 Yeah, I'm going to call the meeting to order is 6.30. And what do we have for additions to the agenda? Oh, I've got one actually. And you've got some Gina. Yes. Okay. Consideration request for proposals. Yeah. Consideration of change to purchasing policy. Okay. And then the one I've got is. Thank you. I was a town resident emailed me about a green burial. And he said East Montpelier hadn't been doing it. And he is select board approval. So I thought we'd have to reach out to John on a. Cemetery committee. To ask them about that. Is that. I mean, we can go. It's an addition. So we'll have to go over it. We don't have to do it right now. And the first one just so the record shows it clearly consideration for proposals to obtain each and each study and designs. Engineering of replacement structures at Saddam pond road and. And consideration of change to purchasing policy. You've got all that. Yep. Okay. And the other one is the green burials. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. The next thing is review a minutes, December 18th. 2023. The minutes of the December 18th, 2023 select board minutes. We're not yet ready for review. Coming soon. Okay. That's quick and easy. Yes. Thank you. And the next thing we have is public comment. What do we have? I don't not see any public, but I don't have. A huge screen in front of me, but. I didn't see you. Okay. So we've got one member of the public. Do you have public comment? I, I'm here for three reasons that the first public comment is, I really appreciate. How well the road crew has been plowing on both sides of Coburn bridge. And wonder what the process would be to get them to take a swipe in front of the entrance of Coburn pond. So that there's parking for people that use the site. Okay. We'll have to reach out to the road for them for that. Yeah. It wouldn't take very much. It would be just like one swipe in. Before they finish the road. Okay. But people have been using it a lot even this winter. Okay. So they've been doing a good job of plowing the road in general. Do we plow that? Do we plow that side of it? I'm not sure we do, but I'll ask. I'll ask Guthrie. Well, the, the, they've been doing a good job plowing the road in general. And they don't drive through the bridge. No. But they, they plow a big pullout. Before they turn around and come back. And then on the other side, they do the same thing, but they don't do the same thing. So they're coming from both directions. There's ease in pulling over. Yeah. So, okay. Yeah. Yeah. The second reason Carl answered, I was wondering where those December 18 minutes were. But I just heard Carl mentioned that. And the third reason my public comment is I'm very curious. If you can turn your attention to the. The ARPA funding. So I'm going to stay to listen for that. And maybe want to. Contribute something. Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you. So that's it for public comment. The next thing I did agenda is consideration of contributions to East Monday and nonprofits. Consideration of use of ARPA funds. for non-profits that were asking for money and the amounts. Why we have them in our annotated select board memo. So we have all together now. Oh, we have that, yep. Twin Valley, East Montpere Trails. Here, let me see if I can move this up, but I'm doing it from memory. Yeah, there we go. Historical Society, all together now, East Montpere Trails, Twin Valley Senior Center. Now. Now we broke track. Yeah, that's the bridge. Right. Yeah, so on the Twin Valley, I think we've got, we did have Denise on this Zoom, did we not? I'm here. Okay, can you answer some questions about that? Cause our question was, if we didn't give you 50,000, only gave you 20 or 30, that doesn't really do the whole project. So how was that gonna work? Well, we would put the money, as you told us last time, we could put the money into a savings account and work on getting some other funding through grants or a special fundraising effort. Yeah. Because my question, my question last time was, I know that the towns have to divvy out the money by a certain date, and then you have to report to the feds how you use the money. And I just wanted to make sure that if we weren't able to use it immediately and had to do fundraising, I wanted to make sure that wasn't gonna be a problem. Yeah, we answered that question last time. Right. The question wasn't a problem because we're dedicating the money to you. Right. So that takes care of what we had to do. Yes. So that answer, that question was answered. Any other questions for Denise? I don't hear any. That's Twin Valley, East Montpere Trails. I think that's pretty self-explanatory. Altogether now, Carl, what do you have to say about Altogether now because you were the one that was sort of talking about ownership of the building and the lease and how that's, how is that gonna fit? Yeah, I was raising questions about the role of the nonprofit in that the nonprofit doesn't own the facilities that would be improved as opposed to what would be the case with the other three organizations that were applying for money from us. However, I am satisfied that there is such an interweaving of the nonprofit and the rest of the activities there and that the people who own the facilities and live there are committed to the nonprofit's activities. And I was heartened that Janice Wallruff and indicated that she would be absolutely willing to extend the long-term lease to, I believe it was 10 years or maybe by 10 years, I think it was two 10 years in response to my question at the last meeting she was here to talk to us about it at. So I am willing to say that this is, yeah, it's kind of different, but to give them some share of the money, I'm in favor of doing that. Okay, all right, well, thank you for that. Sure. So, what is, does anybody else have any strong feelings? I'd like to get this done tonight. And, you know, I have my own thoughts. I don't know what everyone else thinks. I'm in favor of giving a fair chunk of money for the paving, some money for the altogether now and 10,000 for the trail bridge. But I think that's a really worthy project and the 10,000 would help them a lot. I think they're all worthy projects actually. It's just that I'm on the fence about the historical society. I don't know if that benefits all the people that we could benefit from the other grants. So I was leaving that out of my thought, but, you know, I'm flexible, but I'm kind of thinking 30 on the paving, 10 on altogether now and 10 on the trails. What does everyone else think? I have 30,000 dollars in the paving. Yeah. It's going to help a lot of poor people navigate a really bad parking lot. And they don't have a lot of money. They just don't have the resources, but I think that would help them a lot. It helps a lot of people. Yeah. Yep. But, you know, it's over for discussion, obviously. Yeah, great organization, great. I don't know. I'm a little torn because I think it's a wonderful organization. 30,000 dollars is a lot of money. Yep. That we're giving toward one small resource that some in the town are using. But we did talk about allocating potentially X amount toward nonprofits. They're moving forward as well. Yeah. I'm just wondering whether that money would sit there for years and not be used because they're still going to try to raise 20,000, that's my only hesitation. Yep. My thought was if we gave them 30,000, they could actually do a good part of the project and maybe they could do what's closest to the building or they could raise, you know, another 10, which isn't a huge amount of money, 40,000, which actually was the estimate originally, you know, I think they could do a lot with that 30,000 dollars and it wouldn't sit there. But I'm not positive about that, but can you speak to that, Denise? Yes, I mean, 30,000 would be a huge tremendous relief. We could potentially, I'd have to talk to the contractor, pave the area where folks get dropped off from the bus, where the handicapped folks park. I mean, right now, like, you know, today, if you plow, all you're doing is like plowing up dirt and gravel. And if you could see, somebody came in today on crutches and navigating through that parking lot on crutches, even in the handicapped space, really hazardous. And I would not want to see somebody fall who's already on crutches or using a walker and get seriously injured. I'm with you. Seth, do you want some help in seeing some hands up? Renee has her hand up. Oh yeah, I can't see. Yeah, okay. Renee has her hand up, yep. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. And I also see that two people have walked in, but I can't tell who they are, but I guess I am one of the people that uses the senior center. I don't need it paved. I'm perfectly ambulatory, and I would support the senior center's stated needs as offered, but I also want to point out that all together now has multiple businesses in their space. They offer affordable housing to four long-term residents and they offer a huge number of programs that function out of that main building and that their request to the town is a fraction of what they need to come up to the revised building code and safety standards. And so I'm sure, and I can only speak for myself and if those two people are from all together now they can maybe speak for themselves, but for me I use the pottery studio that's down in the basement and I participate in the community educational events and the celebrations all year long and the cost of their harness is $30,000. And so I guess I would support the town if they were able to also offer the price of the replaced furnace for all together now. And that's what I can speak to right now at this moment. And yeah, and like I said, I can't tell who walked into the office. Thank you. Can't tell how many hands either. So I can't really tell. I mean, who else has a hand up? Cause I cannot see anybody else. I'll just say it's Janice and Aero. We just walked in. So you all know who's here. Janice and Aero from all together now. We're here. Okay, thank you. Thank you. So what are the other thoughts of the select board members? Do you want to give Sandal another opportunity to say a few words? Sandal, do you want to speak on your cabinetry that you're advocating? Yeah, thank you very much. Let me get my buttons pushed here. Thank you, Scott. Was that Scott or Carl who was speaking? Scott? That was me. I mean, it doesn't matter who it is. Go ahead. Anyway, yeah. No, I just, I thought we spelled out the request pretty clearly and I do have the feeling that we're going to want to be doing more historical society community events. One, because our town is turning 175 this year and we want to plan something and we don't really have a space for it. Not that we're not going to be claiming more than the cabinetry space at the Four Corners Schoolhouse, but we really want to get back to working with them and using that as a place where people can come and learn more about town history. Because it's not easy. All they do is maybe walk into the town clerk's office and if they have something particularly they want then Rosie and the town clerk staff have been great about connecting them with either our history book or some of our publications. But that's really it for a space, a place where people identify with our town historical society. Seth? Can I ask a question? Yeah, yeah. Sandal, if you were to, for argument's sake, to receive half of the requested funds, would that, would you be able to raise the other money? Would you be able to build half the cabinets? Would $5,000 theoretically? Yeah, yeah, so I think we could. We need some of your needs. Yeah, we really have a tiny little treasury and we probably have some options for raising more or going with just one cabinet. We hadn't consulted yet with a, other than Hobie Guyon who does no carpentry, he hadn't looked for a builder or carpentry. Okay, so you could, Seth, I'm gonna just throw this out as a suggestion since we're looking to some sort of conclusion. And I respect the hard work that the historical society does and is a potential need. You had just proposed 30, 10, 10, if I threw out 25, 10, 10 and five. Okay. Are you making that motion? These are four integral organizations with a lot of hard-working volunteers. And I would be in favor of supporting all of them in the limited funds that we have, then I'm just throwing out a suggestion. Yeah, that's acceptable. I think at this point, I think you need to make a motion and we'll just see where it goes. Well, is there any other further discussion or anybody wanna add anything? I'm not trying to overstep the damages. I need a little remote, Seth, just to help you out. I just had one other comment, if I could. Sure. I reached out to Gina after the last meeting to contact Sandal and Gina sent Sandal an email. We would be open to letting the historical society have meetings and events or just what at Twin Valley, if that would help them out. Okay. I think they've got the meeting space okay. They will after the mold remediation happens. It's just they were looking to display some of their items better up there and down the town clerk's office, where they're sort of gathering dust. Yeah, I just wanted to throw that out that we would be open to letting them use space if they needed it to meet. Yeah, okay. I think the meeting space is locked. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Denise. I got that message, but we weren't quite at that point of cleaning up our head. Yeah, I think meeting space is not the issue. But thank you for that order. I think that Scott... I'll make a motion. If there's no other comments from anybody, I'll make a motion to allocate $50,000, $25,000 to Twin Valley for paving. $10,000 for the Mallory Bridge. $10,000 for... Which organization? Altogether now. Altogether now, I'm sorry. Altogether now. I'm just learning about the group. And that's gonna be allocated for your boiler. Yes, that's perfect. Toward their boiler. And $5,000 for the Historical Society toward their cabinetry, lock cabinets, whatever they're gonna do with that. That would be my... That's your motion. Your motion. Yeah, that's pretty clear. I will second that for the purposes of discussion and we may wanna tweak it some more, but I'm satisfied if it comes out that way. I was looking back to the latest worksheet that we have amount of uncommitted ARPA funds and the one I find is the annotated select board memo for December 4th, which says that as of time, if the fire engine and MAC truck costs were reclassified, which I believe we did, that we've got 58,000 and change in ARPA. So this would leave a little bit of money uncommitted. Is that still current? Yes. Thank you. Yeah, okay. Zoe has a comment. Yeah, so we're gonna open it up to discussion now. Okay. Oh, I just wanna clarify that Scott, your motion included 25,000 for Twin Valley. Yes, 25 Twin Valley, 10 for the bridge, 10 for all together now, 10 for the historical society. As up to 50. As there's some leftover, I would maybe propose that we go back to 30,000 for Twin Valley. Well, we kind of set the limit at 50, but I guess we could raise it. There might be leftover money, but it's not leftover money that's gonna go to waste. I mean, we may have a garage. We've got 20,000 dollars that we wanna take off the taxpayers' roles and not have to have bond issues and stuff, so it's not money that's gonna go to waste. Oh, no, I know. I was hoping to see, I think it makes sense for Twin Valley to get a large chunk of what they need. Yeah, I agree with Zoe. It's a great need that's gonna benefit a lot of people that are needed. So that's where- Very true. Yeah. But, you know, the motion is not bad. Any further discussion on the motion? Okay, I'm gonna call it. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. I'll go aye. Aye. Yeah, so it's unanimous. With a reluctant aye. Yeah, same. It's okay. And just to be clear, I'd just like to make a quick comment. The select board before we went on this for maybe a couple of months ago, we certainly, I don't know who had the brainstorm of allocating money toward nonprofits, but we did talk about the upward amount we should have was 50,000 and I was kind of shocked, but the more I thought about it, I thought it was a really good idea. So I think we agreed and we debated for a while on what a fair amount would be to get to nonprofits. And obviously the rest, as just to reiterate what I just said, all this other arp money will be going toward the benefit of every one, the other 25 or 2700 citizens that we have and we'll also not put more of a tax burden on this money that'll be spent that would have to be raised, taxed or bonded. So, any of us feel. Okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you all. Good luck. Okay, we will, we're still working on raising money and figuring it out, but we did raise some good money from this community and we've got some organizations. Yeah, and then we got, yeah, it's a good chunk toward that and we got a couple of other organizations who are interested in helping us. So not settled, but looking forward. So we really appreciate that so much. We're happy to help them. Thank you. Thank you for coming in for our community. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. And I appreciate it. Thank you. It's really important right now, I can say thank you. Thank you for letting us know. Have a good year. All right, you too. Have a nice night. Okay. To all the organizations in raising the remaining funds. Absolutely. Thank you. I want to just thank you so much. We really appreciate this. It will help tremendously. And as Seth has said several times, it serves a lot of people. We had over 80, probably 80 people in the center on Friday because we held the free vaccination clinic. So it's being, it will be put to good use and we are very grateful for what you've done. Well, thank you for all you do Denise. I know it's a lot of work and it's hard work, but we appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And on behalf of the Historical Society, I also want to thank everybody for considerations of things. I know we have a wide range of needs in our community for so many things, so many different times, not to mention roads and snowstorms and all that kind of stuff. There's another one coming. But I appreciate the outreach that Jenny Callan did initially and then the coordination with Gina just to get the specifics and figure it out. So thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Sandal. Thank you for tuning in. You bet. So I'm going to move to the next agenda item. It's discussion on annual voted articles presentation to select board. It says Scott has select board member to discuss the annual voted articles. Okay. So Scott, you are going to make a presentation. That's what I'm getting at. I'm giving you an oral presentation. It occurred to me after the last meeting that we had. And once again, this is my first year on the select board. I've attended a bunch of meetings for the last few years. And the award items that are voted by Australian ballot by our voting citizens. It seems to me that or it appears that it has been basically a rubber stamp. They come