 on Wednesday, August 24th, 2022. I'd like to call to order this regularly scheduled hybrid meeting of the Chittenden Solid Waste District Board of Commissioners. There is a quorum present. Before we get into the agenda, I did want to point out one thing you might, commissioners may have noted that our executive director, Sarah Reeves, is not with us tonight on this call. She's not able to be here due to a family matter that has required a significant amount of her time and attention, including time after regular business hours. So she will not be in attendance tonight. She's briefed me on both what causes her not to be here tonight, and also all the issues that we'll be discussing tonight. And we have many senior staff here to more than adequately and capably lead us through those issues. But I do want to inform you all that, not to expect to see Sarah tonight on the call. With that, I'll move on to the agenda. The first item on the agenda is the agenda itself. Are there any requests to make changes or additions to the agenda? I am seeing none, I'm hearing none. So the agenda will be followed as presented. Second item on the agenda is the public comment period. I believe there are some members of the public, probably representing Myers container in the meeting hall as I indicated a minute ago. We'll hold off on giving them an opportunity to address the board when we get to that item on the agenda. But if there are any other members of the public, either present or by phone or by a Zoom who would like to address the board, please make yourself known. I am seeing none, I'm hearing none. So then we'll move on to item number three, the consent agenda, which begins on page three of your board packet, consists of the minutes of the June 22nd, 2022 and July 27th, 2022 board meetings, program update memos on pages 17 to 30, a finance report on page 31, and a memo regarding an internal transfer of reserve funds, it's on page 33. Are there any requests from board members to pull any of those items from the consent agenda? Yes. I would like to just talk a little bit about the monthly solid waste fees that we're collecting and see what staff's thoughts are with respect to what it's gonna do for us for the end of the year. I'm not sure that those, well, would that pertain to program updates? Yeah. Or we could put that under other business and raise that more as a general. Okay. I just, I'd like to, you know, cause it's down for the month and I know that we aren't seeing the organics that we were seeing before. Okay, since that really does involve program updates, let's pull program updates from the consent agenda and then you can pose your question and we'll address that right up front. Thank you. We'll pull the program updates from the consent agenda. Any other requests? Then with the exception of item 3.2 program updates, the consent agenda is approved as presented. We'll move on now to program updates, which will require then after the discussion a separate motion to approve. Alan, could you rephrase your question and then appropriate staff step in? Yeah, I mean, I just noticed that, you know, we're 8% down, I believe, for the month of July, first month of the year with respect to revenues coming in on our solid waste fees. And I'm just curious if, you know, one of the things that we're trying to do is reduce the amount of solid waste that we're generating, but I'm just curious if anybody is concerned about how that is going to affect us if it continues, you know, financially for the rest of the year. Thanks. Anyone on staff care to take a stab at that? If I could speak to that, this is John Dorward. Alan, that's 8% below the same month last year, but we're only 0.7% below our projected revenue for our budget. So it's what we expected essentially. Okay. Next May, I'll remind you of that, John, or perhaps next month, and we'll see how the trend goes. We'll keep an eye on it. Thank you. Okay, I'm satisfied, Paul. Okay, thank you. Any other commissioners want to step in and ask a question or observation on program updates in this in particular? I'm seeing none, hearing none, then we will need a motion to accept the program updates as presented and further explained by staff. Thank you. Do we have a second? Second. Sure, I'll add. Thank you, Ken. For any discussion on the motion, we're ready to vote on it then. All those in favor of accepting the program updates as presented in the packet, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. Any abstentions? Program updates are approved as presented. Thank you. We are now ready to move on to item number four, the construction and demolition recycling market discussion. There was an extensive and detailed memo in your board packet that I don't think we need to review in excruciating detail, but Josh S.D. will ask, I'll ask him to first speak to that and try to give us a high level overview of the issues. We do have several representatives and buyers container with us tonight. So after Josh makes his initial presentation, I'd like to give them the opportunity to them to address their concerns to the board. And then we'll open it up for discussion and potentially a resolution. I'm actually gonna have Janine McCrum do the high level overview. Janine really spent a lot of time sort of helping us wrap our hands and arms around this complicated topic. And she certainly put the lines way to the effort into preparing the memo and helping me certainly get prepared for this. So I'll ask her to do that and offer my thanks to her for helping us get to this point. And as you mentioned after that, after a sort of a high level overview, let the representatives from Myers. So Janine, if you wanna provide that overview, that'd be great. Sure. Thanks Josh. Thank you. Thanks Paul. So essentially Dave Vange and Ryan Myers contacted us recently to discuss some concerns or issues they're having with storage of material and processing of material at their facility. This, the material is as well shingles which the district banned in 2016. The shingles were banned by the state under certain conditions, certain types of projects in 2015. I kind of laid it all out the memo. I don't wanna necessarily read that to you but I certainly could answer any questions that would come out of that. And at that time, I know that VTrans had an interest in using material. There were some pilot projects that occurred between 2016 and 2020, is that about right? And in 2020, there were some concerns raised by the Vermont Department of Health, specifically related to the unbound material, unbound aggregate material. And then of course with the onset of COVID and various other things, essentially there was kind of a stop, if you will, of surrounding discussions of that because there were other priorities by the parties involved. So actually Myers did kind of come forward in 2019 and talked about what they had on site and looking for some other outlets besides the state. And there is a facility in Connecticut that has indicated they can accept material. But as I laid out in the memo, it is a 300 mile trip one way. And as we've seen, gas prices are coming down a little bit now, but we definitely went through a pretty high gas survey. And in addition to that, the issues with finding truck drivers, which has been ongoing for quite some time, but is only being exacerbated right now, have led them to kind of seek some relief from the storage and processing of shingles at this time. So I'm not gonna go into too much detail other than that. And I'm gonna go ahead and let Dave, I mean, Ryan and Jeff speak to that. Ryan, Jeff, Myers are here as well as Dave Bunget. So handed over to you guys. To start with, we've been using the shingles for various products for years now and for different jobs. V-Trans dropped the ball on us. You know, we did this job for in support of V-Trans to order to grind them and to use them back into asphalt recycling. When COVID hit, the health department had no more time to test or to say that they were safe to use. And the health department had told V-Trans to stop using temporarily. So we got stuck with a massive pile of shingles that our state would not use. We would like in the future to continue to use them in state roads and projects, but we have asked the district to allow us to use us for road improvements at the landfill. We currently can still use them on any private road improvement, whether it's for us, friends, anyone else we know, businesses, we can use them on their road improvements, but we would like to use them and to be exempt from the tax to use them at the landfill. Shingles are a commodity that are used all over the country for various products and resources. The commodity and resources just aren't here as much as we'd like them to be. So we have asked that they allow us to use them and also waive the fee because like we have said, if they don't waive the district fee, we don't know if it's gonna be feasible to even recycle them. And what we're asking is only gonna be temporary. We wanna continue working with VTrans, but I know it's very hard to get in touch with anyone from VTrans versus getting them to say they're gonna use it again too. We've, you know, it's funny I was just selling out as we sit here. My young son, that was me 27 years ago sitting here, but we spent a lot of money on doing what we've gotta do. And they at the landfill right now are buying virgin product. They're buying stone, they're buying dirt. So they're actually digging up out of the places, getting rock and stone. And as Ryan said, we've used these shingles on roads all over. We've used them in Burlington. We used them on roads and for chance, we've used them on roads in Winnowsky. We've used them on my private roads that go to our developments, mirrors and stuff. So we're just asking them, we're asking them to get a relief to use them on their roads, to build their roads instead of using as much virgin soil as they're doing in trucking and use them on their roads to sift their roads up. I don't think they have any intention of using them on anything else, but the cost would be prohibited if we have to pay the tax. I mean, we're still gonna clean them up which costs money. We gotta ship them, we gotta load them. There's so major costs. So what's any different than taking some concrete, some ground out asphalt and putting that down the road than us using our shingles on a road? I mean, they're buying some used asphalt up there that they're building roads with. They use asphalt all over the place. They use ground up asphalt on our existing roads right now. And because the state of Vermont said, no, we don't want them there, they were working out great. Every person, every town we use them on, lucky, the roads are holding together. So we're asking for a temporary fix to use them on the landfill roads. And I firmly believe that it will save time and money and new aggregate up there because the shingles as we all know, stiffened roads up real well. So we're just asking that for that chance, whether it's temporary or what it is, but we got a ton of shingles right now that some people we have discounted because we were playing on markets. We had different pricing for everybody because we were playing on the markets. Now we got no market. So, and it's no different as Ryan stated in any other commodities being used on the roads, concrete, ground up asphalt or anything else. And I do not believe a landfill road is any different than a work road going into Wickham's Corridor or a road going into a pipe. It's the same. So I did want to provide just one update. I have been in touch with Nick Vandenberg from V-Trans. Do you know Nick? I mean, he's been involved for a while. Before the COVID, right Dave? That was Nick, before the COVID. He finally got back to me. They actually have done quite a bit of work and from the material management or he pretty much has spearheaded that. And so there is a working group on recycled products or recycled, use of recycled materials on roadways and, you know, in talking with him, you know, again, it's really the unbound aggregate versus they have no issues or thought about the hot mix asphalt. But I know that we kind of went through this process and the QAQC. It kind of came back to me as he was talking about, you know, what the process is. They have a whole specific process, not only for preparation of the material for use, but then also how you use that in the mix, so to speak. So I was encouraged by that, that, you know, they are still looking at that. And so I plan on attending that working group meeting and we'll kind of figure out exactly where the obstacles are and how we can approach that. So I just wanted to give you guys that update because that was after this memo went out. Thanks very much. Before I turn it over to the board, I just want to ask a couple of clarifying questions. One is I think there are, this is just to confirm, there are really two requests here. One is to waive the prohibition on disposing or diverting the shingles material to waive the prohibition from their disposal either in the landfill or to another purpose. And then the second request would be to adjust the solid waste management fee or consider adjusting it. Is that generally correct? Well, what was your first question? We didn't get it. There are really two, two asks here. One is that the prohibition on disposing of shingles in the landfill be waived. Traps just moved. Currently they're banned by the disposal. Disposal is banned. So. Well, well, disposal is banned. We haven't mentioned that we are going to dispose of the shingles and they are banned from putting them in the landfill just as trash is banned from dumping it in the road. We are going to use them for road improvements so we are not disposing these shingles. We are going to reuse them in the road. So you can't use the word dispose because we're not disposing of them. We don't look at that any separately. We are, I think we're- A road is a road no matter where it is. The state where we would look at that the same as- But you can't use the word dispose because we're not going to dispose them just as we don't build the roads up there with garbage. They build the roads with fresh rock. So we're not going to dispose them and we don't need it waived either because we're not going to dispose of them. So these are material and they're a commodity that we're going to use at the landfill. The issue here may be my inappropriate use of the word dispose and I'm just kind of, I'm a lay person so forgive me, but I just wanted to be clear really for the rest of the