increases here that we're actually going to be looking at a savings this year maybe about a penny and we're still not sure what the state might do I guess about school tax we were thinking nine cent increase and I heard the governor say it may be three and then the next time I heard it was maybe level fund it so I'm not really sure what's going to happen I mean I know that was a consideration or at least a conversation we all had about what was this right so no I think that's good I think it's a good overview and yeah I mean we can go you know I I mean there's not many people on but if we get any questions we can always um get more in-depth the next one yeah and we'll see um so the next meeting is so you will have another meeting next Monday which you don't normally have but that is at six o'clock and that's your special meeting for the budget so that's on the 15th that's the one that's been advertised in town report um as your first budget informational meeting then you're required to have another one at your next meeting which will be you know your last meeting in in February before town so we'll do the same thing we'll put that on first on the agenda so um it will should be the only thing on your agenda for next week and then the end of the month we'll put it on first so to piggyback with the budget informational meeting I mean I mean would it be wise I mean again for the candidates that are running for the board position um give them an opportunity at one or both of these meetings to you know if they want to promote themselves for running for for office or I mean what do you think about that would I know the Rotary is sponsoring um a zoom thing that both Jean and Wayne are signed up for so um you know I just would make sure if you want to do that then we should definitely um reach out make sure that you know both are present or both can be present but that's fine no I just I just I mean it's hard to tell how many people we actually reach I mean I know I don't know but I usually there's 12 at the most that's that's on here but obviously there are people that that review the Orca media coverage so I don't know how many people that reaches I think it'd be good if you know if you gave both Wayne and Jean an opportunity to stand up and say you know a couple minutes about each other or about each other about themselves about Wayne Wayne talking about you so about themselves and that'd be kind of cool would be and then um and then you know just a couple of minutes about why they're running and a little bit about them maybe like one of those um things you used to do when you were school where you had to sit down with the other person you had to get all the information then you had to go present it in front of everybody I'm gonna say we could we could make it like we do with the kids at school you can only say positive things about yeah so you report on the other person but it has to be positive that would be kind of neat Jean did a nice post on Front Porch Forum that was nice that gave a lot of information about Jean I thought that was um very nice I know Wayne was on I he might have dropped off um but I can reach out um obviously Jean's on right now but uh either I can or trees out and if maybe we could just um you know I don't know what would be a realistic time you know if we gave 15 or 20 minutes for both people um and just put it on there well how long do you normally do at town meeting I mean I think you spoke for five minutes or less you know when you talked about yourself I think you're looking at a smaller couple minutes yeah I think the school is having their informational meeting at five o'clock next Monday night oh good perfect call in I believe it's only a call in they don't do a zoom thing but that's going to happen at five o'clock so I think there'll be a certain number of people that'll be there uh instead of with us yeah well it's good that we're doing it a couple I mean we'll have done it three times so that'll be good but yeah I can email Wayne and just Jean too and just tell him to give him five minutes and on the 15th and I think that's plenty so I will write that down right now but Jean did you have a question about the budget you had your hand I did white river valley ambulance page yep their report third paragraph last sentence I can't make sense out of it in 2021 the per capita amount will increase by one dollar to 61 dollars or 101.67 percent I I've got a the question is about percent signs and dollar signs I think but and I could not reconcile that at all with what is on their monthly payments page okay well they submit their own budget obviously and their own write-up so I'm sure nobody on our end just caught the detail of what they submitted so if you have a specific question you can email me and I can get the answer from Steve Webster he's the one who sends us our monthly information updated from Morva but yeah that's how they bill us is on a per capita and and what their increase will be and and all that but if you have a specific question Jean just email me and I'll get you the answer and thank you for mentioning that because we obviously didn't catch it proof reading town reports so I'll get an answer for the 15th the other the other challenge we have often Jean with the white river valley ambulance is is they give us their budget based on the calendar year versus our our budgeting year so whatever they give us now we're really only carrying in about six months of that because of the way it falls so yeah and then we project out what we think work what the increase will be and you know try to carry it but um but yeah Jean I'll double check it and read it and then I'll reach out to Steve and find out what it should say and then we'll know so I appreciate that but the other the other thing was with their report there is no comparison with prior years so that you have some sense or I couldn't find it yeah uh there's no sense of where this increase takes effect and where anyway so I will uh I'll I'll send you Chris something about that yeah I think they have limited space in the town report so they present yeah they've kind of presented the same way for years but maybe it's something to to talk to them about I think the only way you could tell is by looking at our budget under Worva you could go back and look at you know what we have budgeted for actuals over the last few years all right I just saw that just whatever okay no but that's good you know we read it and you just after a while you just don't catch these things so I'm glad that you mentioned it so we can get an answer for people so we should also mention about page 55 yes I have the actual um so page 55 of the town report the top of it is accurate that is the delinquent tax list I did that and then at the end there was just a lot of um you know the people were gone and so I grabbed what I thought because it was dated 2020 I grabbed out of Kelly's folder what I thought was the updated delinquent water sewer list put it in because