in, they give us a presentation. I have not heard or known that anything was ever changed. Some of the last, though they are interesting, one of the last presentations, he read us the PowerPoint, which I had read earlier. My suggestion would be to receive the presentations and or material a few weeks ahead of time. You can come in ahead of time. And if a select board member shows interest in inviting one of the presenters or one of the organizations, if they have questions or would like to hear an oral presentation. But if not, since it's going to be Australian ballot, I didn't find it necessary to hear the library give the same talk that they're going to give next year and the year after. If there was questions, then that would be great. But it just seemed to be kind of repetitive year after year. And I don't think we'd ever really... Hang on, Rose. I just want to let them finish. That was just my... If a select board member wants to hear a presentation, by all means, but I don't really need anybody to read to me what I've already read or otherwise. That was just my thought. And then it could just go into a consent agenda. Okay, Rosie, you had a comment on that? Yes, Scott. I just want to clarify for you that the only appropriation item that is on the Australian ballot is the Kellogg Hubbard Library. The rest of them are under the amount of 25,000 and are all voted from the floor. So they're still voted, but they're voted at town meeting as opposed to on the ballot then. Okay. All right. Thank you for that clarification. But I think what you're saying, Scott, is that we don't need to hear from the people that are on the warning. Like Lincoln Valley or, well, or a senior center in Montpelier or Kellogg Hubbard Library or the busing. Is that what you're saying? I am in your years. Have you ever heard of any of the numbers ever changed or? Yeah, I mean, I... Do you think it's valuable? Do you think it's valuable? I do. I think that sometimes we've had good questions for them and they changed leadership. They changed their focus. I don't know. I think it's a valuable thing that we do is to have them come in. And they never really seem to mind coming in. You know, sometimes I fall asleep, but not that often. Okay. So I mean, that's just my opinion. I don't know what everyone else thinks. What do you think, Carl? Thank you. I agree with you, Seth. I think one, the presentations are for more than us on the select board, therefore anybody in the town who wants to come and listen and with the advent of these Zoom meetings we've had occasionally more people coming in and participating than we have had in the past. And I think that's good. Two, I think the presentations do change from time to time. Like for example, with Kellogg Hubbard Library, we were able to ask them, okay, what happened after the flood? How much have you recovered from the flood? What are you doing now? And I think we always have a slightly different conversation around the challenges that they're facing. Could the presentations be better? Well, there was the boring one that you alluded to, but that's not typical. I believe that was a pinch hitter, if I recall correctly. It's fine. It's still an opportunity for us to hear things and sometimes people absorb information through hearing. Sometimes people absorb it better through reading it themselves. And it's an opportunity to ask questions. So yeah, if they're gonna be asking for a significant chunk of money from each popular voters each year, I would like to see them come in and make that case each year. I mean, I like hearing the bus, about the bussing all the time. I'm interested in mastering it. I was just bringing up the discussion. That's okay. I'll cut it off. I don't think we need any further discussion. I hear those are legitimate arguments. I still kind of stand by it, but I hear the tone and that's fine. I appreciate the feedback. I'm not making a motion or anything. Oh, okay. That's a relief. Zoe, do you have something to say? It would have been a quick vote, I think. Besides us, like Carl said, I think it would be helpful for people that don't necessarily get to take the time to hear more about these organizations. So I think it is pretty helpful. I mean, you've probably find it helpful, Zoe, just because you're fairly new. And you've gotten some education just from the people coming in and talking about their organization and what they need for money. And I mean, I have too. It's like, oh, oh, they do this. They do that. That's good. And I've heard it for a lot of years and I still think it's okay. So. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Scott. So can I move to the next item? Sure. No, I'm not moving this forward. Yeah, okay. I'm not asking, I'm not making a motion. So yeah, I heard you. I heard you. I think you can talk about it if you want. No, okay. I'm gonna move to the next item. So, oh, we're early through the East Montpellier Fire Department and there's no one here. And we're early, right? Well, we have one person here, but Albert was here earlier and will be, unless he was gonna be coming back. So, okay, well, no, he was here. He stopped in earlier. He had his timing off. So I think Albert is planning to return. So we probably should wait. Yes. So let's talk about something else. How about discussion on 2024 town meeting warning? Sure. Yeah. Okay. So town meeting warning. What do we have to do with that? I don't have much in front of me. Let's see. We essentially see this every meeting from now until next week. I know. Yeah. The only really item that is outstanding is once we finalize the budget, that number. Everything else you've all agreed on at this point. So unless anyone sees anything else that needs to tweak in the document, it's kind of hanging out until the budget's finalized. Yeah. I'm looking at over. So, 4.6%. What about the budgets? Yeah. What do we have? Okay. Decrease based on... Yeah. So it's 40,000 in the East Montpellier Fire Department and Fire and Ambulance Budget. So what I'm meaning... Okay. So you're looking at budget. Yeah. That's the... I'm just going down through your... In the memo, psych board memo. Going down to the various bullets, the plus and the minuses. So now the 40 point... So that's on each... Okay. You've got... Yeah. I'm giving you kind of the overall variance from here. Yeah. And this budget, the number you have now is actually less than the number you saw at the last meeting. I've been scraping pennies anywhere I thought I could. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Does anybody have any questions for Gina? I'm trying to understand the first paragraph there under the table, the decrease in available cash on hand per suggestion by external auditor. The amount has been increased over the years due to actual budget surplus. I just can't wrap my head around that. Could you help me out? This is something the auditors and I are still gonna discuss but it was brought up during the last fiscal audit and I was cautioned against the direction that previous leadership had kind of been going in with this. It was kind of assuming a big surplus because in all fairness in years past, you've always had one. So that available cash on hand is kind of an assumption of assuming you will have a hefty surplus at the end of every year. And those days have kind of passed. So it's risky to do that. So I'm trying to bring this closer back in line. You've historically had this at 75, it was at 100 for years. And shortly before I started, it was increased to 150, I think the year before I started. So the auditor has suggested we pull this back. It's the essentially available cash on hand. You're almost projecting how far you think you will be off of your actual budget in the end of the day for lack of a better word. This is something that's never booked in our general ledger. It's kind of always a reconciling item in your general fund every year. So we actually don't have, this is more in line with what we're actually gonna have for cash on hand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So just to make sure I understand that line in the budget. So that's not an actual expenditure plan in the budget. It is not. Yeah, okay. It's actually kind of a funny number. We actually never booked anything actually against it. It's a placeholder figure. But it's something that's never actually booked against it. There is a posting in our general ledger for a balance, a fund balance for the general fund, but you never see it in the reports that you get it. It doesn't show up in the budget status report. Uh-huh. So is it an important line item to keep in? Does it show us something important? Well, it is something you always do project. It's kind of lives in every general fund. It's always been there. So it is fair for it to be there, but we shouldn't be increasing it to the level that we were. Okay. Right. Cause it's not really there. Exactly. We're getting closer to reality. Yes. I do have a question actually, but not to do with these numbers. One of the questions is, it seems like our delinquent taxes are less than they were. And if it's a, if delinquent tax numbers are constant, you know, 100,000 or whatever over the years, that's really in a way it's not a good thing, but in a way it's a good thing. But now it seems like we've caught up a bit. So how does that, so there's some actually extra money coming in, isn't it? It's not taken care of in our budget because we didn't have that money before, but now we have an increase caught up to our tax. The only impact delinquent tax really has to your general fund is the principle and interest that you earn from people that are not paying their taxes. So yes, the fact that we end up with more people paying their taxes on time will be less revenue and principle or well, an interest expense. But when you're recording taxes, you're recording a receivable on your books. So when the cash comes in, you're just clearing off kind of that receivable that you have on the books. It doesn't necessarily show as additional. We've already essentially counted the revenue for those tax dollars. It's when they don't have. Yeah, but every year, every year it's been about the same, but now we're catching up. So we actually have a little more money on hand sort of kind of, because it's not, you know, I don't know if that'll show up. It affects your cash balance. It doesn't necessarily affect the full fund. This is more of your kind of P and L, not necessarily the balance sheet, which is where the cash is. Okay. Well, I guess it all works out. Yeah. So I don't see any questions. So the 10,000 extra for the capital reserve was suggested by the CIC committee. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. And okay. Yeah. Anybody else have any questions? I do, but you can tell me if this isn't relevant and unimportant. It might be both of those things. I see that there's a little bit of noise. Can you hear me okay? I can. Now, when you're speaking loudly. Sorry. That's all right. This might not be important so you can tell me to keep it for another time, but I see there's a decrease in the cemetery budget and. Yeah. My memory was that the new contract was slightly more expensive than the previous contract. So I was just curious about that. Well, we didn't have a contract before. Before it was in-house. Right. Right. So this is a completely different business model for us, but I think it worked out there was going to be less money overall. But there were individual expenses that went up. Is that correct? I think we increased the fees too, right? Okay. Thank you. Yeah. That's what it was. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Anybody else have any questions for Gina? Before I scratch this off the agenda. Doesn't sound like we do. So the FY25 budget development is done. And it is 7-11. So it's a little early for the, is Albert there or anybody else? I can't really see. Albert's not here yet. But when he stopped by earlier, I mentioned that they were on the agenda for 7-20. And I said, maybe come back around 7-15. So he's probably targeting 7-15. So. Okay. What else can we go over? We did the town meeting warning. We did, didn't we? The town meeting. Yep. We did. And we did the budget development. The slack board report we can work on, that's going to take a little bit. Why don't we do that? So this is the slack board report that we always put in the town report. And we usually, we try to mention the highlights for the year. So what do we have for highlights? I'm going to see you, Carl. Oh, Carl's on mute. Thank you. I see your mouth moving, Carl. Guns are flapping away here. This time we actually have a draft select board report to review. So we don't have to break the storm. Oh, I don't have that. Usually what we do at this meeting is we brainstorm ideas for the town administrator to put together in our report. And this time our town administrator has taken the initiative to draft it for us. And it, for us. It looks really... Let me see if it's in the, is it in the memo? It's on the website. Oh, it's on the website. Okay. Oh, the slack board to review the first draft, the slack board letter. Okay. All right. I can't, I don't have it. So that's all right. What are you suggesting? I have just one tiny little suggestion. Okay. And unfortunately I closed that document soft to open it up again. But if you look down at the near final paragraph, there's a sentence that ends with the word and. If you could remove that. Yep, you could get rid of that. Yep. Other than that, I thought it looked great. Sorry, Mr. I tweaked that plate today because I changed because I dropped the budget from what was in here from when you saw it. Yes. So no other comments on the slack board before? And you can take time to read it and email me the comments as well. Okay. I've sent it to Scott already. So he was kind of my sounding board for it. Okay. I can look at it. I'll be, I can get it printed off and look at it on the website. What is the final date that you want? The next meeting is when you will typically finalize. 20 seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think we should move on to the. And outward is he, so fire department is ready if you want to start talking. Yep. I'm ready. Okay. So let's see here. See if I can figure out how to get to. Where I need to. So I want to talk about the capital contribution that ambulance revenue. So what the fire department ambulance service did this year is they took off the top. The expenses that they were paying off the top of their ambulance revenue. The ambulance revenue runs 160, 170 a year, I believe. And we're already asking them to contribute 15,000. That's in their budget. That they are taking out of the ambulance revenue in giving into their general expenses, $15,000. My proposal is to double that to $30,000 because what they did this year is they took some of their expenses that they were taking off the top and they put that in their budget for the town to pay out of the money that we contribute towards the East Montpelier fire department ambulance service. So to avoid increasing money significantly from asking us, I propose that we take another 15,000 out of the ambulance revenue and put that in their general budget. So does everyone understand what I'm proposing? In the top of their, what's that? I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna say no. Okay. I could use a little better explanation too. Okay, so you see the $15,000? This is the top of one of their sheets that they handed out to us. That 15,000 is out of the ambulance revenue. You see it? I don't have the document for me. I'm just going on my memory. This is not what we're looking at in the select board memo. This is something else. Gina, is this something that's on the website? You have the actual reports on the website that are from the fire department. So I did not copy and paste their entire budget into the select board memo. The select board memo is just a summary. This is a draft too, right? Yeah, yeah, so it's in the. It's at the top of the. We have the fire department budget and we have the ambulance department budget. What Seth is referring to is in the ambulance budget. Thank you. Okay, I've got that in front of me now. So you do know what they did this year? Is that there were some expenses that they were taking out of the ambulance revenue and they are no longer willing to do that. Those expenses are now in, it's still in the budget, but they don't come off the top of the ambulance money. You remember the discussion at the meeting that we went to? We asked them about that. I have a memory of the discussion. I couldn't, I couldn't repeat it. Okay. It's the ambulance medic or intercept or something like that down to bottom of the page. I don't have the page in front of me. I'm just going by memory. Well, we actually started with the ambulance building. So there's a process for us and sends them out to the patients and does all that. And that, and even the paramedic intercepts, it's our feeling that that's like a budgeted expense. Now, granted, who pays for it in the end, we can figure that out. But we felt like that that should be in the budget that you should know that we paid 10,000 out of pocket for paramedics come and help us or we pay 12,000 to process our building. That's like a budgetary item. The way it's done now, you would kind of not know that. I mean, you could find it in the budget, but hidden in the... Yeah, I get that. I understand what you did. But what you did was... That's what I'm also trying to do. That's what you did is you increased your ambulance money to your capital fund and you asked more money from the towns to cover those expenses. All I'm saying is we take more ambulance revenue and put it back in the budget. You can still show that in your budget, that you spent $12,000 for paramedic expenses, et cetera, et cetera, ambulance billing. But if you take more money out of your ambulance and put it in as a lump sum into your general budget, you can still show those expenses. You don't have to take them off the top like you were doing it before. You understand what I'm saying? You're already taking 15,000. We're already taking $15,000. That's at the top of your sheet. That money comes out of ambulance revenue. I'm proposing you increase that number. That's all I'm saying. You increase the number that you take out of your ambulance revenue, put that back in your general budget. That will lessen the money that you have to take from the towns. Okay, I mean... I know you don't favor that. Right, no, I get that. And the only thing is I think in the budget line item it was gonna be $12,000 that we were asking for, that particular line to cover ambulance billing, but our feeling is we got to contribute to that great, but also realizing that capital equipment prices are just skyrocketing also that we were paying for it from, but that was coming out of the money that would not go into capital. So now, yes, we can take that money and do whatever. I mean, if you came to me and said, look, we're only gonna give you a $200,000 to operate your fire department. And we'd have to take a lot more of our capital money and put it towards