board that there are two requests, let's say to waive or modify our current policy and then also to look at the solid waste management fee. That's just essentially my question. Yeah, and then I do have a follow-up question. There are state regulations and then we have I think more stringent district regulations. So why are, why would this work if only the district changed its policy? Don't we still run up against the state policy? State has approved it and the state does not tax road-based material. So the state has already said there is no tax and it's approved for use in road materials. So Paul, first of all, the state has not issued a formal approval. You do need to go through the process to do that and they may, I'm not, I know we've had discussions with Jeff and it does look like it's moving in that way, but just to be clear. So Paul, the district or the statewide ban only applies to projects of a certain size and that collect a certain amount of material and what the experience has been through Myers and various people is that shingles are a little different in majority. The shingles that we're actually seeing coming in are from re-roofing projects on single family homes. So they may not trip that amount that the state does. And I think that I think you guys would agree that's a majority of what they're seeing at the facility would be probably subject to the district ban but not necessarily the state ban. We met with Myers last week and Jeff Wardo from the state was there and we kind of had this discussion and brought that up with them. So certainly we would make them comfortable with that and I think they are, but we would want to confirm that with them. And one of the things that I suggested if we were to move forward would be to when re-roofing materials are dropped off to try to get an address just so we could corroborate that it wouldn't be a project that necessarily falls to that. But in all the data that I reviewed it really does seem to me that it's a very minimal amount. Most of what you see on newer projects are brand new roofs and you just don't get the same amount of waste. So. Well, this answers my question is why is this before this board and does it have the authority to? Well, we do. We do have a satisfied Myers and the fact that these are small volumes under the state threshold. Sure. That answers my question. Thank you. So those were my two questions. Now open it up for discussion of the board. Henry, your hand is up. Yeah. So specifically what's the waiver? So these are allowed to be used for the build for roads, but it's the size of the project that they're looking for an exception for. Cause I mean, to me, this is an obvious well, of course use it in a road. So I still don't understand what the ask is. Though I absolutely want to fully support for you. Yeah. Use it. What's the ask here? The ask is we don't agree that road building in a landfill. And this is actually a state policy, which I do support road building in a landfill is reuse of a material, but ultimately it is another form of disposal. So if we are going to allow that use, we would need to waive our requirement to ban that material from the landfill. So that's the first part of it. And then the second part of the discussion is if we were to do that, would the board consider a reduction in the solid waste management fee because that material is going to be used in road building? We have provided a lower solid waste management fee for road building materials in the past, construction find or fines that came from the processing of C&D material at Myers. Does that answer your question or help you, Henry? Well, it was sort of, so the waiver would only be under the specific condition of it being used to build the road, not actually dumped in the landfill, correct? Well, it could be either war. I mean, No, no. That's something for you guys to consider. But I guess what I'm saying is that, or what I'm hearing is that, Myers may move forward and may get approval from the state to use this as road building. There is no guarantee. There are some things that they need to do procedurally for that. Let's just for purposes of tonight, say they don't allow that. I think that Myers would still be seeking some reprieve from the storage and processing material, which may lead to a disposal, a one-time or a period, a disposal for a certain amount of time to allow them to kind of clear their decks, so to speak. So that's what's being presented here. Okay, I would like to see the motion modified to be only for road building, okay? Not to use that as a sneak in the door and all of a sudden fill up the landfill with shingles, those stay only for road building would be the exception. That's all we're asking for. Henry, we agree with you. We are only asking for road usage. We are not asking to a waive to dump them in the landfill. And that's why I said, I don't think we should use the word dispose because we are not disposing them in the landfill. We want 100% agree, 100% agree, I'll set up. Thank you, let's go. Thank you. And Ken, you're up then, Kelton. And also commissioner, if you turned on your video, it's always good to see you. So yeah, Mike, it doesn't make sense to me that really that building a road would be considered the same as disposal. I guess someone would have to explain to me why it should be the same. But my question for the staff is, do they have any objection in principle to building roads out of asphalt? Is there somehow that some other way they would build the roads would be better? So that, because if they don't have an objection to building a road this way with shingles, then they really shouldn't, these guys shouldn't have to be asking for a waiver. We should change our policy so that we can build the roads with shingles. Paul and Ken, thank you for the question. I think part of the issue was that we're talking about building roads within a landfill and eventually that material is going to be disposed of because it's within the bounds of the landfill. And so we need to modify, we need to allow for a waiver of disposal because they eventually will be disposed of because they'll be within the bounds of a landfill. So that temporary waiver needs to be granted just from the perspective of how our ordinance is written. Certainly we agree and support the material being used for building the roads within a landfill. I think everybody agrees that that's the better use than just dumping them in the landfill. The other issue, as Janine mentioned, was that we are the first domino to fall in this process. So once we grant that temporary waiver, then Cassella will be, it'll be time for them to go to the state and request for that material to be used to build roads within the landfill. Certainly we support that and we would rather them go to road building than just be dumped in the landfill, but we don't know how the state's gonna rule on that. So by using that word dispose, it allows you to go use that material to build roads within the landfill. As Janine also mentioned, it would also, if the state decides that you can't build roads with them and they don't wanna approve that, it would still give you that reprieve that you're seeking and getting them out of the facility. But of course we support road building before just straight disposal. Thanks for that clarification, Josh, Kelton, and then Lee. Yeah, I guess my question would be just what would be the alternate solution? You know, I can't imagine Myers can continue to build up an infinite pile of shingles if they don't find an outlet. And what if Myers then all of a sudden decided, hey, we don't wanna take this material anymore because we have no outlets for it, because you know, I just, I wonder what the other solution is. I mean, they're the only facility I know that takes this. And if there's no outlets for it, I think that's something that falls on us as a district and to push our regulators and V-trans to accept this material, because I think it definitely needs to go to beneficial use. But if there are only private projects, I don't know, I just, I find that a lot to put on, I think that maybe we create a working group ourselves to push, to push the state. But I just wonder what the solution is if they don't get this accepted, will they just not be able to accept shingles anymore? And then what will we do with our shingles if there's no facility? Can we have a quick answer to Kelton's question? We only have one solution right now and that's to use them as road base until we can push V-trans to allow us to use them again. But we have, I mean, we have two options really. We can use them to build roads and make better roads from the landfill or we dump them in the landfill. And right now we don't want to dump them in the landfill. We know that we think we're very confident that we can get them approved to be used in roads, but only if it's feasible for us. So we either want to use them in the roads and if they don't allow us to use them in the roads and they charge us a tax, then we're just going to have to dump them in the landfill. And only, as I last gentleman said, only be able to accept so many. We're not going to be able to continue accepting all the shingles we're accepting now. I mean, we built two more bays when things were good just to store shingles when we got time to clean them up. So we got two huge bays on a building that is almost out to the door. And at some point we're not going to be able to take anymore or they're going to go to landfill. I still, like Ryan says, I get back to tearing the road up in front of your house. If what comes along and tears the road up in front of your house and goes up and uses it on the road in landfill, do they have to pay the tax on it? No, I don't believe so. I'm usually what comes for example, but any other, you know, tearing that road up is no different with dirt and asphalt mix in it than we're asking for the shingles to use it as a road till we find, and we're going to keep looking for it because obviously it's cheaper to reuse it and get V-transit to use us, which that was going good. And hopefully if pricing goes down the trucking companies will be able to retrieve. We don't want to keep using them there, but we've got no choice right now. We're out to the door. And we've been trying to get this done and it doesn't work with the tax. Again, there are two issues here. One is the disposal waiver and then the second issue would be the solid waste management. I think we're still kind of focused on the disposal waiver part right now. Lee. Yeah, I guess I have a question for staff and it being a recycled product, how is it any different than using process glass aggregate for alternative daily cover or repairs in a landfill? It's not insofar as it is a recycled material and thank you for kind of pointing that out. And that's the difference a little bit, Jeff, with some of the other materials you mentioned that go up there and are used for road base. Those aren't materials that were banned from disposal and that's where we're trying to kind of check the boxes and move along systematically. So it's a similar situation Lee. And again, in order to do that, there are certain procedures you need to do from a state perspective in terms of testing the material and making sure it's of a certain size and it qualifies for road material. This material can qualify I mean I've done, I did a lot of research and stuff as part of this and over the past few years and it's being used in hot mix asphalt, it's being used for road purposes all over the country and we really want to work with the trends to get that up, figure out what the obstacles are to us doing it here in Vermont. There's discussions about the percentage of material you use, how it might impact the asphalt itself, but again, this isn't a new material. I mean the research goes back 15 years that there are different, both in cold climates and in hot climates that are using recycled asphalt shingle and recycled asphalt period as part of hot mix asphalt. So. But you could use straight recycled asphalt in the landfill. I think they are using that now. Is that what I heard you guys saying? No, I don't know, I just brought that up. Yeah, we're just saying if they use the recycled asphalt, do they have to pay a tax on it? No. Or is it banned from going to the landfill because it's asphalt, it's got to go to recycling. That's a great question, I don't know. They grind asphalt up all the time and we put it down on the road. You know they grind it right up on the road and we lay it back down. Yeah. It does not have to be recycled. We buy it here in the city and re-grade our dirt road. Yeah, yeah, so it doesn't go to recycling, so some stuff. But we buy it from a recycling facility. Right. Bryn. Thanks. I have a couple of questions there. Wiccums is mentioned in here. Why can't the material be sent to Wiccum process and integrated into their mix? We were sending them to Wiccums and we're only using that as our grinding facility now, but it gives us no point to send them to Wiccums now because no one has the use for them locally in Chittenden County. So we could grind them at Wiccums and we could leave a huge stockpile like we have in the past, but currently within Chittenden County, there is no resource to reuse them at the moment. So that's why we're asking to allow them to bring them to Coventry. So Wiccums is one facility that could do a mix, a hot mix if that's where the state is going. But again, there's a procedure to both verify the material itself that's gonna be used in that mix, as well as the final mix product that there's a process to do that through V-trans. So I appreciate that question, Bryn, because that's one of the things I'm trying to understand is where those obstacles are in that process and where things kind of stopped and what needs to be done to kind of get that discussion going again. But yes, Wiccums could or Pike or any other as well, Paving company. If I may to Bryn's question, one issue is V-trans will not allow them in their pavement. So we got that's separate from Department of Health in DeRose. So V-trans right now will not allow them in their pavement. Unfortunately, all projects, I shouldn't say all 90% of the projects that go in the state of Vermont, Walmart, the price shop or parking lots, the engineers go by V-trans for the pavement. So Wiccums can't even use them in a Walmart parking lot or Joe Bulley could, but you got 20 times going to a driveway, they can't change the whole plan around. So a lot of huge parking lots around, can't use them because again, the engineers use