 Okay. We have a quorum. I like to call the January 18 public hearings for proposed changes to the Berlin's land use and development regulations to order. Tom, would you enlighten us? Right. I'm going to have Brandy's talk on these next three items. Okay. Okay. And I have a short PowerPoint here that I'm going to run you through to walk through the changes. So I'm going to share my screen and do that. So the Planning Commission has put together some minor amendments to the zoning. This was done to meet the statutory requirements and respond to the comments we got from state agencies when they reviewed the preliminary application for Newtown Center and for the neighborhood development area. Just as a point of reference, the statute regarding the Newtown Center requires that the municipality have regulations that adequately control the physical form and scale of development. That's been interpreted by DHCD and the downtown board at this point to mean a form-based type of zoning. So what we have done is to try to take a lot of what was in your zoning that was adopted for the town center district in 2019 and convert that over to a form-based zoning district. And then the neighborhood development area has a series of guidelines that the town needs to meet. And that's for complete streets and building a lot pattern. So a lot of that has to do, has some specific requirements for roads and streets that we're going to see. So those are the two driving forces for these zoning changes. So the primary area where there are changes is in the town center zoning district. And so it begins with a new feature, this what we call the regulating map, in which the streets are colored here, as you can see in different colors. So the pieces of the streets that are green, those are what we're referring to as C streets. Those carry forward essentially the same dimensional standards that were in place in the 2019 zoning. So it doesn't, much of the change to the standards affects the other areas of the district. And these areas that are properties that front on these green C streets, the dimensional standards will be fairly similar to what they were previously. But what we did have to do to meet the new town center requirements is really to make sure there's going to be a more block building form in this core of the Burlington center. So where you see the orange streets and the blue streets in the center, what's now the mall parking lot and east from there, that's the area where we're really trying to get to what we refer to as a block building form. So buildings brought up to the edge of the street, multi-story, covering a large percentage of the frontage of the lot. And then in conversation and consultation with CVMC, we become much more familiar with what the specialized needs of a health care campus are and what some of their concerns and issues around the zoning were. And we've made some adjustments that are reflected in the H street, which is the red street and some of the other standards to accommodate their specific needs, which we'll see as we walk through here. So each of those different streets have a set of dimensional standards. And this is what is characteristic of form-based code, is that it really lays out this series of dimensional standards, a lot of which you already had in place that are intended to produce a sort of specific form, built form at the end. So you know, sort of the overall massing in size and shape and placement of buildings that's possible in the district. And so that's how these are set up. The A street says the highest density core area requires two stories. Buildings need to be brought up close to the street, parking to behind them. That and then as you step down, the B street is sort of the next most intensive with a one and a half story or 25 foot minimum height. So you're getting a two, you know, you're not getting a low box building, but getting something that has the look of a multi-story building. Going forward, the C street is, like I said, very similar to the standards you have in place now where the building needs to be brought fairly close to the street, but you could still get a row of parking in front. Setbacks and such are similar to what you've got now. And then these additional streets are meant for special circumstances that may arise in as the Burlington center area builds out. So the D street is sort of a service drive, something that might provide access to rear buildings, things of that nature, sort of a minor access way. The H streets is this is the special frontage for the hospital. It also extends over to the state hospital property as well, and is really focused on the idea of sort of institutional buildings and their needs on those health care campus parcels. And then the P street is a pedestrian street. It's the idea of being able to create a plaza area, maybe something not too dissimilar to the concept of church street, where the building is all front on a pedestrian zone. There is one further revision that the planning commission is recommending that you approve tonight that wasn't part of the package that you received. During the planning commission hearing, we've we had more discussion with CVMC about building height and to clarify how that will be regulated going forward. We're now recommending that we add one more sentence to that description of building height that's highlighted here in yellow that says that buildings that are fronting on more than one street, the height will be for the primary street. So on a corner lot that clarifies which, if the two streets have different requirements for height, which are those requirements the building would need to comply with. And then the next piece in the proposed zoning is some street standards. These would be for new or reconstructed streets. There's probably not going to be a lot of those necessarily in the town center district. But if there are going to be new streets in order to meet the program requirements, they need to have sidewalks. On street parking needs to be allowed. Generally they're going to need to have curbs and street lights and street trees and that sort of thing. So this meets those NDA requirements, narrow travel lanes, so promoting walkability and safe pedestrian access. And then the section ends with architectural standards. Your 2019 draft included basically these underlying architectural standards. And what we've done now is to sort of expand upon them in terms of trying to provide examples with the images and some more background guidance to determine that the Development Review Board can use to help determine whether what's been proposed meets those broad architectural standards. Both the new town center and NDA, the neighborhood development area programs do require some design elements in your regulations. I want to see that there's going to be buildings oriented to the street and to pedestrians that don't have large swaths of blank walls, that there's regular patterns of doors and windows facing the street, and just generally supportive of interesting architectural details, quality materials, basically high quality buildings in the town center that will last for many years and have lots of potential use and reuse opportunities. And so those go on, they go through you know just various ways and examples of architectural approaches and details and designs materials. And then there is a list of other minor changes elsewhere in the document. There's a couple different groups of these. So the three that are highlighted in blue, the language around non-conforming lots, accessory dwelling units and character of the area. Those are changes that have been made in statute. So there was some changes in state law that took effect last October. So those three just bring your zoning in line with those changes to state law. This is one of the benefits of being able to have the Select Board make zoning changes that as state law changes you can respond more quickly and make those adjustments and stay in line with those most recently changed bits of statute. And then the pieces in purple, and one that I missed putting the purple highlight over the top up, these all are related to the changes that are made for the new town center and the neighborhood development area. The state requested that you add some language about the official map to the regulations to make a reference. In order to comply with the neighborhood development area requirements, there was some discussion of whether to make some adjustments to the dimensional standards of the zoning or to simply not allow for single-family homes. There aren't any in the district and we don't really envision that anyone is going to want to build any there. So the easiest thing to do is to remove the single-family homes from the district as a permitted use or actually they were a conditional use now. And the related accessory uses that go with single-family homes. So accessory dwelling, BNB, etc. So taking those out. And then just some some clarifying of language. So as the planning commission has been meeting and talking and looking at these and making the bigger changes to the zoning district, there's just been some need to do some clarification and making lots of this is around vehicular things. So parking, just cleaning up and clarifying the language that's already there. Access and circulation and the design and layout of necessary improvements. Those relate to just making it more clear the definitions and how those will be applied with regards to driveways and roads. You see that in the definitions too. Cleaning up those definitions of driveway and road and cross-referencing back to the sections that regulate them. And then there's a request from the Development Review Board to add some new language to the waiver and variance section. So adding a new criteria for waivers for that the proposed development cannot be reasonably located elsewhere on the lot. And then after the planning commission hearing, there was also a request to make one of the criteria that's already in the regulations that's relevant and required for variances but isn't right now for waivers also applicable to waivers. So that's the that would be something that you guys would have to approve as an addition and an amendment to what is in front of you to also add that piece. And then the definitions, these are most are just again clarification that we had in the discussion. So there wasn't a definition of reconstruction in the regulations. The term was used. We've added that discussion around whether resurfacing of a parking lot was maintenance or was that going to trigger need for changes to conform to the new rules and things like that. So that's all about cleaning up that language. And that is the end of the updates to the zoning regulations. Let me un-share my screen. That's all I have on the presentation side. Any comments on it? None from me. Anyone else? Let me see here. I guess here in motion. To close this hearing, this section part of the hearing. Yep. I make the motion to close this hearing. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Motion approved and hearing number two. Excuse me, Brad. Could we can now the board just take action on what was presented and accept the proposed amendments and the two items, the two new items that were presented for the board's consideration tonight. This is different than what I'm used to. Okay. Motion to approve those changes as presented by Brandy and also reiterated by Tom Badowski just now. Here, second. Yep. I'll second. Any further discussion on this? Yep. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. Motion carries. Let's see here. And now hearing number two, the official map from the town of Berlin. Anything on that, Tom? Brandy, you're going to share your screen. Yes, but do they need to do a motion to open the hearing? Oh yeah, they're right. Yep. Brad, do you need a motion to open the hearing? Sorry. Here, here a motion to open the hearing number two for the official map of the town of Berlin. So moved. Here, second. Second. Okay. All in favor? Motion carries and the official map for the town of Berlin. Brandy. So the good news is that this is even a shorter presentation. I'll pull this back up. So just as a point of clarity and for the record, Berlin's adopting an official map is a requirement to seek a new town center designation. So the official map is something that's laid out in statute that sets up for the authority for towns to adopt. This is the map that is proposed. It primarily focuses on the new town center area, but it also shows existing public facilities and infrastructure and utilities throughout the entire town. It is a townwide document. If we zoom in here to the town center area, you can see it's showing the existing things, but also here you're starting to see planned sidewalks, streets, things of that nature that are showing up in the town center area that are following the work that we've been doing laying out and Paul is on the meeting here tonight. The design work that's been done to suggest how to put a new road alignment in front of the mall to create that street network necessary for the new town center. There is a small change to this map versus the one that you looked at before and I think you might have, if you have the vision that the planning commission looked at, and that is to take this area in here, and I think I haven't put this up to full screen so that you can see here where I'm. So this block in here because of the work we've now gotten done that have delineated the wetland areas in the Burlington center area we know that we can't go as far east as deep into the property as we once thought was possible so this has gotten shortened up and the block has been reduced basically in half here so that there's a small change to this core area right here so that being said let me get back here that is the official map ready for you to have discussion on. You're hearing any discussion? What does this what does this mean if we adopt this as the official map what are the drawbacks to it? So adopting an official map it gives the municipality a tool that it can choose to use in the future so the areas that are shown say where there might be proposed to be a street or a sidewalk or a public park should the owner of that property want to develop it the official map gives the town the ability to purchase that land instead it doesn't give you the ability to take it you know through imminent domain or something of that nature but to purchase it it's kind of equivalent to the idea of a right of first refusal in a way most municipalities who have them in Vermont don't use them to that extent so what typically happens is that a development project comes forward it's on a property where there is a feature that's on the official map say a sidewalk you know is shown what really is in the town's interest is that the sidewalks sort of begin and end at the edges of the property roughly where they're shown on the map so that over time a connected you know sidewalk network will emerge but the town is usually a little more open to discussion around where within that property the sidewalk goes as long as it begins and ends where you need it on the edges of the property so that it can connect to adjoining properties and so typically and that's the case with streets and other utility corridors and pathways and things like that as well so typically you know the developer or property owner applicant and the town would negotiate and come up with a mutually satisfactory outcome that both achieved the development opportunity and preserved when created the the connections and corridors that were anticipated by the official map it just gives you a little bit more legal standing and and and some some an additional tool to use in that negotiation this is required it is a requirement to have the the designation um yep how do you change the map if down the road brandy just like you're doing tonight you can at any point amend the map you would have a hearing process and amend the map okay so it's not it's not like it's set in stone it's it's still a flexible lock it's it's flexible all of these elements that you're looking at tonight that you're doing hearings on you have the ability to to amend in the future and i mean it actually is anticipated that you likely will um that over time you know you're going to get more information you know maybe like with your utilities as the water and sewer infrastructure building to add more information to the map uh there or as you do some scoping studies and you actually come in with a final alignment for a road or a path or a sidewalk you may want to adjust the map going forward anything else on this any questions your motion i make the motion to approve the official map of the town of berlin as presented by brandy saksden tonight excuse me flow we need to close this hearing first we need to close this here first true i make a motion to close this hearing and uh any further discussion all those in favor i give uh motion carries and now flow i make the motion to approve the official map of the town of berlin as a as presented to us tonight by brandy saksden and thank you brandy here's second i'll second any further discussion all those in favor hi hi motion carries uh opening the public hearing for the capital improvement program a motion on that make a motion to open the hearing hearing number three for capital improvement program discussion here a second i'll second that all in favor hi hi motion carries uh let's see here okay brandy capital improvement program okay final piece of the presentation so once again having a capital improvement program is a requirement uh for new town section designation um it is something that is in statute um in 4430 and 4443 um telling you both what um is to be in a capital um budget in a plan and then how to go about adopting it so there are eight capital improvement projects in this um what i refer to as a CIP that are planned for the berlin town center um focus on essentially the berlin town center area so those eight projects municipal building what we're calling the center street project which is the realignment of the berlin mall road the town center path a town green storm water and wetland mitigation knowing that you're going to be looking at the street and the pathway those are aspects that would definitely have storm water and wetland impacts and issues to be resolved so there's a line a line on for that there's projects for municipal sewer and water obviously since those are infrastructure projects you're already engaged in and then i don't think this was in the draft that you saw previously um when we came in and presented the drafts um because v-trans and looking at the drafts requested in addition um which would be uh some some looking at the route 62 intersections at fisher road and at pain turnpike so we've added an eighth project there to address that request so um the the capital improvement program is set up so that it has your current fiscal year and then five fiscal years out so looking between f y 21 and f y 26 um it's a fairly um discreet set of things that um would be envisioned in that six-year period it's more like five and a half at this point um but the municipal facility needs assessment which um you guys supported the grant application for the town didn't get that grant but it's something you would be continuing to look for funding to move forward with and then i think um tom has actually been exploring some potential funding sources for these scoping studies for the street improvements and the multi-use path so those would be sort of the next steps for both of those projects and then you've the water and sewer projects that you've been working on would be completed at and then you have debt service that goes forward that shows up in the capital improvement plan so really having the step is is demonstrating that you have an ongoing commitment to capital planning and budgeting um the one important thing to remember is that it's not a budgetary commitment it's a planning tool so putting something into the doesn't mean that you have obligated the money um it's you still have to go through your budgeting process and and get your get those um those line items into the actual budget um but you should sort of incorporate this capital improvement um planning into your regular annual budgeting process and as those various need assessment and scoping studies are done there'll be more detailed project costs and information that you can incorporate into the step in future years you could also expand it right now it's really focused on the burlington center but you could expand it in future years to include all capital spending for the town so for instance road projects townwide could get put into this um this document as well so um there are I've got the first couple of pages here um so the first two pages of the SIP um layout the overview and putting together the presentation this afternoon I found a math error so it's always good to to do one more check at the math and realize that universe don't add up um so the things that are circled there was a um there was a math error in project seven the water systems improvements that sort of flowed through literally uh the rest of the spreadsheet so the numbers that are different than the numbers um that you're looking at uh are circled here um but there wasn't really a it was just a uh a spreadsheet error here so this lays out the expenditures so those eight projects the the years so you've got um and I'm going to take this out of this view and go back to you so I can point at things um you've got the first column is is in here to help indicate that the town has already put a significant investment into the burlington center so in terms of this being a useful component of the um application this really demonstrates that you have put a fair amount of money already in to the infrastructure in the burlington center so this is your current year and then the five years out and then um because so much of what needs to be in here is still unknown um you don't yet know what the project costs and timelines are going to be for a lot of those those elements um this column was added in where we look out beyond that five-year window and just ballparked in some rough ideas so you might have some sense and there really isn't a good idea yet of what the funding sources might be for some of that um and who would actually implement all those some of that work might be done in conjunction with private development some of it might be um town work um so that would all still remain to be to be known and then in terms of funding um that's the second page it goes over I mean right now you've got your general fund you've got the potential to to seek grant funding for projects uh you have um debt you're taking on bonding and then the enterprise funds those are the actual revenues from your water