our operating expenses. And then when we wanna go buy a fire truck or a gun, buy a piece of expensive equipment, we don't have the money now because we're supporting operational costs. So that's why I thought at the towns absorbed the operational costs and then we fund the capital. But as it is, we can't fund the capital based on the money we bring in payments because it's just not enough. But all of that money that we made traditionally goes right to capital. No, I understand what you're saying and I'm sympathetic with capital costs. I know exactly what equipment costs. It will slow down the expensive items that you buy. And maybe that's not a bad thing or you'll have to ask the towns for more money when it comes to buying a big piece of equipment. But hopefully you don't have to buy any more equipment because you guys have bought a lot of equipment in the last number of years. I understand equipment wears out and you have to buy equipment but you can slow down your capital expenses. And this is just a way to make the taxpayers absorb a little less of the expenses of running the ambulance by contributing more of the ambulance revenue into the general expenses. Because you just took that away. You took away 12,000 or whatever it is, the billing and the paramedic intercept. That money was coming out of Ambulance Revenue and you want to increase the money from the town by taking that out of the, not taking that out of Ambulance Revenue anymore. I'm just saying you've got to contribute back in by just putting it in the general budget at the top of the sheet. So instead of $15,000, you pay $30,000 out of your ambulance revenues into the budget. It just slows down how much money you put into your capital fund. That's all it does. I know exactly what you're saying, Albert. I'm not being unsympathetic but we also have a duty to taxpayers also. So we have to look at everything that we're doing. The other way of going about it is if we just took that money off what you're asking for the towns and didn't give you the 10 or $15,000 and you may have to dip in your contingency fund and that's funded by the ambulance budget, ambulance money anyway. So that's just the goal around. So in the long run, we could tighten down that budget a little bit and one way or another it's going to come out of the ambulance revenue. Well, I got a question for you, Seth. Okay, yep, I'm listening. What are you, on your figures that you're looking at what's the difference of what the town is going to be putting in our budget versus what? It's only 10,000 for East Montpelier. It's 5,000 for Calis. That's all it is. Less out of the money that you're asking for from the town. Yeah, I don't see that. I don't understand that. It means that you're taking $30,000 instead of $15,000 out of the ambulance revenue and putting it back into the general budget. But you're acting for an additional 15,000. Out of the ambulance revenue. Right, okay. It's less money that you put in your capital fund. That's all. We put in our budget, was it 12,000? For ambulance billings. So we got a difference here of $3,000 that we're talking about. Am I correct in what you're saying? It was just the ambulance billings. I thought there was a paramedic intercept that was also being taken out of that ambulance revenue. We didn't want to hit the town that hard. And do both of them at once. It's our feeling that paramedic intercepts should also be a reflected budget expense and not just something that comes off the top that people don't really see per se. And but we didn't want to come to you and say, okay, because on an average year we might spend six or 7,000 on paramedic intercepts plus the ambulance billing. Then you're looking at maybe a $20,000 increase. And we felt that would be putting our next report out there to ask for that. So we said, we'll start with one and maybe in a year or two, say, okay, now let's introduce paramedic intercepts into that equation. That's all. Okay. Well, you see what I'm trying to do. I see what you're trying to do. Okay. Well, I just wanted to be clear on that. Okay. Well, I was clear on that. We don't have to make a decision about that tonight. I talked to the select board chair in Callis about the thought. She was going to bring it to Callis select board tonight. And then we scheduled a joint meeting to talk about the budget on the 15th. So we're just, that was just my thought and we're not going to act on now anyway. I just wanted to make sure you knew what I was thinking and everyone else is thinking. Being completely transparent on the process. Yes, Carl? I think I'm not completely fuzzy on your suggestion. So thank you. Okay. So that's, I was just bringing it out there. That's all I'm doing. That's the thought. I wanted to make it clear everyone was, we're all on the same page. So we'll have a meeting on the 15th. There, Callis is going to come to the town office and we'll talk about the budget then. The budget that besides the $15,000 that you're talking about taking away. So this, the budget presented right now is a 10% increase as well as what we had. And 10 points, north of 10%, 10.6 or something. That's right. And that is a matter of concern when every year it's been double digit increases. It's a great matter of concern to both selects. It has been for years. Expenses are high. Now I know that it's a necessary service and it's getting used more and more, but we do have to answer to our residents also. So we'll see where it goes. Anybody else have anything to say on that item? Don't hear much. So we can go to the next. You guys can go on the machine. All right. Okay. So I think we can move to the town garage project. Andy Shapiro wanted to be here for this. He did. I told him it was 805. It's a little early. And I told him I would, I told him I would text him when we were ready to take it out. It might come up early. That's a good idea. Can you text him now? I am. Yep. And then I can kick it off because there's a little bit of material to cover. Okay. I can start it off and then I'm hopefully, they'll tune right in. Okay. So as you're all aware, we have been meeting and talking about the town garage. Let me see if I can get a little more information here. And we put it out for design. We had four responses to the RFP for architectural engineering services for the town. So we, Kathleen, myself and Andy, since John was gone, we selected two firms from the four proposals and we conducted interviews on January 3rd. And we walked away, we discussed the interviews, the people that we interviewed, the firms. And we came up, we settled on one firm, Women Lampier Architects. Their proposal was significantly less on the expense. Their proposal was gonna cost 22 something and the Scott Associates was around 51,000. So it's at least half of the cost for design. Now, we probably would have to add in the soil testing, which was another 12,000. So it's 37,000 or 35,000 somewhere around there to get it up to the bond process because the way this is going to work, if we decide to do it, is we don't wanna spend a lot of money on this project before we put it to a town vote. And that's important because once you get the town on board, if they decide to do it, then we have to put it out to bond. When you put it out to bond, you have to have figures. So, but the first thing you have to do after you sketch design is to get ready to sell out to the town. Once you get the town approval, then you can proceed with the rest of it. But you don't wanna spend a lot of money if you're not gonna get town approval. Does everyone follow me so far? You can make sense. Yeah, okay. So I guess what I, we never have really nailed down if we're gonna do this project. Are we gonna commit to it? It's a $3 million project approximately, which is a lot of money. I think it's necessary and we're gonna have to do it eventually. The town garage is old, it needs to be updated, it's too small. It's a big project, it's expensive. So what does everyone think? So right now what I'm saying is we're gonna need almost $40,000 to proceed ahead. We also have to hire an owner's rep, which won't be much money right now, we've got three names, we can put it out to bid to those three names. They would be, their time would be divided two ways. The first part of the process is they would help us review the design and that would be done by the hour or it could be 180 bucks an hour or whatever. That's not gonna cost us much. They would be professional service that we would just hire by the hour. If it did not pass the town, then they would not be obligated, we would not be obligated to keep them on. So their expense up to the town flow would be fairly minimal. But we do have to get an owner's representative, it's a valuable service that we should get. So that's another expense that we would incur before the town gets a chance to vote on. But it's not gonna be that much. I'm not sure what it would be Andy's got a lot of experience with this type of things. He probably answered that part of the question. So is everyone on board so far with what we've done? Okay. A couple quick questions. I don't know, how much money, how much are for money did we theoretically or a ballpark figure want to put aside for this was like 170 something or? I don't know that. Yeah, Mike. Well, do you have a rough number that anybody remember? I wasn't thinking as much more than a couple hundred thousands. Is that right, Gina? Yeah, I said. Because we've got the fire truck, we've got some expenses that we did a go around on, you know, the shell game. So how much was that, Gina? It was about 215. That's