them for state spec. So the problem we're having is really between the Department of Health and AOT right now. Hopefully we can get that resolved. But that's a huge issue. They could use them in private lots. Bill, give it a one percent. In private lots, we'll get rid of all the ground shingles have one percent. You want to see that pebble? So as a follow-up question, I mean to what you were just speaking to in terms of where the roadblocks are, it doesn't really articulate in here in the memo what Department of Health concerns are. You'd have to ask them that. That we don't know, they doesn't say in the memo and they never said. The Department of Health got too busy with COVID. So specifically what we've heard, Brynne was particularly in the unbound applications and concerns about asbestos being in older, shingle removal projects. And there are some newly found concern about PFA's being in ground shingles in unbound mix. And it's not, I guess I haven't seen the literature and maybe Janine has. I think it's concerns at this point, but it hasn't gone through the testing phase as far as the unbound. It seems like there's more comfort around bound projects using it in hot mix versus shoulder mix or on dirt roads. And so that seems like the more promising route to go is in bound hot mix projects versus unbound material. I kind of feel uncomfortable without having a greater depth of knowledge of where VDA is coming from with their concerns, with the evidence of their concerns, with the, if that's in-state testing or assessments or out-of-state testing, it just is, it's hard to really understand if their concerns have enough validity to put an injunction on the use of asphalt shingles in projects or if there's opportunity to push back and say, we appreciate your concerns, can we test that and continue use of the product while you're testing? So it just feels like there's not, like CSWD doesn't have enough information on what the holdup is and if there's room there to negotiate with the department, with VTRANS or department of health. Yeah, I wanna speak to that a little bit. So I do think that the discussion surrounding asbestos, you know, there was some turnover in, obviously with the loss of buzz, shepherding it through from this all waste program, but, and then also with the onset of COVID, but I think with regard to the asbestos concerns, you know, Jeff's groups, they test their material routinely, there's not been an issue with asbestos coming from their material. I just think that VDH in a way got involved or maybe somebody new at VDH got involved kind of later in the game, if you will. Not to say that they weren't involved earlier on, they may have been, but this was, to me, it was kind of a last minute flag raising that happened like right before COVID started. And so it was just, it was, you're right, there wasn't a resolution to it, but I think that from a solid waste program perspective, asbestos is not likely to be an issue based on the testing that we've done on material to date. And the fact that, you know, note that at a certain point, that material is gonna work its way out of the stream, right? Because it's no longer used in the manufacturing of asphalt shingles. So I don't think that necessarily is a showstopper from VDH's standpoint. They are part of this working group, the state working group that gets together. So, so yeah, but I do think that it, the use of it in unbound aggregate isn't necessarily off the table, but I would agree with Josh that it seemed to me based on a couple conversations that they feel more comfortable with the bound aggregate use in hot mix asphalt and, you know, with Ryan saying, Ryan and Jeff saying, you know, 1% material in what I've read, other states are using it somewhere in the three to five to 7% range, you know, and that's based on climate and cracking and various things. But, you know, when I brought up kind of the 1% idea with Nick at VTrans, he was kind of, you know, like, oh, but I really do think it's just a procedural going through the process that they have to verify the material and then the process to how it's mixed and giving them that comfortability and getting you on a list of approved products. So I, and I think with that, then we just, Fran, I wanna, I'm sorry, we've got a line of five other commissioners, if we can cycle back to that or if you can make a concise point. Yeah, my concise point was I think we need to push back on VDH and say that it's not enough justification to warrant changing our own policies for this. So that's my opinion. Logan and then Paul Stabler and we'll work our way through. Thanks, so this is a question for the chair and for Sarah. Just to make sure I know what the ask is because I see there's the explanation of the district or the executive director can waive the solid waste management fee, is there, is it board, is it a board duty or is it a similar sort of executive director duty to be able to waive this as a temporary thing in line with what we're talking about? I think I just, I missed the preamble, especially around question one. Is that a board action or is that a executive director action? Yeah, so there are two components. So the ability to waive the fee or to reduce is the executive director authority, but the change, changing the policy or changing the ordinance or our disposal, I don't have the authority to do that. So that would need to come from the board. Even as a temporary measure, it still is a board action. That's a good question. I think I might toss that to Thomas and get an opinion on that. My sense is that any change to the ordinance would need to be an exemption would need to go come from the board and be authorized by the board. Sarah, I can just speak to that quickly. So section three, this would be a waiver found in section 3.19 and it doesn't call out that duty as responsible by the executive director or the exec board. So, and Paul had this question earlier and it was my reading that because it doesn't call out a person explicitly that it would fall to the board to grant this temporary waiver. So we're not proposing changing the ordinance at all tonight. This would be a temporary waiver as allowed under section 3.19. That help you, Logan. Paul Stabler and then Ron. I'd just like to speak in favor of the temporary waiver. I very much appreciate all that, because I mean, sorry, Mayus has done. Come on, Paul. Yes, Jeff and company have done to establish a C&B facility. I've done tremendous work over the years and I really feel this situation is not of their own duty, of course. And so I personally would speak very much in favor of the waiver. And I'm sorry, just one question, is the waiver a time thing or a quantity in terms of the temporariness? Yeah, that's a great question, Paul. And we sort of were leaving up to the board to make that call, although the recommendation that we had was to do it for a period of time. And that just, you know, it provides a little more flexibility for both sides as far as material tracking and that type of thing. So we would recommend a time period, but if the board would rather a tonnage, certainly that would be allowable. May I ask? But period, are you recommending a year or what, what time period would you recommend? The memo has it for one year, so yeah, that would be our recommendation. And that also, based on the amount of material that we know is onsite, should allow them to get rid of most of that, just based on some real basic conversations we had about how often they'd have to make trips to the landfill, et cetera. So it's not gonna happen overnight, it's gonna take some time. So we thought that was... Just the existing shingles we have right now will take a year to truck them to the Coventry. So that's not count any more we take in. So it'll take a year, 30 tons a day. Ron, and again, we're kind of still focusing on the waiver for the material. We have not yet gotten into the discussion of the solid waste management fee. I just want to be clear, there really are two questions here. But Ron? Yeah, I think that I would speak in favor of a temporary waiver and a year sounds like it would work for Myers. But I think also, as we would do a waiver or if we do a waiver, I think that's part and parcel of adopting some policies changes with regard to this particular product. And I think it would be useful for the board to consider lending our voice to that of Myers in discussions with V-DRANs to talk to them about the use of alternative materials in ought mix in particular. And the reason I say that is because I'm familiar with something that occurred, or perhaps 30 or 40 years ago when I was a resident of Alberta, Canada where there were tests done by adding a ground up glass to ought mix to test on highways. And as far as I can recall, those tests were successful. So I think the argument that consideration of alternative materials added to hot mix is something that's probably quite important in connection with this issue of the asphalt that's in shangles. That's my point for now. Thanks, Ron Lee. And then Katie, you're muted, Lee. I said, I don't wanna beat a dead horse, but it brings point with the health department weighing in with asbestos and shingles, concrete, recycled concrete, I mean, silica dust. I mean, they use that on town roads all over the place. During the summer, it gets dry. You drive down the road or bike down the road. There's silica dust flying all over the place that you can inhale. So, I mean, if they're gonna look at one thing they really have to broaden their view of a lot of these materials, which I don't know if it's good or bad, you could open up a can of worms, but I just wanted to make that point that there's dangerous materials that are byproduct of recycling certain things like asphalt and concrete, but that's all I had to say. Thanks, Lee. Thanks, Katie. I feel like there's a lot of regulatory catch-up on either side of this argument. And what we're talking about right now is the stockpile that Myers has that is either gonna be put into the landfill or used as cover for the landfill road. That's right, right? That's the ultimate question. Going into the landfill or used as the road for that stockpile specifically, because I feel like it without oversimplifying things, it makes sense in a, you know, why wouldn't we grant an exemption, not change the ordinance, a temporary waiver? They obviously have a project that we need to support the proper, you know, as best we can. We're not gonna truck it 300 miles to Connecticut. That doesn't make sense. What makes the most sense right now for this situation before it starts building and building and becoming more of a, you know, burden on Myers? I support a temporary waiver of this. And while there's catch-up on both sides of, you know, the state Department of Health, then, you know, we can, we'll be working on it in the process. Like, you know, we've talked about, we're gonna keep on it, gonna keep working on it. There's a lot of other information that needs to be decided with how the state is gonna ultimately approve use for roads, this type of thing. So I don't know, that's just my thought. Thanks, Katie. Yes. Allen, yes. Yeah. I follow behind Paul Stabler and that, you know, I think that, you know, we should grant this waiver. I mean, Myers has moved forward with a whole bunch of different construction materials and have reduced the amount of waste that has gone into Coventry, you know, especially from the county and the construction industry. And the only thing that I really wanna make sure we do is we get some kind of a written approval from the state of Vermont so we don't get into a situation like we did with the glass. Very good point. Thank you, Allen. I don't wanna cut off discussion, but I would at this point say, my sense is that there is fairly widespread support for the waiver and may not be universal or unanimous, but again, trying to keep the two issues separate and we've identified that it does require board action to grant a waiver of the material. I'm sensing that we could act on a resolution or a motion now on that piece of it and then move on to a discussion of the solid waste management fee. I just wanna get a sense, is there any objection to kind of handling it that way? We can move this along at this point. Do you wanna motion, Paul? I'm gonna ask Josh if he's got some language prepared again for the disposal waiver. My sense also is this would be for a time period with the caveats that we need, I think the state approval and I can't restate all of the concerns, but I'm hoping you've picked up on them. Josh. Reiterate basically what was in the memo and say, the CSWD Board of Commissioners hereby grants a temporary waiver of the separation and collection requirements for asphalt shingles for a one-year period effective September 1st, 2022 and ending on August 31st, 2023. And can we add there? So moved. Thank you. Moved. Here I go. Thank you. Thank you. We've got seconds. Discussion on the motion. Bryn. Yeah, I wonder if we should amend to account for Allen's request of having a conditional on the Department of Environmental Conservation Approval. I think we could handle that. I think there was widespread support for that. We could take it as a friendly amendment to our and add that to the language. Without a formal motion to amend the motion. Could you, could you state it? What's the language that's being added? Maybe just. So I'd ask the staff to provide some direction on that. Maybe just I would say subject to, you know, review and approval by DEC. Fairly appropriate body for the state of Vermont. It might be AOT, it might be. Well, but the solid waste program would be the one that would have to, because they're the other law. No, I accept that as a friendly amendment. Thank you. Other discussion on the motion. And again, this motion is to grant a temporary one year waiver for the material. As it is, I don't want to restate the motion and to do people that I think it's clear what we're voting on. But this is the waiver part of the discussion tonight. No other comments or question. I think we're ready then for them for the vote. All those in favor of the resolution, please say aye and raise your hand. Aye. Opposed, say nay and raise your hand. And any abstentions? I'll abstain. I'm sorry. Bryn is abstained. Henry, your light, you lit up. I don't know if you wanted to. Aye. Okay, thank you. We have one abstention of the motion passes. The waiver is granted or subject again to appropriate approvals. So now let's go over to the solid waste management key part of the discussion. And I