she wasn't there refit the page so that we didn't have three blank pages and then when Kelly was going through the report after it already been printed she said page 55 is wrong and I'm like oh great but there's always at least one mistake in town report so I figure it was accurate as of that time it just happened to be printed twice and what's unfortunate is the actual list had dropped so now it's in your packet of course it's down to only 42,519 so I think that's something that we'll mention next week Chris on the 15th is letting people know that was accurate as of 2020 but I should have been looking for was January 2021 and just to let people know so um you know that's the way it is always something um and that was was it so we will um you know I'm not going to publish that list of course but um no need now but at least let people know that it's better than the 70 some odd thousand that's on that page if there are people whose names are on that page now but who shouldn't be on the page it might be wise to at least correct that much yeah I mean I don't know how we're gonna do it now I mean we don't have you know we have a public town meeting and say in the right but in the in the in the informational meetings yeah yeah yep just say what it is yeah because um obviously as of that date in 2020 it's an accurate list now it's it's different but we do have a new list and um or an updated list that should have gone in so we'll let people know um that it was a mistake on you know page 55 has an error on it normally what we would do gene is we'd go around every chair and we would put that page on the chair so people have it and now you know we don't so I suppose I could put on my screen and do a share screen during the on the 15th but what are you gonna do so I think I we can talk about after but I think I figured out the White River Valley ambulance piece of the the um so what they were saying that the the per capita amount is increased by a dollar which happens to be a dollar or I'm sorry increases a dollar which which for our town is is 1.67 percent of last year's budget so if you take the last year's budget which if you take um lost my place here um if you take the number that they had last year which was and you add the one and you add the 1.7 it comes out pretty close to that number that we have in there right now but but again there's some finagling again because they're only telling us what's going to go through December of 2021 even though our budget goes until you know June of 2022 so it's kind of a you know we try to like pick up half of that you know I mean so it's a little weird how that one goes but at least it's been pretty pretty favorable the last couple years so yeah I forgot that's right there on a calendar yeah yeah so so it doesn't really add up my only other comment and I don't I don't know that it we would need to take time with more people but the quintown senior center uh which is one of the agencies that requests and we support uh with a few bucks um I'm I'm curious why we're supporting them and the Royalton senior center uh because it seems to me that that uh Hancock is a pretty fur piece uh from Bethel and and I'm just curious as to why we're uh on their list are we one of the quintowns I guess yeah well what happens I think is um is to let you know is once somebody makes an appropriation request um that it goes in Bethel it goes in front of the committee um and you could deny someone's request but they always have the right to stand up at town meeting and ask for money they could be added or they could petition voters and be added and ask for more so um I'm not sure I'm assuming because Paul should be able to answer the question he's on the human you know advisory committee there so maybe they might send him some data that says how many people from Bethel they currently serve um do you know Paul can you answer that yeah yeah that's one of the things we we spoke about and historically they have been um folks from Bethel going out there and we also looked at the fact that these types of organizations are feeling so much more pressure now uh because of the COVID uh situations uh to to provide their they're actually sending out more meals uh especially in Royalton and the quintown they're producing more meals now than they ever have and there are still I guess a couple of people from Bethel that they go out to quintown and um so we felt that it was good to support those services because of the additional pressure that they're feeling uh we did the same thing with the visiting nurse um association we increased their allotment a little bit because the their once again under increased pressure because of COVID so that's basically the reasons and and historically we've supported quintown because we've had several residents um take the ride out there uh using stagecoach to participate in the meal program so there you go Gene there's a good answer so is that everything you got for the budget and they do provide numbers uh everybody who requests an appropriation one of the things that we asked them for specific numbers uh of Bethel residents that are impacted by the services so yeah and I know I know kind of looking through the appropriation summary pages in the back that you know some agencies um do a better job than others with really identifying like some will kind of broaden it and say this is how many meals we did in the area uh others might say we we served exactly 54 people you know so they um looking through the quintown one it doesn't seem as though that they point out um the exact uh Bethel residents that they're serving um but they do talk about the 5000 meals that they had provided in I guess what you would call their their area um you know where some some of the other ones might actually tell you like um like the valley transit one's a really good one because they usually tell you that they provided you know 226 000 rides this year you know so you know exactly how many people were served in our community by that but might be something going forward maybe paul that you know even if they don't offer me we can ask them exactly what what they serve for Bethel residents you know if they don't provide it but yeah well we do like I said we we ask that they provide financial data um and that they get very specific about how many Bethel residents of syrup now those write-ups are in the back I'm not quite sure if a lot of those are picked up uh from previous years or um or if that's a fresh one from this year I'm not sure how kelly handles that that part yeah well like I was saying you go you look at some of them like orange county parent child center they'll actually say you know last year that they you know they serve 25 families um from Bethel you know included 47 adults and 30s 35 children so they'll they'll let you know the numbers the quintown one I think what gene was getting at is didn't seem to have that that you know uh it was more of a macro look than a micro look of how many people