what I thought. So I thought we had a couple hundred thousand dollars. We could spend some of this money on this sketch plan, et cetera, et cetera, but it's not going to make a significant dent in the bond that we'd have to get. So, you know, it's roughly a $3 million project in my math is going to add around seven cents to tax rate. Now, that's really rough math, but you know, that's kind of how we have to look at it. It is going to be a significant bump in the taxes. So. Okay. Another question. Yep. In building a new state of the Irish garage, yep. I would guess that that would enhance our both attracting and retaining employees or is that kind of irrelevant? Oh, no, that's definitely a good thought. And that would be a positive to get employees. Absolutely positive. It would be a nice building. Wyman, who we've been working with and talking about it, they are crackerjack architects. Yeah. You know, they would build a really nice building and it would be carbon, all the green carbon neutral. It would be carbon neutral. The guy that we were talking to had some really good ideas about the four panels. As a non-financial aspect of a project like this, it's such a competitive environment for that field of work. And the other thing, when would we theoretically, would this be a special vote? Or would this be a question of 25 vote? No, we'd have to vote a special vote in 2024, the year that we're in, because we can have the sketch. It could be November. We can have the sketch on this winner, this winner by spring. In November election, it's not before. Okay. Just trying to get it. Probably before that. I mean, it'd be ready for, it'd be ready to build 2025 in the spring. You have to put it to, you have to put it to the town vote and you'd have all the figures that you need to put it to the town vote fairly quickly. It would be the town vote would be mid-year 2024. It wouldn't be ready for this meeting, obviously, but it could be ready in 2024 for a town vote. Yes, Seth, you said something that really caught my attention. You were absolutely right about, I forget how you put it exactly, but basically the lack of public discussion that we've had about this. Yeah. And if we are going to have a special vote for a multimillion dollar project later on this year, wouldn't it be useful to at least include a paragraph about it in the select board report that we talked about earlier, for example, and maybe even a special article to discuss it at the town meeting? Yeah, see, the thing is, there has to be a lot of public outreach if you're going to sell it to the town. You know, if you're going to have a town vote on something, we would actually have meetings, special meetings, to educate everyone on the process and what we're doing. So the architects are on board with that. They would be part of that public meeting process. But as you said, Carl, it's a good idea to start kicking it off the discussion now. Yeah, we have a public meeting coming up in March. Yeah, I know, but this is why, this is one of the reasons I brought it up tonight. Not only the reason to need the money to proceed ahead, but also because we haven't really decided as a select board to move ahead. Right, right. So, Rosie, you got your hand up? I just wanted to again clarify that whenever you're planning to do a bond vote, there is a requirement for public hearings before that. So we'll need to make sure that those are also kept in mind as you're moving forward. Yeah, the public hearings, of course, will be part of the educational process. I don't know how many are required before the bond vote, but we obviously will do it. And it's a good opportunity for us to educate everybody. Well, you have... What's that? We have three elections this year. So, it's a primary in August. That might be another good time to do something if the select board decided to do a vote at that point. Yeah, yep. Hey, Carl, you said that it should be in the town report. I was suggesting that we just briefly talked about a two-page select board report to the town. It does mention ARPA fundings, but I'm not sure that the garage plans are mentioned. Oh, there is a paragraph in there, isn't there? Yes, there is. That's why I'm bringing that up. It's on the second page. It's already in it. Count on Gina to cover that base. Thank you, Gina. I'm not surprised it's in there. Yeah, but putting aside some time at the meeting to talk about it may be helpful. And maybe we do that. I mean, Seth, you did a really good job each year of in the reports from the officers of just going through the select board report and using that riff on ideas. So maybe that's sufficient. Yeah, and we can broaden that discussion as needed when we do that report. We can say, hey, what does everyone think? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I can expound on it a little bit, which would be fine. So Andy hasn't tuned in. No, I have texted him. I have called his landline and haven't gotten anybody. All right, so. I'll try again. Yeah, maybe, I mean, I told him it was 805 because I just looked at the agenda. So the other thing is we have to consider the bid for owner representative for the town garage project. We're gonna put that out and we had three names to do that. Did everyone get a chance to look at that? The requirements for the owner representative. Did you print that off, Gina? Yes. Or everyone looked at it online. And it's all that. Okay, all right. Okay, so I think that I'd need, I mean, we would need to pay the, let's see, why I'm in land fear, their sketch. Do you have an updated figure for that, Gina? Cause they said they were gonna email us an updated figure because. Yeah, I actually printed here in the room their updated proposal, but every proposal that was received is on the town, is on the website for the meeting, including their updated proposal. So their pre-design and schematic costs is $27,650. And I think that was the amount you were targeting for this meeting. Yeah. Plus, I needed to add in the coal associates because that's the dirt when they do the boring for the compaction. And that figure was in the Scott associates was $12,000 for the coal. What do they call that as a name for it? But it's a drilling for the dirt. It's, they have to do that analysis for the building. And that's probably should be done pre-bond to get that done. Cause that kind of nails down an expense that was really questionable, you know? So that was 12,000. That puts it up to 39,6. So I think it's around $40,000 that we're going to have to spend plus the money for the owner representative, which isn't going to be much because that's just a few hours they're going to have to spend talking about the sketch process with the landfill. I don't know how much, but it could be a couple of thousand or something. I'm not really sure. So, but that could be covered under another expense. But I think to move ahead with a sketch, I think we're going to have to have a motion and that means that we're committing. How does everyone feel about that? And I'm not, believe me, I'm not twisting your arm. I'm just bringing that up to everybody. I want to know what everyone thinks. I'm in favor. The more you put it off, the more expensive it's going to be. Yep. I mean, I think it's probably, I mean, I haven't lived here that long, but I've been here since I was nine and we don't have a time of garage, really. I mean, the money that we're going to spend right now, you know, 40 to 50,000 bucks. Pat, we could take that ARPA money and we could take it out of that. And then if it doesn't pass, if the bond vote does not pass, that's all the money that we're going to lose because once the bond vote passes, then we're good. If it doesn't pass, then we've wasted 40 to $50,000 ARPA money. I guess that's the clearest way I can put it. That's a good gamble with ARPA money, I think. Yeah. And if we're good salesmen or if we believe in the town garage project, we'll be able to get it passed. And if the people don't pass it, well, we've done the best we could. I think it would be really useful to, sometime in the next month or so, schedule a public site visit to the existing town garage and just have Guthrie and you perhaps walk us through what the shortcomings are and why it's important to replace it. One challenge. So one idea, the Hinesburg did this, they have a video, it's still alive on their website and they actually had, I'm guessing the local videographer or they hired it out. So what you're describing would be great to really see the issues of the garage though. No one will actually be able to fit into the garage because you need to see all the trucks in the garage and realize I have photos that I could show to anyone in this room, what it looks like when the equipment is actually in there and your inability to move in that garage. So unfortunately to see the real issue with it, you won't really be able to give a tour. So ideally I would love if anyone knows a local, I know we have photographers so we could even go that route, but someone who could potentially donate some time to kind of go over there and document in pictures or video would be great, but Hinesburg it was neat because I actually showed them pulling their trucks in the garage and then how just the sheer work and it's the same thing that we have. It's almost exactly the situation that we have in our garage. So while the site visit would be great, the garage being empty other than you see that it's old and not in great shape. It's the real problem with it is that it is the size on top of those other old issues but the lack, yeah, the lack thereof. So