sense there's a lot of concern on Myers part that this is a burden to them. Staff had reported in their memo, I think some concerns about that. Can we start some discussion on that? I guess I'll start with staff and you make your statement and then we can invite Myers to again make their concerns known. Say anything or you want me to take a shot at it? Yeah, you can go ahead and take a shot at it. So the reason that we are recommending no reduction in the solid waste management fee at this point is ultimately we see this first step as being granting for the disposal of shingles. And the reason being is, as I mentioned before, we are the first step in this process to use shingles as road-based within the bounds of the landfill and coventry. So that's not to say that there wouldn't be another opportunity to review this as, to review the request as within, at another board meeting. But at this point we don't have approval from the state of Vermont that it would be accepted as use in road building in the landfill. So that's sort of why we, under the recommendation, we say that it's premature because we don't know if there's going to be approval granted for this use of material in road building. Based on the movement that we just had with the board and granting that the waiver, we know that there's an opportunity to dispose of these materials. If the state grants approval to use in road-making and Myers wants to make another request to reduce the solid waste management fee, I think that could be taken up at a separate meeting, but we just don't know that they're going to have that approval as of yet. Paul? Just a question of his statement. The, why wouldn't a motion that if used in road building, the solid waste management fee would be reduced? I mean, so that they have a comfort level with respect to moving forward. That would be mine. Sure. Yeah. And that's certainly one of the opportunities. Historically the board has granted a 25% solid waste management fee on materials that have been requested, specifically alternative daily cover. The point that at least I wanted to make, and I don't know if I reflect Janine's thought process, but it is material that's ultimately going to be disposed. It's in the landfill. That being said, it's a beneficial use in the landfill, but it will be buried in the landfill at the end of the day. So that's just one thing that we've considered is that it is material that will be disposed, albeit with a good use prior to disposal. But that's no more different than the gravel that we're using now. Sure. Which is disposed in the landfill. Sure. Paul, if I might, one difference is that generally the reduction has been applied to materials that are inert. And shingles are not inert. So that will be a difference with gravel, it's different with street sweepings. So that is something else to consider is that when we have applied a waiver or a partial reduction in that 25%, it's for materials that generally won't have any negative environmental effect in the landfill. Thank you, Sarah. Elton, and then Liz. Yeah, I would just say I would like to make a motion for their sake. At some point tonight, rather than make them come back, I think Myers is a small business, and we're here having the discussion now and making it conditional, rather than making them come back to another board meeting. So if they can continue moving forward with their project, whether we vote one way or the other, I think it's for them to understand the direction of the board. At this point, rather than get all the approval of the state, find out it's gonna cost them and be not work financially for them, and then they aren't able to make the decision. So I would like to just say, again, I want to listen to more of the discussion, but either way, I'd definitely love to give them a direction by the end of the discussion today. Good point, Kelton. Thank you. Liz, then Paul. I have a question, and it's just, I heard somebody speaking, I think it was one of the folks from Myers speak about when you're putting this ground up shingles into the road. And then when the road, you kind of, it sort of, to me, seems like it truly is recyclable because then you grind the road back up again, then you're gonna be using that same material in the hot mix. And again, I don't know the science behind it, but to me, I'm getting stuck on the idea of that it is gonna be disposed eventually in the landfill. So maybe it's because it's not inert, I'm not sure. And I just wanted some clarification on that. I hope that's a clear enough question. So in the landfill, they won't be using it in hot mix, they'll be using it as road base within the landfill. So it won't be used in traditional hot mix, like we are trying to get approval for through VTrans. It'll be used as a road base within the landfill. And then when that road is no longer usable, it gets buried like anything else in the landfill. So that's... Yeah, they're constantly rebuilding, moving the roads, move around on the landfill, right? Based on where the cell is open, where they're accepting material. So they do have a constant need for material because they are doing that so often. So does that answer your question? Yeah, it does. Thanks. Paul Svabler, then Brynden. Yeah, this may require some long-term, long-time staff to answer the question. But didn't we have a situation where the state came to us at one point and asked us to waive or reduce the SOV voice management fee for, I think it's contaminated, soil that was collected around gas station tanks, that leaked, I think. Does that ring a bell to anyone? Yep. And I think we branded that. Did we weight it all together or did we reduce it? I have to kind of go back to what Sarah said. I didn't look at every approval that Nancy, I guess, had worked on before, other than just say that I do recall consistently with what Sarah said, that the solid waste management fee had been waived for, I think the request had been in total for inert material, but for material that was not inert, it was a reduction, but not a full waiver. But now I see Jen Holliday is gonna pipe in. Jen, do you remember? Yeah, I think you're right. Jeanine, I believe it was a reduction. And that was Chuck Schwer that had come to our board from the leaking underground storage tanks and asked for that at that time. Do you recall, Jen, how much we reduced it by? I don't recall. I'm sorry, no. Okay, but I'm clearly in favor of saying that we reduce the limonite fee if it's approved by the state to be used as landfill. I mean, sorry, it was road built in landfills. Thanks, Paul. Bryn, then Katie, then Logan. Thanks. Perhaps somebody can point out to me in the memo where it says what the estimated cost would be if we don't waive, as well as the estimated cost if we do a reduction. It's not clear to me what that is. In other words, how much money are we talking about here all over the year? Yeah, and I'm not looking, I'm asking an estimate on the total of the existing, or maybe existing, facility. I can do it real quick based on 5,000 tons, which. But remember, they weren't getting the fee before. We weren't paying the fee to reuse them in any other road. So they're asking we pay a fee to use them only within the confines of the landfill roads. So we have collected 8,000 tons of shingles. I'm not planning on paying no district fees because of what we're gonna do with them now, because just because we're gonna use them within the roads of the landfill, they want us to now somehow recuperate the fee, which is impossible. We didn't charge our customers the fee. We can't go back now and change what we charged our customers for 8,000 tons or whatever we have sitting around. So just because we're using them within roads of the landfill, I'm not quite sure why we should be paying any fee. So I still have the same question. It's a very good clarification. It's probably if you did not reduce the fee for 5,000 tons at the $27, it would be $135,000. And I have not seen anything different than a 25% reduction other than a full way, a full exemption from the fee. It seems I've seen the full exemption or 25% in historical stuff that I can find. I don't know if they've ever done like a 50 or 75. But, and that's a 25% charge of that fee. So 25% of the solid waste management fee times 5,000 would be $34,000. So if I could just jump in and try to restate it. I think the impact to Myers, if they had to pay the full solid waste management fee, you said, I think it was something at 100? 100, about 135,000. Right, and they've identified that that's a cost that they can't recoup because they've already collected material. Then the second part of this is if some part of the solid waste management fee were applied and it were a, say a 25% reduction, then that puts it in the $35,000 range impact or a lowered reduction of the impact to Myers. Yeah, it would be 100,000 rather than 135. Okay, thank you. That gets, I think it's a great question that Bern asked. Well, no, so if I could just clarify that, Paul, the one that, if I remember correctly with regard to the CNT fines, we actually, it was a 75% reduction. So they were 20% the fee. Yeah, sorry about that. Well, that's an important clarification. Yeah. Okay, Katie. So quickly, the ADC, the alternative daily cover situation too, that was for use inside landfills only. And was that a reduction in the solid waste management fee for that? And that, so that was based on the fact that it was being used for roadways or building or cover ADC for the landfill. So what's the precedent there? Like can we, that was, was that the scene? Yeah, I think the reduction was applied to, I'll just use a broader term, landfill site improvements, whether it's road building or alternative daily cover. And my research did express to the state that if that's an avenue that they could use, if it would be used for cover material, but again, it's certain testing and has to meet certain requirements to be considered for that. And my sense was, I don't know about you guys, but was that they really were more interested in roads and they have a high need for it in a road. So they may not even need to go down the road of looking at it for cover. They may be able to get rid of what they have just from a road building perspective. And does that make sense, Katie, or? No, I was asking, sorry. I was asking when we decided that that would be okay. Didn't we exempt that material from disposal, the solid waste management fee? Again, if it's a completely inert material, which is one of the things that if you're, if it's an alternative daily cover, generally it does fall into that category. Okay, I get it. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yeah. Logan, then Ken. First is an apology. I misread the memo about executive director versus executive board for question one, but in rereading it around question two, I see that the language that was shared in the memo is that the exec board can make this decision at their discretion. And so I'm thinking, number one, do we need to make a decision tonight? Number two, is it like a good faith thing as much as anything? And does it seem prudent to make it, to sort of just sort of put these issues on the table and get them in the record around, does VDH have an actual concern or not? And is the state going to approve this for road use? And then like let the exec board do their thing versus making a decision this evening in terms of what we're going to do about the management fee. But Paul, can I just address the first part that Logan said about the exec board? Section 8.1, which is the solid waste management fee section of the ordinance says that the board of commissioners may exempt or partially exempt other materials from the imposition of the solid waste management fee upon good cause shown. I would argue that since this type of material has not been brought up before, for consideration of a reduction in fee that it actually would be a board of commissioners decision and not coming from the executive director, the executive director has some discretion earlier on in that section and I'm trying to find it now, but it doesn't pertain to new materials being exempt from the solid waste management fee. So I do believe it's a board action for this material in this request. And taking into consideration what Kelton said, we owe it to Myers to make a decision tonight. Frank, it is a board action to exempt or partially exempt other materials from the imposition. So materials that are not already noted in the ordinance, it's the executive director's discretion to kind of approve additional materials. So it says, internet materials approved by the district general manager that are used for landfill site improvement. So if it's something that is not already noted, then it really does need to come before the board as it changes. So 8.3 is in the memo, but doesn't apply in this situation. It just is meant to confuse careless. Thank you guys for the curve ball. Correct. Thanks, Logan. Ken. It seems to me we all, I just want to make the point of supporting Myers and treating them like a partner. If indeed that's the way we see are working together with them in regards to product. I mean, we all have a business model and need to make our budgets. And I don't think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think CSWD was expecting to collect any revenue or taxes from the disposal of shingles because that's not what Myers was doing with them. And on the other hand, Myers wasn't expecting to pay any taxes and was doing what I just heard, I think was the great service of collecting these materials and helping to dispose of them, hopefully with VTrans, but it's not working out right now. So I would just like to support a serious reduction or complete waiver of the fee. And if that's not appropriate, I'd like to have the board have the staff explain why they think that Myers should have to pay more and risk their ability to continue collecting this material. And that's a good point that you brought up in. And I think the distinction is that there was no fee associated prior because the materials were falling under recycling, right? So there are no fees associated with the taxes, management fees associated with recycling, but there are disposal. Yes, and that's why Myers was engaged in the business of collecting them, correct? Right, right. So now they've done all this work and we're thinking of enjoying some profit based on that problem they have, which I don't understand the logic of that in terms of the partnership that we have. But maybe I'm wrong. Well, that is, that's the