it served in our community but um yeah and we need to and I don't have any qualms with supporting them I just it's it's a worthy place to put our funds but I would well thanks Paul for letting me know well I and I think I knew that in the back of my head but uh it's just one of those things we don't have all the funds in the world either so uh how that gets parceled out I think at the end of the day is it's minor but it's it's a some note I'm done if we have anything that's all right it was good that we had one person show up so we have anything else in regards to the budget um for this evening I know we will hammer this thing to death here over the next couple of visits no I don't have anything else I think we're good and Teresa you have anything else left on your town manager's report that we haven't picked apart I know that I found a replacement cruiser I'll have a little more information from that in another week or so um the fire department's rescue was out of service for a few days it needed a new transmission but it is back in service uh taxes are due Tuesday February 16th normally they're due on Monday the 15th but because it's a holiday it's President's Day we're going to the 16th I had Kelly put an ad in the paper something on front porch forum the usual um to remind people I just let you know I was working on the RFP for the architect for town garage I drafted it I sent it to Lucian Hinkle who was always lovely to me and um had offered to read through it um I filed a vlct passive grant for cone signs barrels lights all that so that would be good nice shared resource um it does not look like at this point we're still unsure about whether or not they're gonna total the freight liner that was um you know damaged in a little just slid off the road it was one car accident just them so right now we're waiting it's gone to ATG they're going to report directly to the insurance company Fraser to figure out if the frame what's going on with the frame if the frame's not been it looks like we'll probably get just a new body which would be great and then when we go to buy a new um vehicle we'll just get a chassis and put that on it down the road so I will let you know as I know that I'm gathering information on road projects I want to have a comprehensive list so if you have an issue or know of an issue specifically with a road um somewhere just email it to me um I just want to make sure I have a comprehensive list moving forward so when it comes down to doing the plan for road is also setting out um oops to jump through I guess for the road crew uh have a list for them for the spring so I think that was everything um Terese did you get anywhere with um with Oscar and and how he well because we're don't have the cruiser right now he's using his vehicle that's yep I asked him about it and he said he was thinking unmarked yeah he was he's you know he wasn't sure it's his own personal vehicle so I did talk to him about the magnetic strips and he said he think about he was thinking about what he called ghosting his truck and I guess you put lettering on it in the same color as your paint I don't know I haven't had haven't seen him for more than two minutes uh to have a conversation with him about it but hopefully it becomes a mute point because obviously if we get a new cruiser it'll be lettered and that'll take care of that so I think it was definitely a valid point uh and I told him that I told him there's a concern there'd been you know in the past and let him know the history of it and he was appreciative that I told him that and he certainly gives everybody the benefit of the doubt if someone didn't pull over because they didn't recognize his vehicle he said I'm not gonna lose any sleep over at trees I'm gonna let him go or you know or if they pull over down the road where they feel safer that's fine too so he was actually out and of work for five or more days so I will send him a follow-up email because in person we had about you know two minutes to discuss it um and that was about it so but other than that I'm all set I got Abbie's in the kitchen uh midnight snack in here so yeah there you go ready which I haven't had my dinner yet so it's kind of looking pretty good me either I figured you could hand my stomach that's assuming I can get out of my chair after three and a half hours I don't know I'll stand up at this point yeah so no I don't have anything else um that I didn't talk about perfect okay uh select forward meeting minutes from the 25th of January anybody have any changes to those are we good to accept them as noted that paul looks like paul and moe said it at the same time maybe paul moved it moe you're gonna second it grand okay moe second it all in favor hi okay you know there was a mishmash of stuff in your packet really just copies of other minutes etc for you and um at the back door um of the office uh right now there's the resolution for you to sign the liquor licenses for you to sign and kelly put out the minute book because you guys come in and caught up on all the warrants so there's stuff at the back door for people to sign I think the only thing uh three step um stood out to me on the um budget status report was just the repairs to vehicles yeah um that's the real thing and which we knew about I mean we're already pretty much eaten up by our repair costs for the year and we're you know well you see and this is why I put $10,000 more in repairs for the next year's budget but you know this is the problem you have aging equipment and when everything is aging at once you have some issues so this year we're slated I think to deal with a one ton which would be good because that has just become a money pit and then if we then depending on what happens with the freight liner um but he's uh you know so far he's his sand budget is spent but he's under on salt so hopefully you know he knows the drill if he overspends one we got to find savings somewhere else so that's where we're at so the only thing that stood out yeah and it's been there and and um so hopefully um I know the one ton has been tough and then the freight liner was a gamble whether we kept whichever one we kept and and so we've had some issues so all right anything else come before the board and we're all probably itching to get everybody's hungry get the bed I got cake waiting oh happy birthday Paul yeah thank you happy birthday Paul thank you so Paul can eat his cake he could have been sitting here eating at the whole time just a glow all right so Mo moved it someone seconded that I seconded oh thank you all right well thank you everybody that came out thank you so much so yeah if you guys come by and sign it's all at the back door even if i'm not there it's there for you and I fixed the door today Chris I got a screwdriver and tightened that up so you shouldn't have any problems getting them out now yeah well just didn't want to have issues where we couldn't get in there exactly so all right thank you already have a good evening