and sewer departments um there may be other funding sources in future years that you would pull into this with getting your designations you might have access to other funding opportunities so whether that's a special assessment district or it's a TIF district or you decide to move forward with an options tax to to uh use towards some of these projects those are all future decisions to be made that might get incorporated into the SIP in future years and these circled numbers are still the problem with the water project um that I found today and so adjustments to those those sets of numbers and then just so you can see the water project and this is each project obviously has its own page like this where you're looking and breaking down in greater detail what's going on with that project um this the there was a a misad over here in this column and then the the 190 from up here and then get put down here and so costs and revenues were not balancing which is not good in budgeting um so we fixed that and it's going through there now so that's the end of that portion of the presentation if you have questions thank you for the presentation and for finding those discrepancies and making amends appreciated any other comments on this hearing none a motion to close the hearing I make a motion to close this hearing number three here a second any discussion all those in favor I motion carries and now uh motion to approve I make a motion to approve the capital improvement program as presented by brandy this evening for the eight capital improvement projects plans for the burlin town center here a second any further discussion hearing none those in favor hi hi motion carries um we will now right there's three other items that you folks need to take up here before you move to your regular meeting they are brandy you have a copy of those handy real quick yeah I can um pull up so the first is the community investment agreement is that where I don't have the list in front of me I don't know what order you put them in Tom I think that was last oh that was last I think the resolutions of support were the first of okay so so to submit the two applications we actually need resolutions uh from the select board authorizing the submission of those um so we grab those here I forgot to open them up ahead of time my apologies and they were sent into in advance but yes the select board members yep so those are just um here's the one for the NDA there's one for each application and they do need to be done uh one for for each let me share my screen again they're very similar to one another um but basically uh you are authorizing the submission of the application um with a bunch of so this is the the neighborhood development area one to support the application that needs to be changed to neighborhood development area that I had changed that one um and then the one for new town center you can now see how many files I've created in the production of the applications this one here so this is the very similar one for the new town center um basically authorizing the submission of the application and and supporting it okay uh motion to approve the resolution authorizing the application for neighborhood development area designation so moved here a second second any further discussion those in favor all right well did you approve yes motion carries uh let's see here now motion for the resolution authorizing the application for a new town center designation for the town for the burlin town center also so moved here a second second any further discussion those in favor hi motion carries uh we are now done with the no we have one more one more which is the community investments agreement this um and let me share my screen back we talked about this in its draft form and nothing has changed with it um we are in the process of getting the property owners um to to also sign on this and um I can probably announce that you're not going to be the first signatories we actually um got um the auto dealership uh so Dave uh i'm gonna bring him bringing him um has signed off and sent me his this afternoon so you're you would be second in line to sign on to the community investment agreement it's this is a requirement for the neighborhood um or for the new town center sorry um you're basically affirming your commitment and willingness to participate in the activities and programs that will support and enhance the economic and social health and viability of the area proposed for new town center designation and then um agreeing to commit and part to participate in planning for and developing the burlin town center into a central business district for the community composed of compact pedestrian friendly multi-story and mixed use development that is characteristic of a traditional downtown supported by plan or existing infrastructure including curb street with sidewalk and on-street parking storm water treatment sanitary sewers and public water supply that's the definition of a new town center that's in statute so that's the resolution you hear a motion of the community investment agreement for the burlin town center i make a motion to approve for the community reinvestment agreements for the burlin town center second second any further discussion all those in favor hi well hi you're on i yep hi oh okay motion carries um i don't find any more big i don't find that that ends this portion of the agenda so i want to thank the select board for for their time and effort in this it's it's been a you know a process that um and we're just soon to submit our our applications on both of these whole applications of both of these initiatives so it's very exciting times for the town of berlin so thanks thanks to select board okay um with the hearings closed um we will now start the regular public uh the meeting of uh janitor 18th of the burlin select board uh additions or changes the agenda tom uh brad i sent out to the select board today a change and i put it in right after um uh 750 uh discussion on the town clerk budget i think that's everybody has that i could i could share my screen if they need to see okay i i think we should also add an item about uh how we made the vote for the change to australian ballot um i think we may need to take action on the discussion piece uh as far as holding the public hearing because as far as i recall we opted not to have a public hearing so we're going to have to have a discussion on that as well okay okay uh let's see here can we go any further um see here um with us tonight is uh floe smith john quinn justin laurence angelina capron and myself um with us also is tom badowski acting administrator and diane isabel our treasurer uh any public comments hearing none treasurer's report diane uh no i don't have anything here i guess the rest is in the agenda okay thank you um seven uh burlin conservation commission i bleep fills on the call i saw his name here i am on the call and okay we would like to take a few minutes uh to present findings we had on the survey and i'll let wendy take over from here uh she's done some wonderful uh uh correlating of the uh collating of the uh survey so let's wendy are you yes i'm ready hi um we decided to use a survey as one tool that we want to use to gather information um we were interested in um learning from burlin residents um the level of support for a vast trail um to understand if there's any concerns and also to solicit possible solutions from people and then secondly we wanted to gather the same type of information from people who visit the forest from out of town um if um the select board does choose to um vote yes on the vast trails um we will need to update our management plan and part of that process would include addressing some of the concerns that may have come out of the survey and documenting um the solutions to those um concerns and i wanted to quickly share some of the results we have and see if there's any questions and i'm going to try to share my screen you have that capability was that you do have that capability okay great thank you okay so we chose to look at three different questions in more detail of the multiple choice questions um the first one was how often do you visit the burlin town forest and we divided it out um between people who lived in burlin and people who live out of town um and as you can see at the top is burlin this blue area indicates people who um visit the forest at least once a month so we have 11 percent of burlin residents visit almost every day 19 percent who responded to the survey um visit at least once a week and 23 percent visit at least once a once a month so that's a total of 53 percent of the respondents who visit at least once a month we also had another 32 percent who visited a few times a year and then 16 percent who visited rarely or never and if you look at the out of town respondents that we got we had um about 16 percent who visited once a month or more um 55 said they visited a few times a year and 29 of the respondents from out of town said they rarely or never visited the town forest so that gives a little indication of use who's using it how frequently are they using it um when we go on to the second question which was um would you like to see the existing trail for Brookfield road to the top of higher shell widened and groomed for snowmobiling if we i'm going to look at the out of town first this time um we had 75 respondents from out of town 95 of those said yes they would like to see um vast trails added onto the existing trails we had four no responses and all four of those no responses were from northfield um the location of this group we had some surrounding towns but we had people from as far as the way is like north of burlington middlebury one out of stator um so we had quite a range of where these responses were coming from if we look at burling burlin um for um 40 let's see what is that number 45 percent were no or leaning no um to add the best trails in and we had 41 percent who were yes or leaning yes and 14 percent who needed more information and just to drill down on this just a little bit for the ones that were leaning yes from burlin if we went on to the second question was how comfortable were they sharing trails um there were five responses who were leaning yes one person did not visit the forest one person was not comfortable sharing trails and we had three who were maybes and it depended on things like um enforcing speed limits having non snowmobillers have the right of way and signing in education and to drill down i'm going to drill down in this section also needing more information there were six people who needed more information um when we asked them about sharing trails um one was not comfortable due to speed and sound one was comfortable didn't give any comments and four were maybes um one of the four would be comfortable if there were separate trails for snowmobiles in non motorized use um there were some concerns about wildlife impact um there was in a butter who has some concerns and there was one person who felt like he didn't have enough information can we i'm sorry i just wanted to back up on that real quick can we go back to that last slide sure yeah okay um so i had sent a request and i know i i didn't i haven't heard time hearing you sorry i'd send a request to get some additional information and i apologize um if i didn't reply sounded like these surveys were confidential and i completely respect that i think obviously um what i was trying