conversation, right? Is because similar could be said for any material that is being collected for recycling in order to specifically avoid disposal in the landfill, which that is the goal. And then it's a market issue, right? Or maybe it's something that is with outside of the control of the company, outside of Myers control. I think it might be, and this falls under that. It is, they can control transporting to Connecticut. It's expensive, we're facing the same thing with PGA. They don't control restrictions that or challenges from DOH or from VTrans, right? So there are factors here that would then, I think lend support for at least a partial waiver of that, so it's management fee. But on the other hand, because they will eventually become part of the landfill as a disposed product. There is some, just needs to be some acknowledgement, I think by the board that, yes, we are agreeing that in this case, material is still being disposed at the end of the day. And yet the board is okay with waiving it in this case. And maybe it's a one, again, a one-time waiver for an amount of material or for the period of time. Yeah, so what I'm saying, I hear that and I feel like to me that argues for complete exemption and I wanna get direction from the staff about that if that doesn't make sense. And I'm happy to hear from other board members, I just wanted to express my feeling that I don't understand why they should have to pay for this. I want them to keep doing what they do. Thanks for your point, Ken, rather than have staff respond right now to that particular point. I want to allow further commissioners to get to have their chance to speak to the issue. So, Rick, you're up. Next follow-up question. Is there any, if we approve an exemption, is this going to establish any kind of a precedent that could come back to bite us because there is some comparable situation out there that I at least as a board member am not aware of, would we be opening the door to some other party coming in and saying, hey, you did this for Myers, we got this same situation where we can't, we no longer have a market that we expected to have. Give us a break. Rick, you stated my point much better than I did. That is a concern. And I think that's a concern that all commissioners should just come to a vote tonight have to take into consideration. Paul Sabler. Mute. Paul, can you unmute? I'm sorry, I thought I had it off. I want to speak in favor of waiving the, I don't believe that when we developed our budget, we thought we'd have a thousand more pounds of disposal because of this. So, it's not like we're really reducing the amount of revenue we're going to get. We thought we're going to get solid mismanagement fee. And, you know, I think it was Lee who pointed out, they're going to have an extensive trucking up there which isn't cheap. These are heavy materials. Yeah, I would speak in favor of waiving the fee completely. Again, it's temporary. And in terms of precedent, these things will have to come back to the board, I think at any time. And there's always different factors and we don't have to decide in a particular way, you know, for each one. So, that's why we're here for to make the tough calls. That's what I have to say, thank you. Thank you, Paul Lee. Thanks Paul. Yeah, just getting back to, you know, the use of other recycled materials, do we charge a solid waste fee on recycled asphalt concrete to facilities that recycle those and use them, sell them? Again, the solid management fee is charged at the landfill. Yeah. So if it were brought to the landfill to use for road, would it then be charged at fee? It could be. I mean, again, it, well, yeah, that hasn't been discussed. I think the one thing I want to just kind of put out there, in no way am I like trying to get revenue out of this situation. I'm really more concerned with the precedent portion of it. And I think my feeling was, you know, that I just, I don't want to, I worry about incentivizing disposal over reuse or recycling and with other materials. And I would support a reduction in the fee, I think in a complete waiver of the fee, given that we've never really done that with materials that aren't, we've only done that in the past with materials that are truly inert. But I do, Sarah's discussion about or I can't remember who brought it up about kind of the unique nature of the situation with the fact that material was collected and stored, you know, under the auspices of they were recycling, you know, they were using the material and then all of a sudden they kind of had this situation where they don't have an outlet anymore. I can respect that, but I just wanted to put out there that a couple of people that brought up revenue and budgets and I mean, I know it's a big amount of money, but I really am not even thinking about that at all. Thanks, Janine. Kelton and then Ron. Yeah, could we potentially give them a full reduction for all the material they accepted without charging a district fee and then change going forward the process so maybe make it instead of a time frame, make it a tonnage based on what they currently have, but then change that going forward. So everything they accepted in good faith to plan to be recycled did not accept the district. It did not accept that from their customers, but then going forward after that, maybe they have to change their process. I mean, again, the catch point too of that is they could accept a district fee on everything and then not have to end up paying it because they don't dispose of it in the transoms of taking it. So there is a catch 22 there. I don't know. Thanks, Kelton. Ron. I believe I heard that Myers intends to use this material in the building of a road base on the landfill. So my question is, is this going to be a contract situation where they would be paid for the building of that road base? And if that's the case, why would we want to give them a full reduction against the cost that we would have to pay them for the road building project? Have you ever brought something to the landfill and got paid for it? So my answer to that question would be, I would almost say 90, no, there's no question of them paying us on the board for the shingles as we wouldn't be asking us. So they're still gonna charge us, I would presume a fee to bring them. So they are not paying us nothing. But Myers is not building the roads. Casella construction builds the roads and stuff up there. Myers will not be a contractor using the material. So Jeff, finding that material as an offset for them, not having to buy that virgin material, are they willing to work with you on the tip of the cost? Ryan has a Ryan. Sorry. They're willing to work with us, but we have not discussed pricing. So we don't know, I mean, there's no way they're gonna pay us for it as much as we'd love to tell you. We're gonna make money, but that's not gonna happen. We will have to pay a large fee, I'm sure, on top of a four hour, four and a half hour round trip with one truck. You can only do so much in a day and we have customers to provide services to. So we are still, this is gonna be a huge cost to us just to bring them to Coventry. Wick comes as where they were going before, it was a half a mile down the road from us. So now we're gonna be driving them four hours. It's a huge fee that we're gonna have to eat. So with that, I wanna step in here and say procedurally, I think we've established that a board action would be required to waive the solid waste management fee. I think staff has expressed concern about waiving the fee entirely. They would like to see some portion of the fee imposed. There's been numerous opinions expressed by board members that perhaps no fee should be imposed. I would suggest that a board member make a motion and pick the solid waste management fee amount that they think is appropriate. See if we can get a second. Then we'll have some discussion and see if that number is zero or 25 or 50%. And then try to move this thing along and wrap this up. Cause I think we've had lots of good discussion from all sides and I think we're ready to make a decision. Can I just say something, Paul? I actually like Kelton's proposal. I mean, obviously I wrote a position in the memo, but it's helpful to kind of hear what others are thinking. And insofar as that during the temporary waiver position, if the board were to consider a full exemption during that timeframe and then once that timeframe is over and that timeframe is at the end of that timeframe, we're gonna have to look at this again and where are we with VTrans? Where are we? It may be that at that point, we make a very different decision, but I could support a temporary exemption, full exemption with the idea that the board would wanna revisit that at the end of that year and see where we are with the material. Well, Janine, I think that thought. I think Kelton had mentioned waving the fee on the current amount that is in a pile. So not necessarily for the entire year but going to be continued to accept for material knowing that it's going for disposal, but rather for the amount that they can't move right now, which is however many thousand tons that approximately is. So you have 500 tons? We have 5,000 tons at Wickham's already, but we have within our building, we're guessing we would have to do more math. We have already that we've collected probably another 3,000 tons. Maybe a couple, yeah. So we probably have another 3,000. So maybe 8,000 tons total. Right, so that would be the recommendation that I would be comfortable with would be on that current amount, not on anything going forward over the next 12 months, but on the amount that is currently not unable to move at Wickham's and the process of processing or having your process. So kind of a waiver or reduction of that fee on the 8,000 times currently in the resolution. My sense is we've made some good progress on the staff and probably the board coming to a good agreement. Ken, I don't know if you were going to make a motion, but perhaps there's language out there that somebody could read off and we can see if we can reach agreement on this. You're muted at that time, you're muted. Yeah, I was going to make a motion and now I'm just thinking about what the implications of what Sarah just said. What happens, I mean, I kind of feel like we need to know what Myers is going to do with that if we say to them right now, you only get a full exemption for what you have and not for the upcoming year. I mean, I felt like the year made sense because that was how long it took to get rid of what they have. But- Right, so- Would they change their policy tomorrow and start collecting a fee? That doesn't seem to make sense if in fact, B-trans is going to- That is, that's up to Myers and we obviously can't dictate to them what's going to make the most sense for Ryan and Jeff and their business. I mean, they could very well tomorrow, say we need to charge a fee to collect these materials or decide to not collect them. I don't know that we haven't had that conversation with them and that's not in the purview of the districts to say anything about, right? So, but those are some things that they're going to have to think about what makes the most sense for them from a business perspective. I think what makes the most sense is waiving the fee for the year as long as we're allowing the shingles to be used on the road. Let's simplify it. I mean, I don't want to go in 11 months and you guys say we've already shipped all of the shingles we had in the building and we say, no, we didn't. We had another 1,000 tons here. I think for the ease of our business, it would make the most sense to just waive the fee for the year within the term and then we can all revisit this within the year or after the year and we can talk then about what we all want to do, whether it's a full fee or partial fee or hopefully use them back in the road. But I think right now, let's just, if we're already going to be allowed to use them to build roads for a year, let's just waive the fee for a year. Well, that's the motion I would make if someone could help me say it. I don't know how to say it. I guess that would be the motion to waive the fee for the year as simple as it could be. That sounds like a motion to me. Yes. Can I ask for it? Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to waive the solid waste management fee for the shingled material for the period of 12 months. I would presume that your intent is beginning on September 1st. Yes. When the material waiver has been granted. So it's been moved and seconded. We still have the opportunity for discussion. Does anybody want to speak to the motion or against the motion? I'm hearing none. And we're then ready for the question. All those in favor of the motion to waive the solid waste management fee for a period of one year, beginning September 1st on this shingled material, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Are any opposed? Say nay and raise your hand. Any abstentions? I'd say. Thank you, Bryn. The motion carries. I would personally would thank Myers again for both the work that you've done and very good faith over the years and also for sitting through this long and torturous debate and discussion. You know, I built this facility long story. No, you got a busy night, but I built this facility from support from new folks because nobody else would do one. And we are keeping material out of landfill that enhanced would go to the landfill. I mean, we take out a lot of aggregate out of loads that in turn would go to the landfill. So with your support, that would be able to continue to run the center. So we as a family do appreciate your guys continued support and your staff has always been very good to us. Appreciate those comments. And again, I think it's a good testament that this board is really interested in supporting the private sector and working for the best interests of all the communities, the community, businesses, taxpayers, people who need to dispose material. Let us move on. This went a lot longer than we thought. It's now seven 30, so we're about 40 minutes, the 50 minutes behind schedule. Next up on the agenda is the administrative office update. There was a lengthy memo that Sarah had prepared. Again, I don't think we need to delve into it, but I could characterize it to saying that many years ago, it was determined and agreed to by this board that the current office situation is untenable and unacceptable and that we authorized forward movement on a new office building. We even approved monies for an architectural or a feasibility