yeah, I happen to have been texting with Guthrie right as winter was starting and when they, and actually the pictures I have are without the wings on the truck. So there's actually more room in the photos I have than what would be if I walked into the garage right now. I'm not a professional videographer but I would be happy to donate time. I have access to what I could go and just ask them to show me around and I could upload it to YouTube or work with you Gina to put it out there somehow. That'd be awesome. And it would probably be great for you to see it Zoe because it is eye-opening. Like I said, if I could take you over there right now to try to walk into the building. Yeah, I'd like to see it. I was last in it but the wings weren't even on the trucks yet. So there was a little more room when I was in there than there is when the wings are on as well. Gina, Andy has said that he's waiting to get in the meeting. Oh, yes. Thank you. Sure. So if Andy's here, you can definitely answer more questions. I don't see him, but he's getting there. Yep. Okay. There he is. Hello, Andy. Hello, Andy, though I don't see him but maybe he can hear me. So I think Andy was just gonna answer questions. He's quite familiar with all the stuff that we went through. He and Kathleen and myself were unanimous in picking Wyman-Lampere. You know, we all talked about it. We answered, asked a lot of questions and we were unanimous on it. Andy was a lot very helpful and he asked a lot of good questions made. This and that changed some things. So what do you have to add to the discussion, Andy? Oh, I don't see him, but. Unmute yourself, please. Always muted? Yeah. You're on mute, Andy. Kind of loves Zoom. Yeah, of the four architects that applied, we selected two to interview, two had good proposals and of the two, Wyman-Lampere was sharper on things and looked like they would better meet our needs. And when we asked them, they were willing to change from the engineers they had, which are folks that were, I don't know, pretty conservative to some ones that I know that understand efficiency and embody carbon in buildings. So that was really great. And plus they were a little bit cheaper than the other one we interviewed too. Yeah, they're half, half right. Yeah, between all of that, it was actually a pretty easy decision. So I pretty much covered that decision. Was that Scott? I said it wasn't just a monetary decision. No, no, no, no, it was price, but these guys are here for this company. It was not just monetary. Yeah, these guys are sharp. They had some really good ideas. They're very, very impressive. So does anybody have any questions for Andy? Because we've covered quite a lot of it, Andy, because I tried to get everyone up to speed on what we've been doing. Great. So basically, how much money do we need? It looked like Lampere came up to 27.6, is what Gina's saying. And then we wanted to do the boring with coal. That's 12,000. That's what I've got. I've got about $40,000 that we're gonna need to proceed. Is that something that we should move to approve tonight? Well, if we want to proceed ahead, everyone's ready to go as far as making the sketch plan goes. And the sooner we do it, the sooner we get going, the better. But I'm not trying to pressure everybody, but everyone is ready to go, as far as Lampere goes. I trust you guys to have vetted these guys, and I'm enthusiastic that they are so responsive to a client that they're willing to switch out the engineers in response to a specific request. Oh, yeah. They're crackerjack. I mean, I was so impressed with them. It's like, wow, these great guys are great. And Andy is not easy. He grills them. I know. Andy's smart, and he's got a lot of really good ideas, and they were very receptive, very receptive. They're gonna be great to work with. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Thank you, Andy. Andy, do you think you're smart, too? Andy is modest. I'm just checking. So... No, I think they're gonna be good. They had good ideas. They brought a project where they could tell me how much energy the project had used, and that's an unusual architect. And they also were very much on board with the idea that this first section of work, which is typically just ends up with pretty pictures, is also gonna end up with enough design work that we can get a really accurate, or as accurate as one can be in a cost estimate. Because often what happens in these projects is you get pretty pictures and somebody goes, oh, it's gonna cost about this, and you go out and raise money, and it ends up costing twice that, you know, and then you're just doing a really good cost estimate at this point is critical. And they won't have done a lot. Usually you don't have enough design to do that, but they'll do that. Like we'll get from the mechanical engineers, we'll get what they call a one-line diagram, which isn't a complete design, but it really shows how it's gonna work and what the equipment is and design narrative. And then from that, you can get a decent cost estimate. And that's important because we don't wanna spend a lot of money before we go to bond. I mean, we've got to minimize the amount we're gonna spend upfront before we put this to the town, because we don't wanna waste all our money upfront and then get turned down at the bond. And the reason that we are wanting to spend this money right now without a big public education campaign, this amount of $40,000 or so is because we want to, we see a need and we want to invest in the information that will inform the conversation later on. Is that right? Exactly right. We have to do that. Yeah. Yeah, we have to have the informed discussion about the cost, the design, what it's gonna look like. We have to have that to present. So I'm from moving ahead myself, but I'm definitely open to discussion, thoughts, whatever anyone thinks. Yes, Scott. Can I make a motion? You can. Okay, I'd like to make a motion to go forward and allocate $27,650. For the pre-designed schematic work for hiring Wyman-Lamper architects. Is that the right number we're talking about? Well, I think we have to have the $12,000. Don't we, Andy, for the, for coal associates? Yeah, we have to have the, we have to have that done also, which is $37 plus 12? Yeah, you should just say up to $40,000. And I think that's going to be tight. That's just what I said. I said up to $40,000. Didn't you hear me? Oh, okay. I guess I didn't hear you. Sorry. So I'm not sure where that coal associates comes from, the $12,000? That's... Well, it's in the other estimate. It's in a different estimate. Okay. Yeah, it's in the Scott associates with their estimate. It's a line in there. Okay. Yeah. So we have to have that done. And then that site has been had Phil added and added and added for God knows how many years. And so to put a building on it, you got to know what's under there. We got to know what's under anything, but... Yeah. In this case, it could be pretty variable. Exactly. Yeah. Thank you. We have to get that variable nailed down ASAP. So that's going to cost about $12,000. The other is $27,6. That's $39,6. So it's $40,000. Hopefully that doesn't go over that. So, Scott, you made the motion. I did. I will second. You have a second. Now, it's a further discussion. Not hearing any, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes are unanimous. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for your effort. We will be calling on you, I'm sure, in the future. Seth, what about the limited requests for bids for the owner representative? Yeah, we have, we should do that, put that out. Because now that we have voted to move ahead with the sketching in that expense, we have to have an owner's wrap. Yep. As I mentioned, it's not going to cost much at this stage of the whole process. It will be a significant cost later on, but we have to have an owner's wrap. It's just the way it is. So if we can- So a minute's reflect. I'm sorry. Yeah, the minute should reflect that we're going to put out a limited request for bids. By consensus of this life board. Yep. Okay. Is that right, everyone? Everyone feels okay about that? Yep. Okay. All right. Okay. So that ends the discussion on the town garage project. Unless people have more questions, I'm glad to answer them. Just to comment on the owner's wrap, we've got three firms interested, which is great. And two of them I know have folks that have a lot of experience doing this stuff. And that's really having, you pay for the owner's wrap, but they can save you a lot of money. They know when stuff is not right, when costs aren't right or when payment requests are not proper. I mean, we don't expect to have that kind of thing, but just having somebody who's representing us who this is their world is running commercial building projects. It's super valuable. And it saves so much time for the select board. If my memory of institutions is correct, we had an owner's wrap for a simple parking lot, the parking ride. And we were very glad in the end that we had that. I got a quick question for you, Andy. So as we discussed before, there's gonna be a two-part expense. We have an expense with the owner's wrap for the first part of the project, up to the bond vote. And then there's the other part of the expense afterward. How much do you think we're gonna spend at the first part of the project, reviewing the sketch and doing whatever else they gotta do at the preliminary stages? How much do you think that'll cost? You're on mute, Andy. I don't know. And I'm a bad cost estimator besides that. So. Is it a couple hundred dollars an hour or