to gather for data um because i what i was trying to do and i don't know if you folks were doing the same thing but i wanted to merge a lot of the information that we had here um and gather because as we know people they don't always respond to a survey or they may respond to an email and i know that we had several uh a bunch of residents that were in support of it much more than the 59 that we pulled so i wanted to just kind of cross-reference and pull those people out and is there any way that we can do that um so that we can get the actual percentages because i know a tremendous amount that weren't involved in the survey were in support and there were probably some that had additional follow-up questions and details like that but i'd really like to merge both pieces of data and i um so they were not able to fill up the survey well they didn't necessarily do the survey because they already had maybe signed a petition um and and they weren't yeah maybe it wasn't accessible or me like i know that i for example did two i did one survey and i also did sign the petition so what i'm trying to do is narrow out some of that the the reciprocal information and so that we have a better gauge because the way i'm looking at it is we just need to pull all of this together and i didn't know if there was any way that we could do that while we're i mean the data is great and i appreciate you guys gathering it i just wanted to try to find a place where we could pull everything together that's all okay i'm referring to the petition of signatures is that a petition or just signatures on that well signatures we support the josh saying it's not really a petition most signatures on the paper the josh say your reference to josh josh's list then yeah where we had there was over 100 that said yes but we didn't get to ask the secondary questions or anything like that right and i want to make sure that if those numbers were accurate i'm looking at a hundred people that were leaning yes along with out of the 59 people that you pulled you know leaning yes and then some leaning no i wanted purge and just make sure the data was accurate um so i didn't know if if we reopen the survey could you have those people probably not because it's they they they may not have access to it so that's why i was just adding that data in there i just wanted to throw that out there and see the survey there's a way there's a way to there's a way to give everyone access to a survey and the other well and i think they did when they when they filled out that that document which is the same as this so i just wanted to merge our data we don't need them to do this survey what we need to do is make sure the people that did this survey it's valid and also the names of the handwritten one are valid and we can cross reference them and make sure we collect the data the proper way i would assume we don't need them to do a second survey why don't we just hold on to your list and hold on to our survey i mean we're not really looking at a vote here we're looking more at collecting information right well that's why i just wanted to make sure the data was accurate that was more my point you're looking for this is not a vote this is a soliciting of information to find out um you know what people have their concerns and possible solutions to those concerns so we're it we seem like we are focusing on data and statistics it's just it's just that's why i brought that up that's okay we're gonna just focus on concerns bring like let's talk about the concerns but the data is the data because we just want to make sure accurate okay well this was just an overview of a general field but really when you get into doing this what's really more important is what are the concerns can we deal with these concerns can we resolve them absolutely so um i mean we can hold on to your piece of paper and in this survey also we can do both so i'm going to go ahead and continue is that okay yes thank you sorry yeah you're welcome so the the next question would be would you be comfortable sharing these trails with snowmobillers um and when we i'm going to just quickly look at the out of town responders and in this case we have the same five who did not want the trails here these are the same four northfield residents um and this looks a little different from what i gave you because i went back and looked at the data instead of just when i gave you originally just answered this one question would you be comfortable sharing trails with snowmobillers this one is um looked at all three questions it had to do with self identifying the snowmobillers so of the 75 out of town resident out of town people who um answered the survey 81 percent self identified as a snowmobile user um and then of the remaining group 14 percent were comfortable sharing trails and the five percent were not if we look at um berlin residents we have 10 percent self identified as snowmobillers um and then for the non snowmobile users 43 percent out of the total um were not comfortable sharing trails and 28 percent out of the total were and 19 percent needed more information and then on the final thing of just looking at the statistics um this is for berlin only and we were trying to get a feel for um people who are actually using the forest how do they feel about um added snowmobiles into the forest and how comfortable are they sharing trails and this blue going across here would be people who um for the first question don't want a trail um the green would be the people who are in support of the trails and the um gray are people who need more information so if we took all of the berlin residents we found out that 45 percent of those that responded um did not want snowmobile trails um 41 percent did that's pretty close um then i took out everybody who said that they never visited the berlin forest and when we took out those people um the statistics changed a bit this gray part stays pretty consistent so i'm not going to discuss that part anymore but um now we get 48 percent saying no they don't want the trails and 37 percent saying yes they did and that's a 11 percent difference and if we go over to this final column these are people who never visit the town forest or rarely and rarely it's like less than once a year so maybe they've been there a couple times and if we look at this group um 53 percent did not want the trails while 33 percent did want the trails so there was a difference of 20 percent for this group respondents and then if we look down here at the bottom um the question is about would you be comfortable sharing these trails with snowmobiles if we looked at all berlin responders which we've done already there's a seven percent difference if we took out people who had never visited the forest um at that point 45 percent are not comfortable sharing trails and 33 percent are comfortable that's a difference of 12 percent and if we take out people who never or rarely use the forest um 48 percent are not comfortable sharing and 31 percent are comfortable sharing and again a difference of 17 percent with more people not being comfortable so those are um just sort of the basic overview statistics I think I supplied everybody with the comments the detailed comments about um both for supporters um people who live outside of berlin people who um live in berlin and it was broken down by um do you support or do you not support so you can see all the comments for the people who were strongly yes um leaning yes maybe leaning no or no and you can look at those comments some of the comments are quite detailed some of them um were just sort of standard comments I don't like snowmobiles I love snowmobiles um those types of comments but we got some pretty thoughtful responses in there also um and I think sort of the final thing is um you know of our respondents to our survey um there definitely seems to be some concerns about adding the vast trail that probably should um weren't for the discussion and there's also concerns about sharing trails that would warrant some further discussion and I guess I'll open it up to see if there's questions um about um any the things I just presented or questions about the comments that we shared with you so I'll start I guess um um just so I make sure I'm under the same understanding a total of 59 people took this survey right so when you talk about the percentages if you know if you're talking about 45 percent you're talking less than 30 people yes those are the yeah exactly those are the people responded um this was the tool we had um given that we had six weeks during a pandemic um so this is it definitely made it out there I saw it all over the place on social media and um front porch forum and I think everyone had their opportunity if they had interest one way or the other um you know and I saw some of the comments and and I think they were very thoughtful and I think you know things like speed limits and um you know certain restrictions can be put put in place to make sure that you know we address as many of the concerns as possible so uh I think it was well worth the time to do the survey Wendy I have a question on just general maintenance on the trail but do you folks maintain the trails in the winter do we do maintenance on the trails in the winter well I mean uh yeah do you do any kind of uh maintenance on the on the hiking trails that are there now no I do not believe so no they're not groomed is that the question yeah yeah they're not groomed but I've been over there a couple times this one Aaron yeah with this year's conditions at least they're packed they're very easy to walk on yeah I was all the way up to the top of the hill two days ago and it was packed it was very easy to walk okay uh when you say when you say the top of the hill you mean up by to the tower yes okay I was good as curious yeah no I went all the way up any other questions or the uh well um I'm just trying to think so the the the trails now are just packed down even by snow shores or people just hiking up and down yes yeah it gets quite a bit of use I saw five people you know not near the top but when I stand near the bottom I you know coming in and going out I think that bottom part gets a lot of use yeah okay anything else on this so it sounds like we're wrapping up I just want to remind everybody that this coming Wednesday at 6 p.m there'll be a public hearing specifically to discuss of this this matter that invitation has gone out and so we'll see probably most of everybody here on on Wednesday thank you very much thank you very much thank you thank you okay um the review of the police department cruiser fiscal year 21 I'm gonna share a screen here on the agenda tapping thing so I want to hang on so I think I saw I think I saw James beyond yeah came on and so I James I just put on the screen the the quote that you received um for the FY 21 replacement cruiser you want to talk about that yeah um so I contacted the coordinator for the state bids and this is the quote I was given based on previous models of our cruisers that we've had in our fleet we are I don't know if it's the time of the year or what but we are seeing a lot of kind of rather expensive repairs of the fleet that we currently have so I think it's absolutely necessary we get this thing up and running as soon as possible what have been your what's been your issues with the old the other cruisers um um uh my own crew it looks like there's an issue with the fuel tank wait out to that in us right