study with cost estimates. Those cost estimates have come back. They're very high. Sarah has felt and recommended, has clearly concluded that those costs are too high and would not recommend building a new facility at this time. That puts us back at considering other alternatives. And I would just quickly identify them as one is do nothing, which I think we'd all agree is not acceptable. Second option would be to try to refurbish or somehow rehabilitate the current office situation. That has drawbacks, perhaps some positives as well, but third option would be to lease an office building. Fourth option is to purchase a new office building elsewhere. There are pros and cons to all of these things. And my final comment is this did go before the exec board. We discussed it at length on August 8th. I think I could characterize it saying we did the exec board felt we needed to move forward, but there was no consensus on whether leasing or buying made the most sense. So with that preamble, hopefully I've taken all of your wind out of your sales, Sarah or other staff. That's my preamble to this discussion. I'll turn it over to you folks. Yeah, you've hit it right on the head that those are indeed the high points of the five page memo. And we do continue to look at space and we're also continuing to evaluate our space needs. And so we've sent out some just kind of brief questions to the admin building staff, again, kind of asking about needs and asking about habits and work habits and things of that nature to make sure that we're looking for the right amount of space because the last thing we wanna do is either lease or purchase anything that's too much or too little, right? We need that Goldilocks just right in the middle. So Amy Jewel has been kind of taking up the lead on search for space. It's been a team effort. Amy and I and the senior management team have gone out and looked at various spaces and it is still the goal to have, to have what we're calling the Redmond Road campus, right? To have the admin facility and admin facility on Redmond Road as we build out, compost, as we hopefully will get the approval from the voters to build a new MRF and to have kind of the largest DOC and system on that road, it just, it does make sense. And yet as Paul said, the current conditions do have me continually to be concerned, especially as we're heading back into what will most likely be another COVID season. So for all the reasons that Paul stated and that are in the memo, I would certainly want to open it up to questions from the board. And if we can find a preference, we would love to kind of narrow down our focus. We are focusing the search in the Williston South Burlington area. We did look at a couple of places in Burlington. Staff had concerns about quick access to all of our facilities. So we further refined our search to Williston South Burlington, which there seemed to be some good options. Amy, I don't know if you had anything additional that you wanted to add from either conversations with admin building staff or from your search while I was on vacation last week or so. Sure. So we have 22 employees. And so we've been creative about how to reduce that space, as Sarah said, but still make it workable and bring us back together. We did look at a space. The question really, you know, as we're looking at leases, how long? If the goal is the Redmond Road campus, what is the length of time? At the executive board we talked about, it could be 10 years if that's the case does leasing make sense versus buying and having an asset at the end. But we have looked at some space that we think could work. The South Burlington police station. I took a look at the other day. It's a second floor area. And they said they'd be happy to have us. So, but you know, there's the retrofit cost. It's actually, I think it would work well for us. But again, it's a lease. So it's really, you know, we felt like this should come to the board for discussion of what the board prefers that we do in this situation. Thanks, Amy, for ready now for missioners comments and questions. I take it that Tom, your hand is up. Yes. Will the new recycling center include office space for the operating staff who need to be in Williston? Yes, they will. But that space will, it will not be for all of the operations. It'll be for Merck specific. So for the plant manager, for, you know, sort of the scale house operator slash facility manager or business manager. So probably not more than two or three offices at the most. Bryn, then Rick. Cause I'm not really familiar with the side of things. Is this something that would be appropriate for an RFP and say that basically put out notice that we're looking for space to lease or potentially buy depending on the direction of the board and basically get pitched on space and costs. Frankly, I don't think so. I think I would add more layers. And I don't think I'm not familiar enough with whether realtors would respond to an RFP and RFP. I don't think that's how they work. It hasn't been my experience, but I don't know. So the question, I think it would certainly add time and complexity. We turn around RFPs in 30, 60 days, typically, right? Depending on it, it can be shorter. But again, if this is something that is not a familiar way of doing business for realtors, we probably wouldn't get any responses. And then we would have invested 30 to 60 days and still be behind the app on and back to where we are now. We are working with a couple of different folks. So we're not focusing just on one work. We're looking at everything and whoever happens to be the realtor on that one and it's who you reach out to. Rick. Are there any, how much inefficiency is involved with having the staff physically removed from the operations on Redmond Road? Yeah, that's a great question. That has been part of the concerns is that depending on where we would be located and we looked at space in Burlington, we looked at space in Colchester. It's what is the frequency of needing to get to specific facilities and how quickly and how much time that is spent in that travel. Now, so for our drop-off center manager, assistant director of operations, he's going out to all of the drop-off centers regardless. So that's kind of less of an issue. It would be more of an issue though for say, Josh Estee, who if he's going to the depot, being located in Colchester definitely adds travel time onto that commute. Similarly with the compost facility, we're fortunate that we can just kind of run back and forth across the street if there are any needs. So again, if we were in downtown Burlington or in Colchester, that would be, everything would have to be planned in person meetings and then most likely still be done remotely or by phone, which is not the end of the world. It's just a change and it's just an adjustment to the daily work life. But if we can be more centrally located, that would be ideal. I want to bring up and try to kind of digest what was discussed at the exec board meeting and it was mostly focused on leasing versus buying. There are arguments in favor of both. And my sense was that Sarah and staff were more leaning towards a purchase of the building because it turns out, we would have a hard asset that if it turned out not to meet our needs in five or 10 years could be sold. And we would recoup some of our investment. Leasing on the other hand for every dollar you spend, it's gone, but you get increased flexibility with that that at the end of the lease term, we can walk away. But I think over 10 years, the cost between purchasing and leasing is pretty much the same, pretty much equivalent under today's dollars and cents. It was, some concern was expressed about, we already own a lot of real estate. Should we be getting further deeper in the real estate business? That's a good consideration. Location of a purchased office building is also a concern. But ultimately, I think what we're trying to get tonight is some general sense of direction for Sarah and staff so that they know which avenue really to pursue most seriously. They're not asking for a decision tonight. There's still a lot of work to be done, but if we can help steer them in the correct direction or in the direction we most favor as a group, I think that would be immensely helpful, ultimately beneficial that we'd solve this problem. And actually, Paul, we've seen a couple of spaces for lease that really could fit the bill. So we're really actually not on any one. We do feel that the two options we would like to continue to pursue and get some direction if there is a clear direction is lease or buy. So I'm putting that out on the table here, Henry. I don't know what your comments are, but if we can kind of focus our discussion on that, I think that would be helpful. But again, whatever is on your mind, folks, bring it up to Henry. I don't know if you, I'd suggest talking to Global Foundries. They got lots of empty offices over there. Yeah, we have an appointment to go see some office space there on Friday. Then why did I open my mouth? You were reading our mind, Paul, yes. It is more expensive. It's significantly more expensive. So it's unlikely that, although we may just take a look and we've talked about logistics of the public access in that facility, there might be some limitations with cost and access. But the location obviously is fantastic. So we're exploring as many options as we can come across. I'll jump in again. One point that I think, I don't know if it was in the memo, but I think it's worth again mentioning that were we to purchase in the one to $2 million range, there is money on hand that's already set aside and we could purchase this outright. Yes. And that I think is important for commissioners to know and understand that the money is available. That's correct. We have, we budgeted, I think it was 2.4 million in the capital budget for a new administrative office building and the current construction costs all in would be over just over four. Which is why I'm not recommending we move forward with that at this time. On the other hand, we have a lot of capital demand and if we didn't purchase a building that perhaps that reserve could be made available for other capital projects. So that's another piece to consider. That's correct. And by leasing, obviously we're not expending that million, million and a half. It is keeping us a little bit more, have cash at the ready in the event that we need that for the MRF or some emergency or something else. Thank you. Henry, your hand is still up and I'm going to move to Ken. And if you have a follow-up question, Henry, then it can be you. Let's see, I just want to say I felt like I heard a little excitement about the space above the police station. I think like for me that might be a driver of this decision is the location and the fit that we feel. So that if there was the perfect location that came up for sale, then yeah, but then there might be a heck of a lot more work that we had to figure out in terms of the retrofit of what we buy versus lease where maybe the landlord would do what needs to be done and then the long-term plan is a long-term plan. So that was just my thought. Thanks, Ken, Bryn. For me, I think it makes more sense if the lease term is going to be 10 years, to me it feels like it makes more sense to buy and have an appreciating asset rather than something that we don't get to recoup the value on after the term ends. That being said, to me it comes down to cost. So if we find an advantageous partnership for lease, then I think it's whatever is the least expense, the least fit up that's needed. And if it's the lease term, the lease gives favorable terms to terminating the lease. Could you just speak a moment, Sarah, to lease terms, the possibilities? Because Bryn, you'd mentioned if it's a 10-year lease, but I think your thought would be somewhat more flexible. Certainly. And so generally what we are finding that there is a good amount of flexibility out there right now on lease terms. So that isn't our favor. You get the best term with the longest term, right? So one of the locations that we saw had a five-year initial lease and with basically what's called a kick out at five years and seven years. So you could do a five-year initial with a five-year renewal, but have an option to leave at certain parts in that 10-year term. Now, the fitting up or the retrofitting that caused being worn by the landlord would then be spread out over the full term. So if there was, if we left halfway through, we'd be responsible for the remaining half of whatever had been amortized over the cost of the fit up, which that's reasonable in my mind. So I think there are a lot, there's quite a bit of flexibility right now, which there wasn't necessarily two, three years ago. So again, that is playing in our favor. The prices have not really come down. They've gone up a little bit, but the more we look, the more deals we're finding. So that's what's kind of getting us excited about, well, maybe a lease does make more sense. Yes, the money doesn't represent an asset at the end, but if there is this flexibility and then we're not left with something, say there is another market downturn and we want to be in, we're reaping the benefit of low construction costs so we can build, but then we have this thing that we can't sell or lease, then that's another consideration as well at the end if we're looking in seven years to build or something like that. So that's why I say we're, we can argue both sides of this story. So any, any assistance is welcome. Tom, then Ron. Does Global's boundaries potentially have space on their Wilson campus? They do. And we're gonna go see, Amy's gonna go see some space on Friday, but there's a lot of factors just getting onto the property. So one of our concerns is that we do want to make sure if the public does need to access our administrative office for some reason, you know, there would have to be a check-in. We'd have to probably put them on a list. You know, there's, there's a whole host of kind of their own bureaucracy, which is, you know, necessary. And is that, is that acceptable level of access? You know, we will have other, you know, then the compost facility is still gonna be there and open to the public. They're not set up to accept that kind of, of access from the public. So that could be a burden if it's burdensome to get to a facility, an office space and the Global Foundries and people decide just to pop into compost. They're not really set up for that. So, so that is, I think Amy's right. That's kind of the main, main