something? It shouldn't be that much. No, I would get more like half of that, but I still think candy bar's out of cost of nickel, so. Yeah. And you can buy bubblegum for penny. Okay. Okay, so we're just gonna assume that it's not gonna be a huge expense because it's a preliminary expense that we're gonna spend before the bond. We're not gonna be a lot out of these guys, but just that the design team all knows this gets to know this person. They're on board. They get to see what's on. They can tell us what's missing. Yeah, perfect. Okay. Okay, folks. Well, thank you. I'm ready to move to the next item, which isn't much. You have anything else, Andy? He's on mute again. Unless you have any questions for me. I'm all set. Okay, thank you, Andy. Okay, so all I see is, oh, we've got the other business. We better do that. What other business? Other business. Additions to the agenda. We need the waters. We need the waters, the agenda. So do you wanna discuss those? Let me see if I can get back to them. So, we've already been briefed on, we've already discussed, I think at the last meeting about that we need to get obviously two projects engineered, Sodom Pond and Sander Circle. Sander Circle probably being the highest priority because that road's not passable at that damaged location. So I would like to get RFPs out so that we can go ahead and get engineers on board. We have to do RFPs just in the event, depending on where we trigger in amounts for FEMA, we need to kind of follow our full purchasing policy, which would be to do RFPs, I'll put it in the paper, all that kind of fun stuff. So I've given you kind of a copy of the notice and then I drafted two RFPs, one for Sander Circle, one for Sodom Pond to both conduct the H&H study and then design and engineer replacement structures at both of those locations. So with select board approval, I would like to release these tomorrow. I will also be emailing these directly to Dubois and King and DeWolf. They are aware that this, they were aware before that some of this would be forthcoming, but I would like to get these out with a pretty quick turnaround because really all I'm really asking people to do is give us their hourly rates in response and then we can hopefully get this green lit at the next select board meeting, pick a firm to move forward with and start getting some design. Cause if we have any hope of getting these repairs done in 24, we have got to get this design done so that then we can turn these around and bid them out to contractors to get the work done. We're gonna run out of time pretty quick. So I'm bringing you these two RFPs to hopefully get your approval to release those tomorrow. And then there's a second kind of piece that's connected to this, that's a slight change in the purchasing policy. Yeah. So I can just go ahead and tell you the purchasing policy thing is since I've been here, bids have come in via email. In fact, for the town garage, everything came in via email. Nothing came in in hard copy. Yet our policy states that documents are to be received through the mail in the office. And I'm essentially proposing a tweet to the language stating that we can receive bids electronically via email to the designated town official in the RFP. And I want to do that because I don't know how picky FEMA is. And I want to make sure that we are following our policy and given that our policy does not currently allow for electronic receipt of bids, I would like to correct that. Especially since we do it anyway. Yeah. And before my time, the only time I've seen this policy really kind of put in place was with the Emerald Ash Projects. And again, you receive bids via email. So some come in hard copy. It's important to have both methods, but... Yeah. Say or... Or forceful. Exactly. It's why I have the or in there. Because especially for the tree, sometimes people do bring me handwritten bids. Yeah. It's in them. The town garage obviously was not going to come in in a handwritten bid. Which is why they all came in via email. Yeah. Okay. Would you like a motion, Seth? I think we got to make a motion on that. Yeah. The policy's made. I'll make a motion that we can accept bids both electronically and physically. Or hard copy. Well, physically. Okay. I mean, it could be a soft copy physically too if you want. Well, Scott, you all have a draft. I put the language in the select board memo, but you have a draft of the policy as well. And Scott actually has the original here. I can get his signature tonight and then follow up with everybody else's. But at least if you approve it tonight, then it's effective tonight. Yeah. Now, do you... Okay. So we have that motion on the floor. I'll second. We have a second. Yep. So we second it. Is there further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes have it. Now, what about your speech? So the R&D, I think you just need to agree by consensus similar to what you just did. Okay. Assuming you're all good with me getting those out. Like I think you before, the only risk that FEMA would not reimburse us for would be an H&H study. If the H&H study came back and said that we need to put structures in that are exactly the same size as what was destroyed in the flood. FEMA, our FEMA representative said to me, the odds of that happening are basically none. Obviously they're not going to tell us to put a stone culvert back in Sodom Pond. No. And we already know that the structure at Sander Circle could not handle the water that went through it. We've already been told by the state that needs to be bigger than it was. So the risk is really none. And even if it did, it's a minimal cost. I mean, that's a minor part. We need the design. H&H study, that's not that hard. So if we can just do that by consensus, that sounds fine. Go for it. Yeah. Go for it. And the other addition to the agenda was the green burial. And I think I just have to follow up with John Boucher. Boucher, is that what everyone thinks? That's kind of what I think, but... That seems like a good idea. Well, the person that brought it up said, oh, it has to have slack board approval, which is a new one on me, but should we make a motion and then follow up with John? Or what should we do? I'd like to see some language about what we need to be approving before we make a motion. Yeah. We might not get it. Blind blind. Okay. Well, why don't I reach out to John and see what we have to do? Ms. Seth, do you want me to reach out to him? Yeah, reach out to him, but I don't know what we have in our cemetery anything that says anything about that. I don't think it's been addressed to date, so... Right. So yeah, I'll reach out to him and then it could be, I get him on the next select board agenda and he can come and talk to you all directly about it as well. And the other thing is, so Callis does, Callis did make provision for green burials according to the person that emailed me. So maybe we could, I can ask them or one of us can ask Callis. Okay. Because they have already addressed it. So maybe we can... Seth, Seth, you have a question or an answer here from a... What's that? You have a question or a comment from a guest was just calling for a... Oh, we have someone here. I was on the soft board, 93 to 2008. Thank you. There are two green burials of the past and none were in our simulators. Okay. Any small player? Any small player. Okay. Maybe I'll give you a buzz. Okay. What's up? Okay. I'll let them tell you about this. Thank you. No, that's not the problem. Okay, well... So thank you. It's completely new to me, so we'll just have to look into it. Yeah, there may not be any rules. Okay. We should do it. That's more where I'm like to ask John. You know, Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the only thing that's left are the warrants. So we'll have to authorize Scott to sign the warrants since he's the only one in there. Yeah. How can he deputize for anything? Do I have to do anything not to do any dances or anything? Yeah, yeah. That's a complicated process, Scott. Okay. I move to authorize Scott has to sign the warrants. We need a second. I'll second. Zoe seconds it. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. The ayes have it. I'll vote against it. No. I'm kidding. Can you do that, Scott? Can you do that, Scott? I withdraw my objection. I vote affirmative. Jesus. Okay. Okay. Anything else? Have you met the San... Has DeSantis been back to your state? Is what? Has Ron DeSantis have you met him or is he still in Iowa? Oh, no. He's coming over for dinner. What? Excellent. Punch him in the face for me. And I'm happy that it's being recorded. Okay. Well, thank you. So I don't see anything else on the agenda. Just to let the select board know, make sure you have a quorum for next week. I'll actually be in Maryland with my grandkids. So I'll miss the show. I will not be able to make the meeting on Martin Luther King. Then we're going down to Maryland and that's dinner time at 6.30. So just you'll be sure another person so make sure that you guys are here for a quorum. Okay. Okay. And housekeeping, Gina, would you be so kind as to email me a list of the people who attended in person? I have some of them, but not all of them. Yep, I will do that. Thank you. Okay. Motion to adjourn. We have a second? Yes. I don't see anybody seconding that. Oh. That's gotta do it. We do have a second. Carl's seconded it. Okay. So we don't have to discuss this. All those in favor, please say hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. The eyes appear to have it. They do have it. Thank you, folks. Have a nice night. Good night everybody. Bye.