water cooler uh that we're still waiting on so we're down to three cruises right now and there's already been a couple of occasions when it's been a we put it signed in common over there and said three buddies figure out who are where about what car yeah chief do you guys have uh maintenance maintenance logs for each one of the the cruisers as far as what repairs have been done by the um by the ford dealership or by whomever I don't know that we keep them in an organized fashion obviously we keep all the documents um for any repairs or bills that we have I haven't so far collected them in an organized fashion but that's not that idea okay yeah well the reason I mentioned it is you know um historically and in other places that have worked um you know they're sometimes it feels like a lot sometimes it isn't sometimes they're spread out enough so like oh no it's fine and then you know we've spent nine thousand dollars in the year on maintenance but if we had it by vehicle we had no you know not only for right now but down the road you know what were what our average is that we spend on a cruiser on maintenance per year per vehicle um and you know it would just I think it would help us you know we went through the budget conversation last week and and put off one of the cruisers um but if we're seeing a lot of budget you know pressures from maintenance it would be nice to know which which cruisers were the worst off and sometimes it's not always the oldest one right so I would just recommend maybe in the in the future starting a log of each one of the vehicles so we can say we did 3,800 of maintenance this year on the 2016 and you know 53 dollars on the 2019 and that way we have a better log of right John John there there's some there's some very uh eat friendly fleet maintenance spreadsheet programs out there that no we should be doing it we should we should just be doing that and I'm sure everybody's aware that I guess I was never really tracking because I've never had this issue with my own personal vehicles but you had a headlight that was a little bit out of alignment because they hit a deer and now to get it fixed and in alignment you have to get in there and adjust the whole assembly and we're talking like 400 dollars outrageous to me just to knock a headlight back into alignment maybe if you hit another deer it'll knock it back into alignment so what's the pleasure of the board on this new budgeted 21 cruiser well it's budgeted right yes correct and our intention our intention is to sell the other two cruisers through bid that right surplus I'm working with James on that right now I'm having him give me the descriptions because I don't know I mean I look at these vehicles I don't know what they are so I just want to know if the interiors are and some of the information so we put it up for bid I'll have something to write about I also did look up the blue book value on these betrayed him and the the low blue book was like six or seven thousand dollars which still seems kind of high because I know that these vehicles have been real pretty hard however in doing this with the surplus I'm thinking it would be good to set a low bid so if we can say the minimum bid has to be 2500 or 3000 whatever you know the board is comfortable with then I can get that information together pretty quickly once James helps me with the details as far as the interiors of the vehicles sure I was just trying to net in my head what what it was going to cost us because they were both in the same fiscal year right the the salary yes John we're yes John we're going to sell these in 21 yes oh I'm sorry well yeah we'll make a moment go ahead I make a motion to approve the purchase of the police cruiser for the amount listed of and approximately 32 000 I don't have the number in front of me right now but second that any further discussion I just had a quick follow-up question in the past we've been approached with the the price of the cruisers 32 000 and then there's eight or ten thousand dollars of additional equipment we need to add to it is that the situation we're looking at here chief I think we can salvage most of the equipment it would take to outfit a brand new cruiser from one of the ones that's coming off a fleet we can certainly mitigate any expenses about fitting a new cruiser by just kind of okay excellent yeah it'll be probably a couple grand to at least put the decals on which is not not it not ten thousand no like we had seen in the past so thank you Diane what do you think you're going to be able to get the two cruisers up to bid I'm hoping within another week or so like I say I'm not trying to put pressure on James but I really need the descriptions so that I can put them on the website and advertisement the papers but I also would like to have a minimum bid and I you know I'm happy with like three thousand dollars is a minimum bid but I don't know if the rest of the board is or not and what's the low what's the low bull book one of them was six thousand and the other was seven thousand one of them has more miles than the other that's all and that was a trade but that was a trade in value and obviously that's not outright sale yeah well I mean anybody who's bidding on them to buy them is going to be looking at putting money into them before they resell them anyway well because they will be as is for certain yeah they're gonna ship them right to the auction I'd be fine typically what do they sell for what have we sold them for the last one Justin sold for forty seven hundred dollars last year and it was a vehicle about the same age as what the ones we have now but then I've had others in the past where they sold for twenty five hundred so so if we put a minimum of three thousand dollars or thirty five hundred on each of them does that seem reasonable it seems reasonable to me and if nobody bids that amount well okay well come back to you exactly I'd be good with that I have a I have a question and I'm sure there's good reason for it but have we asked if we could just trade one of them in towards the new vehicle um you I can answer that um John I did work for car dealership um you know many years ago and um they don't normally take these are fleet vehicles and they don't take trades on fleet vehicles or we never did okay because in a fleet vehicle the dealership does not make any money it's what they call a courtesy deal and so they make just like they might make a couple hundred dollars just to inspect the vehicle but I had never seen the time and I worked for 15 years that we took a trade in on a fleet vehicle it's a wholesaler that's going to buy one of these vehicles yeah they're going to buy it they're not going to retail it they're going to ship it right to an auction John um so the more people you put in the transaction the more people that are typically going to need to make money um that's how traditionally works but I wish we could trade so minimum 3,500 is that what I heard yep uh yeah 3,500 anybody have any different ideas on that I concur with 3,500 so that's John you make that part of your motion you want me to make a new motion sorry my internet I guess just add that 3,500 to your motion a minimum bid minimum bid yep second any further discussion all those in favor motion carries right there's uh uh chief has another item here I'm going to pull it up okay um the next one is the police department staff on workers comp so this is a memo that James sent out to everybody last week James you want to talk about it again certainly um the latest entry with sergeant Monte kind of brought up this topic of our ability to hold over vacation hours for somebody who's not able to use them I think it's extremely important that rather than getting money people actually take the time that's allowed to them just to kind of mentally reset uh unfortunately to I don't think anybody here would have any issues with sergeant Monte holding over his hours we have to kind of include officer piquel in this he's also out on workers comp so I'd like to propose that we have allowed the ability to hold over hours to this x amount 220 hours I believe is what I include in the memo to allow officers once they kind of come off workers comp that they can then utilize their vacation time so I'm sorry was somebody speaking because it was very muffled yeah um so James they wanted you got two officers out on workman's comp now correct yes okay and you want to take in or they want to be able to hold over their vacation hours yes do we have to worry about our union contract with we may have to well this is kind of an exception for somebody who's on workers comp there may be some wordage added into the union contracts but they're the ones who propose this idea to begin with and I would support it so I'm just curious how are you going to how are you going to cut them loose for the 220 hours of vacation time well staffing I I agree with you that they should take the time you know the because they need any job like that I think you you need a few I a few some time off just take and decompress yes so any idea how you're going to take and spread this out so that be be doable and not take and leave you really short as it is now I we have to constantly look at the schedule when people ask for vacation time or time off to make sure that it fits in with the schedule and doesn't accrue unnecessary overtime yeah so something that we're always mindful of it's just kind of the cost of doing this we we adopted a new policy uh I think Tom Diane you guys were impacted this year not being able to take the time off what were what was the hours what did we set for a town for you guys for 220 220 220 yes so we're looking at 250 right James with you is that what you said just to reiterate but with what Tom had told me what the town was 220 he's asking for 220 Justin okay I just I wanted clarification thank you I'm sorry I mean to me to me I mean people this has been an exceptional year is there any way James that I know you're in support of this I want to support you as our chief do you feel like there's there's any way we can do this is a one-year deal and not make it not reword our contract not worry about that and still take care of all that I do yeah moving forward I think we can address people who are out on workers come for a long term um try to address him and I'm in another manner perhaps in the contract but for this year I would like to see Sergeant Monteith and Officer Raquel covered good James when does the cut when are we going to negotiations with the contract uh I there seems to be something about that I don't know Sergeant Bisseck he's asking me when the town's going to approach him about negotiations if this contract expires into June we should be starting it now Brad we should have probably started it by now I think our thought was was we'd have a town manager by now or a town administrator yeah exactly and I hate to take in and start it and then take it through the guide to the audience right off the bat but you may recall the slick board there was a an attorney in Rob Helper's office that you folks are going to use as far as this negotiation as mine I'm blanking on his name now John I think you said you use them on Lordfield Cameron Cameron Cameron Scott Cameron so I know uh back several months ago Scott and the uh the the budget manager for the union uh exchanged emails saying that they were going to start the process so I just need to I guess give Scott a call and and um let him know that