concern we would have with, but we'll ask the question, you know, when we're there on Friday. Ron. Thank you. A couple of observations about both sides of the question. Leasing, I think, to my mind, offers some pretty good potential for us. And one of the things that I think could work in its favor is a question about if there is an occurrence of overbuilding. And what I mean by that is if the, at the time of at least renewal, there's a lot of property available, that offers us the opportunity to negotiate perhaps a better price. On the other side of things, purchasing a property runs potentially into the same issue at a point at which we might determine we want to sell out and build our own property. If there's an overbuilding situation, it becomes very difficult to sell a property at a good price and perhaps not even at a profit. So these are things to be thought about and considered as well. Thanks, Ron. I don't see any other hands up. I wanted to offer one other point that it's come up and I don't know if it's still on the table, but location, we've touched on a little bit, but Sarah has mentioned that some of the purchase options would actually be in downtown Burlington and perhaps other areas within the county. And there are pros and cons with that. So I think that's important to get on the table as well. The board members to reflect on the location of an office building, specifically if it's downtown Burlington versus downtown Williston, which would be ideal, of course. I don't know, Sarah, if you can wanna add any comments to that before seeing if other commissioners have comments. Well, and that gets to resale, right? So, or even the eventual leasing. And there are some great options in downtown Burlington right now. And, you know, we looked at a couple that really could fit the bill if we wanted to stay for a good amount of time. And I think that good amount of time is seven to 10 years. So we would wanna make sure that, you know, we weren't to Ron's point, both also overbuilding internally and that we're not buying too much space. And I think leasing too gives us either one, but leasing also gives us the opportunity to test out how much space do we really need in a permanent building? You know, we've designed something now for what we expect is what we need. But we won't really know in five years. We don't know now what we'll know in five years as far as the work habits of our staff. So that's something that I think this, by not building, we're actually giving ourselves much better information for an eventual building and how to structure that. So where I think, you know, there's certainly opportunity in downtown Burlington with, you know, particularly with the construction that's happening with the plans for the center with the parkway, I think in five to seven years, property will appreciate. So we could be very well situated in a property downtown for a very good price right now. I do not think we would lose money on a property downtown. I think we would certainly make our investment back and most likely it would appreciate. There is concerns about access and for not just staff, I think there's certain amount of staff who are in the admin building right now would love that commute because they live in Burlington or nearby and it would not be a problem. And others, it would add some significant hardship. There's the question of costs involved with the purchasing downtown because a lot of it is a la carte parking, for example. So, you know, we would need to kind of pull all of that together if there was a space that said, this is the one that's going to fit the bill. We want to bring this as a proposal to the board. We would have it all listed out so that, you know, the board would be fully aware of the ongoing monthly costs and the annual costs. Because it's not just simply the purchase of the building or in this case, the floor. There's lots of other associated costs with that. Whereas with the lease, it's all wrapped up into that one monthly bill. So, you know, again, I'm not doing myself any favors here. I think arguing myself one way or the other, but, you know, there is good opportunity right now to be had in downtown. Yeah, Alan and then Liz. Yeah, you know, I worked 30, 40 years in real estate acquisition and construction. And I would tell Sarah to look very, you know, Burlington may look like a good place to be, but, you know, what I found in big cities was that we ended up having to give employees parking stipends that we didn't have to, you know, do in, you know, outlying areas. And remember that we have board meetings at night and a lot of the areas with buildings available in Burlington are not the greatest place to be walking a block and a half to get your car. I grew up in Burlington and stayed around the area, but it isn't, you know, it isn't where I go through all the time now. Yeah, no, that is a major factor, absolutely. And that is something that came up with all of our staff. And yeah, you know, it's certainly something that is top of mind in your right. That is certainly not included in the cost of the building. That would be an extra, it's a significant cost. You're right. Liz, your next member. Okay, thanks. I think what I'm sort of hearing, I'm sort of leaning towards the leasing. I feel like this is sort of a stop gap measure. Construction costs right now are twice what they normally would be. You don't have a really great sense, sorry my dogs, great sense of after the pandemic understanding how many staff you'll have, what the dynamic of the staff needs will be. And I feel like if you can lease and find the right location, whether that's Williston or, you know, sounds like Cold Chester may not be the thing, but if it's global foundries and there's a nice, new process that can be produced to get access to that space, I don't know, I feel like that's the direction my head is going and against, I'm not sure what's really happening in city place downtown, but it also, it always worries me when you're the first big group of people to be in a space. And that just seems like it's had a lot of issues. I don't know, that's just my own personal, like you don't want to be the only person in that space and nobody else is building up around you. I don't know, those are my thoughts. I pushed for leasing in the right place. Thanks Liz. Rick, Ben Brinn. I'm not sure if we're doing anything other than sharing observations because I don't sense that this is moving to a motion. So let me just share my thoughts and that is that I'm totally open to considering good deals. I'm not really married to the idea of the lease versus a purchase. Philosophically, the idea of spending money to get an asset is appealing. On the other hand, it feels like there are some intangible costs involved in owning and ultimately managing real estate. And our fundamental mission is not real estate, our fundamental mission is solid waste. So I would be a little concerned that buying facilities that we don't have to buy like a drop-off center, somebody's gotta own that land. If we are buying office space, are we undertaking distraction that we don't need to have from our mission? But ultimately it is gonna come down to the dollars and cents. So if you ask me tonight, what would I wanna do lease versus purchase? I don't have enough information to judge that. Thanks Rick. Brinn. Thank you for asking this question again. What was, what did you say about any expectations about staff returning to office? So say that we do move forward one way or the other rather than the do nothing option. What would like, would there be a change in expectations and you know, what would that look like? Yeah, so I'm at this point I'm not anticipating requiring a full return to the office for every person. And the reason I say that is because in talking to our folks, there are a handful who have said that they really have found work from home to be much more productive. They want to be in the office periodically and need to have a space to kind of land. So, and we've always had flexible work scheduled with the approval of the person's manager and supervisor. So for years we've had folks who would work one or two days from home. That was not the norm that was the exception. Pandemic has altered that. However, on any given day we do have many people in the office. And so most folks are about on staggered schedules at least three days a week and some four and a few five. So, if we were to need to provide a separate office for each person right now who needs one that it would be ending in years of 22 employees but we probably need for 24. But I don't think that's the number that will return all the time full time. So the next conversation with our staff is okay. If you think you work best from home three days a week but want to be in the office two and then there's someone who is two and three can you share in that one space, that one office? It wouldn't be yours in particular but you would have a location. That's where we think we're landing frankly is we don't need as many boxes as we thought we might. So that's where we're looking at the square footage is it's shrinking. So that is also kind of what's leading me towards preferring leasing so that we can kind of test that theory out as well. We can test out configuration of office space. We can test out a different size that we were anticipating needing and then be able to either kick out at five years or seven and really kind of make that decision based on actual work experience rather than, well, we have 25 employees, we obviously need 25 offices. That may not be the case. But right now it looks like we're looking for space for about 18 people or 18 FTEs. Okay, that's helpful. One thing just for context of what I put in the chat, it's a link to a software platform called Robin that can be used for desk reservations for offices. My day job utilizes this. So just putting that out there is something for office resource management. Thank you. Lee, your hand was up. Is it down? Yeah, I was just gonna say, I wanna touch on what Sarah was saying with, how many employees are actually gonna be on site. And I know here we have a work from home policy that describes which people should be in their offices, which have the flexibility to work from home or how many days. And we actually utilize a lot of focus rooms here. So maybe you may not have the office space you're looking for, but it may have the space where you can have these little focus rooms where if they're only gonna be in there a couple of days a week, they don't need this huge space, still have access to internet and everything like that. Exactly, sharing spaces. Correct. And so this exercise is actually really great at helping us to refine and kind of hone in on not only how does this current cohort want to function and want to work and work best, but what's the flexibility that we might need going forward? What might that look like? At this point, I think I'd like to wrap this up. There's been good dialogue. The board has been informed about the issues and it's got some things to think about and hopefully we've given you some valuable feedback. Sarah and staff, it's not an easy problem to solve. Location and money, got it. Yeah. So we'll now move on to item 6E, Materials Recovery Facility Bond Vote Update. This is just acknowledged that the board really needs to be brought up to speed. The vote, the election is what in two and a half months, a little bit less than that now. A lot of activity still to happen. So if you could just refresh the board on what we can expect. Yeah, actually, I would just ask for, if there are any questions on what Jen has provided. I mean, there's not been much more to bring you up to speed on, but if there are any questions on what's included. I'm going to jump in and say I have two observations. One was we have a grandson who's at our house every afternoon and he spends a half an hour on YouTube watching some, I don't know, roadblocks video or something like that and up popped an ad for the Murph. So I applaud the targeting, but it was a message. It was very straightforward and low key, but effective, I thought. The second thing, my personal concern is not the issues around the Murph, but it's really issues around how to vote. Yeah. If you have any solid recommendations with that, I'm very concerned about the confusion issue about having to request ballots. We don't need you to discuss that tonight, but I just put that out there. I think that's a lot of work. Jen has really been the lead on coordinating with the clerks, coordinating with the Secretary of State's office, coordinating Shea Michelle with the folks who are producing the ballots. So if you want Jen to give a quick update, she certainly can, but it's pretty much at the end of the memo. But yeah, that's certainly getting the vote out is critical and that even more so this time because folks will either have to vote in person or they will have to specifically request our ballot. So a lot of focus, an additional focus beyond what we had originally planned is being put towards how to access our ballot because we are getting people asking for it, which is wonderful. So we know people are seeing the messages and hearing it, but we need to be doing a blitz over the course of the next six weeks about how to do that and that will be top of mind for us. But yeah, if there's any specific questions, Jen is the point person on. I'm not asking Jen to redo the memo, go into it. Paul, your hand is up. Yeah, I just had one quick question. I was just wondering how the presentations to city councils and select boards, I think you were going to do like four or five of them, not sure, but I was just wondering how those have gone so far. I know how it went with South Burlington, but just wondering about the others. Yes, and Michelle was able to do Colchester's for me. I was unable to attend your due to a family emergency. And Jen, I think you, you sat in. Oh, no, you just sit down. Yeah, I sat in, yeah. And Michelle did Richmond and Westminster, yeah. And they've all been going really, really well. You know, they have a lot of great questions, but overall, you know, a lot of people are, there's been some that have said, yeah, I've toured them or we need this. And, you know, there's just a general sense of support and interest, yeah. And questions about how the select boards can either, how they can help or what are our expectations of them? And it really is public support for this. And directing people to us if they have any questions and just thanking them for their continued support at