we're ready to begin I think John you said you wanted to serve on on that as well and I think James says that he wanted to be on that as well um so as far as the 220 hours ago so right now they're allowed to accumulate 120 is it by calendar year or fiscal year it goes by fiscal year I'm thinking of I think it's of fiscal yes I believe it's fiscal yeah because I had this discussion with Sergeant Bissette so Sergeant Monteith is out for six weeks is that right um eight weeks before he can put any weight on his leg which has been four weeks so we're looking at at least another two or three months before he's back to work yeah it just it just seems like we made it more than six months of the way through the year and he didn't use any so now we have to carry it over on our books you know he's only going to be out a total of two months but you know not he could be out longer I do recognize that in the winter it just seems like I I didn't like it the first time we made these exceptions I think that's the reason we have limits um you know and and in the other situation I'm definitely not in favor of um but you know I think you know in Sergeant Monteith's spot I mean so every time someone has a a workman's comp claim we're going to have to do this potentially I guess that's my that's what I'm trying to away from a policy perspective is you know okay if you're out eight weeks you get to roll over your entire vacation into the next year almost well couldn't that be addressed though when you do your union contract going forward yeah I think it is and that's how we got to 120 hours right that's correct that's correct so we're making an exception to the union contract at this point so we're making an exception to the union contract at this point Brad see yeah I just want to I think if they've earned those hours then they should be able to use them especially in a case where they're injured or sick I just I don't think it should be a big deal if they use their earned vacation time for sick time so John Angelina based on everything you just said I understand what you're saying John is that we negotiated a union contract we went to what we thought was reasonable and what they thought was reasonable came to an agreement they agreed to 120 hours and I get it situations happen things that you don't protect predict but when you negotiate a contract you're kind of stuck in it you you're you're you're thinking that we might be costing the town fine money for the labor which I agree have we put a calculation on how much that's going to cost the taxpayers at all in any way shape or form no I haven't tallied what it was I guess my point is is if if sergeant comes back in April he still has another three months to use 120 hours another three weeks time right I mean I guess that's where I'm going is the entire year's not a wash and if I'm thinking about this wrong someone please correct me I'm not saying we should strip his hours or do anything like that I'm just trying to think like if he's out for eight weeks you know do we really need to carry over almost the entire thing into the next year is that realistic I mean is that I mean because you know in that example if he comes back and from April to the end of June he could still take those three weeks off and those are hurt his to be his to use that's his earned time that's right that's correct so so so is the is this decision best they put off for a couple months and see where where we stand with with with with the officer no I think that it depends on the situation I don't know his situation and it's hard to know people's situations and I think that should be up to him oh Angelina what we're saying is if he comes back in this fiscal year with enough time to use his vacation during this fiscal year that he that he uses it we're not taking anything away from him we would just let him use it at at the end of the fiscal year okay well Angelina go ahead and elaborate on what you're feel free to elaborate on that if you want so that we understand where you're coming from well maybe I'm just confused about what's being talked about maybe I'm confused but I just think that that's his earned time as a police officer he's entitled to that time and how he chooses to use it and when he chooses to use it is up to him I don't think I don't think there should be a limit on his situation and not knowing that situation I definitely don't want to vote on a the idea that he's only allowed to use a certain amount of time in a fiscal year but that's what's in his contract that they they are given a certain amount of time every fiscal year we're we're just saying that okay if he can use it in this fiscal year use it this fiscal year yeah okay well then then that's what that is but so I'm just I'm not trying to you know I'm not I'm trying to be the thorn in anybody's side I just I just think you know know Mark Mark Monteith's time is his time and I don't know the other officer but Mark puts a lot of time into this town and I just think that's up to him is there a caveat within the contract to pay officers for their time in lieu of taking the time to offset some of the hours is that allowable yes under the contract language yes so the town will buy out officers for their time but the argument is that due to an injury that the officer sustained on duty he's not able to he or she is not able to take that vacation time understood thank you it sounds to me like before the board honestly before the board makes a decision on this we should probably have it reviewed just to make sure it is a contract I maybe we already addressed it in this conversation but I'm not comfortable taking a vote or making a decision on a contract that we've already negotiated I feel as though we need to send this to our either either Rob or somebody for review prior to taking action that's just where I stand well doing that would probably be a pretty good idea Tom I think you were on the right track um there's no decision that has to be made right now there's no need to be right we're not at the end of a fiscal year we're not even close no one's in a position to use or lose right now um you know this is something that we can think about look at the contract I don't I don't know that we need a lawyer to interpret it if you know looking at the contract language um but I think you know if if we send it around and look at it it's pretty clear and then it's just a policy decision by the board on whether or not we want to make an exception to the contract I mean you know this is the this is the thing about union contracts you know if it was in the other direction would the union been for us and Barks our employee like him very much and he does a great job um so it's really not about him it's about the overall policy around the union contract absolutely and I think at this point we just need to take it under advisement thank you James thank you yeah I can see I can see that but my I have a question about this contract can he just cash in on his uh can he is he allowed to just cash in on his vacation time there I've had jobs where that's been acceptable yes or um James is answering that because I'm not aware of that in the contract I but I'd have to look it up I was looking up more the 120 hour thing yeah I remember if I addressed that time in that memo I sent you I know there was some wordage in the contract about unused vacation time being bought out yes and I think the message that we want to send to the officers like we support their vacation and and we'll do everything in our power to to make happen take it in the in the time frame that's required we're not we're not taking anything away from anybody that's not the message we're sending here there's no more discussion on this I think we can take and bring this up at another meeting anybody object okay what we'll do then James is we'll schedule this in oh what probably another month Tom that's in March end of March you know yeah we'll have we should have some other troops here and I think but yeah I think that'll be good I'll put on it we'll both James and I'll put on our particular files for in the March okay anything else on this hearing none we'll move on to Fisher Road Colbert so I sent a draft application to the state infrastructure bank and there assigned a banker on this project I was hoping she'd get me a memo letter today for the select court's consideration they thought everything was in order and the only thing really that needs to be to be done is to file an official application you may recall that we are required to seek a town-wide approval of spending monies on on this project because it's over five years so I don't know if it makes sense that's the question I have to the the state infrastructure bank that if we submit an application now and which is then becomes a placeholder but that becomes contingent on the town meeting vote by the by the by the town itself I think they'd be reasonable to that how this process works once once the application gets approved by the the the bankers at the state infrastructure bank they take it to the state infrastructure bank board to get final approval and again I try I don't know the answer if we're putting the card the front of the horse here or not but if not I'd like I'd like the board approval and this can wait till next meeting to submit that application as soon as possible and get in from front of the the their board for approval pending the outcome of town vote yeah so that's all I have on that Brad is hoping to have something more definitive for you tonight but he didn't come in today okay um on that so that's for a 30 year note up to a 30 year year note yes and there's nothing this is not a traditional bond so it uh traditional bond you can't pay it off early this loan you could pay off at any time yeah what's the so basically what we have to do is uh is get the get the approval for the monies and borrow yes you know I got you and do you know how long it's gonna take the bank to um approve once we if the vote goes through she thought that once we get an application to them it would take them three weeks again so I'm I'm I'm I'm hoping that they could approve it in advance of the town vote and make it just contingent on yeah the approval you want a motion on this I don't think not yet or you want to get it I'll bring it back next meeting let me get something definitive from okay from them like again I expected it today okay uh if there's nothing else on this uh the certificate for highway miles so I sent you guys in advance I'll share the screen real real quick um uh yes I think I will so every year the um the uh town has to certify its highway miles I I sent it to you and uh the highway miles is the same as it's been for last four or five years so there's no change so I would just ask a recommendation that the board approve the certificate of highway miles and oh we'll sign it and get it set in the in the v-trans did you add in uh black road going from uh class four to class three when did that occur Brad we never took a vote on that which is an item we needed to discuss that's why I want to class uh four to class three road policy put in place so that we can make those determination so technically speaking black uh black road is is the section coming off cross town is still class four and we're maintaining it which I definitely think we should have a policy in place to maybe change around our roads if we're going to do things like that well I'm just trying to think um one of the arguments on that was uh the uh of course you don't get any monies for class four but you do for class three it's not much but it's something well it was something in according to uh the vsa laws if you can upgrade or downgrade a class four to a class three or a class three to a class four without having to make any additional changes to the road because they're grandfathered so I even we're maintaining that road um I'm glad it came up that's that's been a thing that was on even when Dana was here that was an issue for me I feel we need a policy in place to address that because there's nothing preventing us from taking a vote as a board in turning black road into a class three road based on the vsa standards and the way the road stands today the only detriment to our town is that while we're maintaining it as if it was a class three road we're losing state funding by not having it as a class three road and leaving it as a class four road and all it would take is a vote from the board so if I remember correctly um there was an issue Tim was having um with maintaining the road temporarily uh with the doubts putting things in the way and he was having trouble maintaining that road because of a culvert and other things so I think that issue needs to be addressed as well um before we change the class of the road because I don't I don't think it's fair to our our road crews to be frustrated in not being able to plow that road that section of the road if we change it to a class three well according to Tim Davis I don't know Angelina if you're aware that I'm liaison to the road crew um and I've spoken extensively with Tim Davis uh Tim Tim that retired his son it's not junior but we'll call it Tim Davis jr for the sake of that and there has not been any maintenance issues um and in fact it's it's been there's there's been no issues um since I don't know if you know but the doubts have relocated um and with the new neighbors they're extremely happy with the maintenance that the town of Barrow Inn is doing on that road well great that's wonderful to hear I'm so happy to hear that the only trouble with the that Tim senior was having was it was a tree in the way and we took that one out so right so the reality is class three class four well that's three class four it doesn't really matter we're still maintaining the road as if it was a class three road so my my opinion is if we can upgrade and downgrade why wouldn't we why wouldn't we take that road and actually get the state funding so that doesn't cost taxpayers what it is that's my take on it but I also feel as though we need a policy as the for a town as these roads may get developed uh to upgrade or downgrade them as necessary I absolutely agree I think that's a great idea Justin take in um if it's just a matter of vote for the from from the board um we'll take and warn it for next meeting and we'll take and see about upgrading that to a class three what is that what is this list at the end of February 10th February 10th I think these two items have to be mutually exclusive yeah right but wouldn't we want to make any upgrade determinations prior to putting that list in as as minor as it may sound I don't know being what's involved in if there is what you folks have for policies I just I can't speak intelligently to it we while I'm talking I'm talking not necessarily on a policy level but if we're going to set a precedence to build policy off from Tom um if we were going to say okay well we want to upgrade this road to a class three road and here's why and let's take action on it in this meeting so then that adds whatever revenue for the town by adding half a mile quarter mile eighth a mile doesn't it's irrelevant there um but we can take action on that and then can what is it how does it impact or alter what we're with the state application or the state funding there I think I think it ends up being like 50 or 60 bucks the only thing would have to be done is add the I can't even remember how many feet that was but you just add it to the class three section of the form and then submit it right so we'd want to make that determination prior to submitting right the submission of this this year's roads well if you want it if you want it to take and go for for this year um I mean why wouldn't we if we're already maintaining it well what we the I think the agreement we struck was we would plow it in the winter but we weren't going to do work on it in the summer which according to the vsa standard is acceptable for the class we went through that it didn't hear you Justin which according to the standards for the class three roads and the maintenance requirements associated with it that was perfectly acceptable so I mean I know it's minuscule but why wouldn't we just accept the money from the state that we're entitled to due to maintaining this road when if that's what we're doing yeah we're here in motion to that we need to move to make Black Road class three road I would I would believe so but I think we should probably we should probably warn it because this isn't really coming under this uh item right that's why I'm asking if we just if we hold off and we make that at our next meeting like you had mentioned Brad which I agree with and then we how does that impact with the state we can just add it on correct that was more just add it on I think we did um let's put that on the next agenda then okay yeah I think I'd like to have further discussion to you because um I believe I own half of house road and that that would be interesting to see if that would become a class three road as well well but if you own it personally then then no it has to be a town right of way there is actually it needs to be a town road um Angelina are you on uh I mean I don't want to get into the weeds over this because this sounds like absolutely something we can discuss at the next meeting but is is your road a private road or a public road it's a dead end that that I get it but is it a private road or a public road I'm not sure we can look into it though seems reasonable okay so we'll table that to mix the certificate of highway miles to next meeting see here the amend resolution for municipal planning grant Tom so I sent you in advance the the grant we have to do the new town center we um Dana was named as the the main uh CEO for lack of a better term on that grant application and we have not been able to get any distribution from the state for funds that the town has expended uh because our the main person who was in charge of doing that is no longer with the town so I sent you out uh an amendment to name me as the person uh responsible for that grant so we can get our monies back from the state that we have spent from the general fund we're here in motion on that I moved well you're you're looking for movement we couldn't hear you you're on mute she's a mute I'll move I'll second there we go John John to approve and amend the resolution for municipal planning grant so Tom Badowski can move forward with that thank you okay so we have a we have a couple motions here in a second um we'll go with uh we'll go with uh was it John John John was first okay so all those in favor hi hi motion carries and okay Tom restitution for legal tapping so I sent you in advance uh Rob Halpertz uh I'm gonna pull it up here I think I will hold on a second so I have up on the board Rob Halpertz as and I have spoken to um the parties involved in the illegal tapping of the of the town forest um you could see at the bottom of the page I I've highlighted in yellow um a compromise that Rob seems comfortable with I'm comfortable with and the appellant is comfortable with in effect totaling $5,931.25 as part of restitution for the legal tapping uh and Tom Tom just uh be clear and they're gonna remove all their taps immediately or already have I believe they already have John motion on this for acceptance yeah I mean I don't know if this is a fair offer or not so I'll just have to go with the the recommendation from Tom um so I'd I'd move acceptance of the negotiation and deal made between our lawyer and Howard Anderson um on the illegal tree tapping the amount of $5,931.25 I second that motion what was the amount again John 59.3125 gotcha I said 15,000 just wondering where you got the number okay have a second second any further discussion yeah just just just quick oh that $5,900 will go into the conservation fund bucket right you tell us you can tell me where you want to go is that where you want to go so have we waited I don't know I missed it John did we weigh in with the conservation on this do we weigh in with this the board's still on there I see Tom's still on here folks from the board are still on here do we weigh in with these guys at all and see what they felt about this no no they what they said is that at their last meeting is that the town should take it to their attorney and and resolve it so that's where we're at Tom I Tom I see you're still on here Willard oh yeah how do you feel what is your opinion on this you're on mute bud I've asked them to unmute Justin no I know I can hear me now yes Tom well I think that you know the con I can't speak for all of the conservation commission but there there has been damage to the trees in terms of a saw log foresters tell me that that a saw log that has been tapped then becomes pulp or at least the bottom eight foot the bottom saw log so we did not try to estimate that damage because that damage you know it'd be very arguable it'd be a it'd just be a mess people arguing how much the trees were worth because some of them had been damaged by the by the ice storm and had been um uh stained internally and so on so far so we said well let's go this route and we'll compromise there so we didn't include any damages for the damages to saw logs um so we thought that the full amount of the money the profit he made from the from the taps from the syrup um would be fair now um I you know I think this is probably a case where we can't argue it forever so maybe half I would my personal feelings would be half the or rob helpers compromise is probably reasonable it cost him a lot of money to remove all the taps that he had up there I know that um so I you know I wouldn't personally I wouldn't object to that but um I just wanted to raise the fact that we did conservation commission did not include the damages to the saw logs that were up there thank you did we Tom did we notify our insurance company put them on point and think about the bifurcation Justin I did I did contact them and I sent I did send a copy of denial to Tom I thought he forwarded to you but maybe he didn't see mine maybe I didn't okay I'm just trying to get the information we did Justin and it was denied yeah so they won't they won't advocate for us in anyway okay no okay that's all I needed so I guess my question still still just remains do we have a preference which account this money goes into and is there an account that could use it more than another or would you recommend the general fund well I you were talking the conservation commission I believe that's to me that's fine I mean whatever route you want to go yeah I think so the reason I asked was because you know given where the trees are and the the bridge project coming up I thought maybe we could use some of that money for the bridge project it puts back into that same hill keeps the conservation committee funds you know appropriated at the level that they are now and then the