CSWD and all of our programs. Yeah, I just want to point out that the call out to board members in the memo, it's, you know, you as the professional, the knowledgeable, solid waste folks in your communities, if you have any interest in helping, I mean, there's little things you can do that definitely can help like posting things on Front Porch Forum. We can feed you the information, but then it goes out into your community. For example, if we're having a community forum in your area, we want to target Front Porch Forum in your area. So things like that, which are really easy to help us out with are great. Just contact me and I'll let you know. Leslie, you're muted. Sorry, folks. Okay, Jen, I'm officially contacting you. All right, gotcha. Then made talking points for Front Porch Forum and anything else you have. But I would say rather than you waiting for each commissioner to contact you, why not just send the packet of whatever you've got to all commissioners with a request to do A, B, C, D. The other thing I would say is, and I don't know the dynamics on select boards, but if you've met with a select board that was generally very supportive, why not give the select board members a similar kind of packet? Because we, the commissioners, will have one aspect vis-a-vis our community, but the select board members have been elected by our communities. And I would think their voice would probably carry more weight. I don't know that, but certainly why not at least enlist them? If you've got a packet of action points, talking points, don't wait for folks to come to you. Just put them out there. That's my suggestion. Thank you, Leslie. Oh, we do want to be strategic about when the messages are going out and when the communications are going out. So Jen and Michelle and I, let's get together and have a conversation about kind of putting together a calendar. And then we can get that information out to you as commissioners and say kind of, here's strategically what we think a good time frame might be to have this kind of communication and that kind of communication so that it's really seen as a progression leading up to the action we are hoping voters will take. So the three of us will connect on that. And then, yes, we definitely want to get this information into your hands. And yeah, go ahead, Leslie. And one follow-up. Typically, at least here in Jericho, it's our town clerk. Alerts the populace about how to vote and when to vote. And the town clerks tend to be independent of the select boards. So that's another target for strategic outreach. Yeah, we're working really closely with the town clerk. We have to, there's a lot of work that's going on with them. Yeah, they're all very, very well familiar with the genicist point. So, Ron, let's go, Ron, and then Alan. Okay. Okay, thank you. Jim, you may or may not know or recall that I have a long background in journalism, radio and television broadcasting in particular. And I have a PhD in journalism. So I just want to say that if you'd like to reach out to me about anything you want to know about how to deal with the media, maybe I can help. Although I would have to caution you that my experience is mostly in Canada and we operate a little differently up there than journalists do down here. We don't go quite so much for the drama that seems to occur. But still in all, maybe I can help in some way if you'd like to call upon my services. Thank you, Ron. Thanks, Ron. Alan, you had spoken up and then Liz. Yeah, a question. So I get a ballot from the Secretary of State's office, mailed to me. And it does not have our ballot in the package. Correct. So I fill this package out and I put it in the envelope and I either drop it off in my town clerk's office or mail it in. So I, as of now, have not voted on the bond for the Murph. Is there a way that that individual on election day can go to the polling place and get checked off on the checklist and get our ballot? Yeah. That is, they can absolutely go to the polling place because the only way that they're gonna be able to get the ballot is either to request it from the town clerk by phone call, request it through the My Voter page which goes to the town clerk and they mail it or walk in in November on election day and say, I wanna vote on this issue. So those are the three ways that people are going to be able to vote on the Murph bond vote. But Alan, is your question more about will the clerk be aware that someone is still eligible to receive that ballot because they haven't voted on it yet? Is that more of the question? Well, yeah, I mean, if I have voted, my name is gonna be checked off on the checklist when they run my ballots through the machine. Right. Right, but the town clerk knows that the secretary of state is not mailing our ballot. So they know that they're not getting it that way. And then the town clerk will be keeping track of whatever voters they're sending our ballot to. So that'll be a separate checklist. And then that. Thank you. The mess. It's a mess. Liz, thanks for waiting. Sure, a quick question in the memo, it mentioned that a tour of the Murph is being created. And I just wondered, like, has that happened? I may have missed, I missed the last meeting, wondered when that's happening and, you know. No, I took the liberty of putting that in there because it's cropped up in the, I think maybe the last either a board meeting or one of the select board meetings. Sarah had mentioned that we wanted to give, particularly the new commissioners, a tour that have not never seen the Murph and anyone else that would obviously want to revisit it. So I put that in there and my plan is to get something scheduled pretty quickly, probably within the next three weeks if schedules allow. Okay, thank you. We haven't missed anything. Okay, great. Because I have not seen it and I would like to. Yes. Michelle, you'd like to comment? Thank you. I just wanted to add Jen mentioned the ways folks can get a ballot. I, in addition to calling the town clerk's office and requesting, people can also go in there. And for instance, when I spoke with our town clerk here in Jericho, Jessica, she mentioned that a lot of people will be coming in to pay their taxes, September 15th. And so she's excited to be getting the ballot so that she can offer it to them if they want it at that time. So, you know, these are the ways we're working with clerks to make sure it's available. Thanks all. Again, I'm always conscious of the hour. It's about 815 and we have an executive session to move on to next. I think if there are no other questions, let's move in that direction. Sarah, we do have an executive session for an update on contract negotiations. I presume this deals, this will cover some negotiations with Kelton, I'm sorry, with Cassella. Correct. Kelton, if you would then mind, would not mind. I hope, repusing yourself from that, from, if the only topic is that on the executive session, Kelton, if you could refuse yourself from that, please. It is only a topic. Thank you. Thank you, Kelton. Henry, your hand is up before we move into, before we have a motion to enter executive session. I had some things I wanted to cover at the meeting. Can we cover it next week? I have a PowerPoint ready. We have you up for other business after the executive session. It's too late. I gotta go, I got Samson. Start at 815. We'll put you on for the executive session. I'm sorry, for other business at our September meeting. It's gonna be earlier in the meeting, not, because I got eight o'clock meetings with Samson. Yeah, we'll arrange just about if you have time, Henry. And now I'll send you the PowerPoint. I've got it all ready. Please only send that to Sarah and copy me. It should not go to the full board. Right, right. Okay. Now we're ready to entertain a motion to enter executive session. Do we have a wording for that, please? Executive session to discuss contract negotiations with respect to the materials recovery facility contract, where premature general public knowledge would clearly place the district, its member municipalities and other public bodies, or persons involved at a substantial disadvantage, and to permit authorized staff, other invited interested parties in the solid waste district attorney to be present for this session. Thank you. Berlington. Second. Who's seconded? Charlotte. Thank you, Ken. All those in favor of entering executive session, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We will move into executive session then with the link that Amy had sent to you, I believe, yesterday. I'll have to do a question. Yeah, I just had to, I'm gonna hop off. There's no other business after. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you all for this, bro. Good name. What's been involved with any executive session? Good morning, staff. So, because it's just Alan and I, I'm just gonna move my computer over to you. I can go over there. Yeah, and we don't need to do all this. Well, I did shut this audio off on this, so they shouldn't be in here. We should get it. It's only the two of you, so it doesn't live. And it's not, yeah. So that being the silence at the moment, and so is anybody who may be on YouTube, which was so impressed. Anybody from CS70, can you hear me? Anyone hear me? No? Where'd it go? Thanks, Scott. No. Sarah, can you hear me? I can hear you, yeah. Okay. You're all set? Yeah, all set. Thank you. First, I'm getting the information from, yeah, if we wanna help and post in front of our forum and this and that. I'm gonna send y'all my thoughts. Of course we do. Of course we do. So welcome to everyone. And then, if you're evil, feeling comfortable, you'll have the tools, and then I would say just let Jen know kind of where in the process you want to participate and then so we can kind of keep track of who's saying what went there. Just one general observation, personal marker, repetition is your friend. Just don't think that by sending out one message, that's enough. You see those GM ads, whatever, to buy that car or truck that you see it 20 times a day, that's because it can take many impressions in order to motivate somebody to take the action you'd like them to take. Don't be shy about if the request is to put out weekly updates. That's a good idea. And we'll make it so that it's not always the same message, like as people will grab that and it will blaze over. And the standard of the industry remains seven touches. If someone has to see something and they won't have seven times before they're registering that they're seeing something and that might pay attention to it. So it's not just a one at that. But yes, we will pull up together and get that out of the way. So that's not a music executive session for Mark. For Mark? Different Mark talk. So this is to update the board on how we have on-contact conversations with selling for operations of the world. Jen and Josh and I met with the seller today. And I requested an in-person meeting just again, because I think we just do a very work-long-based debate. And it was a highly productive meeting. We were able to really come out with some terms that I think are going to be mutually beneficial. There are some things that they ask to run out of the rightful with their CFO and with John. So with them and John. But they are remain interested. They want to work with us. They want to upgrade the mark, both the crime mark and potential future mark. They are looking for a longer term contract. One of the things that I think we have talked with the board about before, was we are fully anticipating that we can do more than in time we would be able to run any if we wanted to. It may still not be in the district's best interest for us to do that. But we want to make sure that we are deeply into the learning curve, walking step-by-step with the seller and getting the mark done. We should get that. So, what I think they are concerned about is, you know... You're back? Doing good until Ken started talking about ravioli and meat sauce. Now I'm hungry. I came to Willis to looking for food tonight. Yeah, me too. Sorry. Sorry. Lee. The bar, you're up. Automatically, I'm muted. We have a quorum present. We're recording again. I believe, Amy, you can confirm that. Yes, we're recording. Thank you. We have a motion to exit executive session. Some move to Essex. Thank you. The second. Second, Jericho. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded to end executive session, leave executive session. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have left executive session back in regular public session. The other business item will be deferred to September. The only thing I wanted to bring up, I think you were just talking about it. In-person versus Zoom meetings. We had one good, we had our June meeting where we had some good representation, but not many people wanted to go to the office. I think we should continue to push for the in-office option, but would suggest that if you think you're not going to attend, let Amy know right away and then if it's at all possible to make a decision, say we cancel the in-person session. But I guess the other thing is, once it's been warned for the public, we probably can't rescind a public meeting option. Amy, you know? We have to give 48 hours notice, I believe. We could, if we don't think we'll have attendance at these meetings, we could have a public option at the office, which is where I would be and then if the public came in, they could be in our small conference room, but if we think we're going to attend them, this setup also works. Well, I don't know the answer and it's getting late, but I just want to be considerate of staff and reserving a room and then disappointing the one or two people who show up and they don't have any food. When you get next week's, next month's memo, tell Amy as soon as you can whether you're going to attend or not and we'll go from there. Any other business? Hearing none, entertain a motion to adjourn. I do have one quick thing. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, just a quick announcement. I'm also on the board for Greenup Day and just wanted to give a dance notice that they're doing Greenup Day gala on November 12th and still the fundraiser for an endowment that they're putting together. It'll likely be from five to nine p.m. And I can share additional information about the event in the coming weeks. Thank you, Brennan. There's nothing else, a motion to adjourn. Second, Brennan. Thank you, it's been moved and seconded to adjourn. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. The ayes have it. We are adjourned.