the rest we can put wherever people want but that's what I was thinking I see Tom has his finger up yeah the only comment I'd like to make is that that particular parcel that 406 acre parcel was uh wasn't purchased with town funds it was all purchased with uh with grants and with donors and it was purchased for the purposes of and there's a whole list of purposes for recreation for the protection of wildlife for water quality so on so forth so the conservation commission's opinion was that if the property was purchased for the for these purposes then the money this money ought to go back into the purpose that this that this land was purchased for and and there there are a lot of you know there's a lot of uh there's a bridge as you know that has to be redone there's there's water bars there's repairs to erosion along the road that needs going to going to require heavy equipment there's there are maintenance type there's a lot of buckthorn that the the conservation commission historically spent a lot of time cutting and removing so I think the conservation commission's opinion was since the land was purchased for these purposes the money ought to go back into those purposes okay so um mr chair I'd like to amend my emotion to uh say that the 59 3125 go back into the conservation committee fund for the purposes of maintenance of the trails and bridge on um irishel I second that okay all those in favor all right is there any more discussion on this all those in favor hi okay um right right now this is the we added this new item to talk about the town clerk budget yep okay so what was the what's the deal with the town clerk budget I think rosemary talked to john sometime last week on this and oh yes um so I know that all of the select board received emails from rosemary and corrin in the past couple of weeks and I was just under the wrongful assumption that the budget had been gone over internally with the town administrator and finance director when I went into the office on friday to take out papers they they being the town clerk's office let me know that no one had discussed their budget with them in any detail and felt that rightfully so that they were being ignored and left out of the process which I don't think was our intention at all um and please if anyone disagrees speak up but that certainly was not my intention they had some very specific asks in their budget specifically around pay it looked like they did a lot of homework around what others make in the area in regards to the town clerk and they also asked um after lining the number of duties that corrin does um that she become full-time um I have uh talked with both of those ladies extensively and I think that if we were to make corrin full-time um you know I I think that uh rosemary would be open to additional hours at the town clerk's office uh but um you know there's a lot of work that just because the office isn't technically open to the public doesn't mean they're not working there's a lot of filing and a lot of things they have to do so um I wanted the board to discuss you know that piece of the budget and um a lot of you have been residents and on the board a lot longer than I have so uh I may be missing something but I wanted to bring it up and talk through it John I I I I support the idea of having uh the assistant town clerk being full-time as well I think that berlin has grown to the point where it has um or where it is and it's going to continue to grow and the workload is only going to be more tremendous I mean I think Tom can speak to that having filled these dual roles currently uh I would like I would like to see the town clerk's office open five days a week however though if we're going to have two full-time positions I I don't know if there's any way that we can require that based on our um uh town charter or whatever we need to do uh but that that's my only concern would be I can see where there's definitely the need for two full-time positions my concern would be that where it I want two full-time positions I I think we need to also be a little more business friendly and open five days a week is that it is anybody else we can do that well I like that idea Justin the clerk's hours are set by the clerk so they are and I and I had a I had a conversation with rosemary today um just about you know some different ideas and you know things that I had heard and you know kind of you know the philosophy on you know how they work and the number of hours and the schedule and uh you know I I think that you know um the town clerk would be willing and I don't want to put words in her mouth directly but I think she would be willing to have a conversation about expanding the hours of the town clerk's office especially if we were to uh make karin a full-time employee it adds a little bit more flexibility for her to still be able to get things done and have an extra person in the office there and when you when if any of you have spent any time with karin and she starts listing off the amount that she does it's not all town clerks related she does do stuff for the rest of the town as well I think you know like the website or social media and she seems like a team player and someone um that you know is is good to have on our team and does a lot for the community and a lot for the town and I think given the amount of work that we have um that we could certainly use her and what's the um what's the town clerk's budget this year or that we voted on yep hang on just a second 49,000 excuse me 49,038 that's for the that's for karin and no that's the town clerk and then the assistant town clerk is 19,600 what are her hours the total work hours for karin a karin normally puts in about I think it's like usually about 47 and a half hours every two weeks right now what's her hourly rate then like 1950 some of your time yeah I don't have that right here somebody I think seven 1950 bread 20 dollars somewhere okay so that would take and change that line item from 19,6 to about 37, no 39 yeah Diane um and I may not be correct here but I think we have additional hours in there for karin to cover for um rosemary when she's out so I'd pro what you had in fiken everything I think Brad's probably right with that price but there were additional hours above her 20.5 I think that we had counted built in but it's only like maybe a week and a half or two weeks that are built in there it's not very much yeah because if she go if you if you hire her full time then that private goes away right the question would be where's where's the additional 19,6 coming from it used to be before the state got their fingers in the pie the town clerk's office was um in this town at least was was uh almost funding itself through birth and death certificates but now that's all reported to the state and they cut the the town clerk no longer gets those funds well the town clerk does get the diverse certificates that they um that they do execute yeah so they get like $10 each yeah are any funds from um us being without a town administrator for a period of time that could be um forwarded over within the budget to assist with this if we went I'd have to look that up because I've been any over time that Tom puts in obviously because it's you know related to that point I do put into that account right good point I would have to look that up to see what it is understandable thank you I wouldn't normally suggest this um this is fairly unlike me but given the fact of where we are with the budget right now I would in the amount of surplus that we have I would say that we should use surplus money uh for this year and next year take it up as a additional line item but just based on where we are with the budget now and all the hard work Diane and Tom and everyone I've put into making cuts and getting it down to 2% I would be comfortable personally uh with using surplus to make current full time and um looking yeah um I also want to bring up you know quickly uh the town clerk salary compared to all the other towns around um and I think we should talk about that quickly but John I agree that's that I agree with your previous statement I I think third plus is is the way let's handle this one item at a time I think the assistant town clerk that that absolutely makes sense completely 110 percent current provides tremendous help to rosemary profuse amount of help and rosemary conveyed that in our communication to us as well so I concur secondly with the when we get back to the when we get to rosemary or the the town clerk salary John were you thinking we will pull that out of reserves as well if we were to do anything different there yeah I just you know looking at the other towns um and you know and I think this happens in state government too sometimes if you've been there a long time you almost get penalized right because you only get your cola each year and then the new person a new person if a new person was to come into the position they would start way up here um and and we've seen that even with the town manager right now right I mean in the amount of the amount that we jacked up the salary you know the amount that you know we added to the police uh chief's salary and I'm not talking about going hog wild but I think that we do need to recognize that she's I think I believe she's the lowest paid around from what I could see um and she's been here 19 years and has a ton of experience um and I think I think she's getting penalized for being a long term employee almost at no one's fault just the way the system works so John I think the whole town's getting penalized for being somewhat passive over these years I think not only are we penalizing employees because of this ripple effect but I really feel like we miss out on revenue that we could be generating um that would help fund these positions so my only concern my only knock it's not even really a concern my question is like are there ways that we can fund these and should the board take take a look at these situations the maybe the the the properties the pilot properties or the properties that could be paying pilot money that aren't paying pilot money I did obtain a list the other day and they would more than say that they would sufficiently fund anything many of these positions in towns and men in the town and many of the support items that we need is there I mean should before we I mean I don't know what do you put the cart before the horse and make other things happen or how do we do this what do you think what's the board's pleasure on this where we have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of revenue that we could use to generate and help fulfill these positions and these salary shortfalls do we do we take it out of our reserves and then take it up next year as a diligently or do we do we look at these and then and and then act I mean can somebody fill me in on what their thoughts are on this process when you talk reserves you're talking undesignated funds I'm talking our fund balances absolutely I'm not sure you can use the undesignated funds like this I think with any job you start at a at a base rates and then you go up from there so I don't know why we wouldn't start there the the the trouble with the undesignated funds is that they're supposed to be used solely to reimburse the taxpayer no no diane got clarification on that at the last meeting right diane am I wrong yes um because we were talking about loans for instance and that was acceptable for loans I'm thinking what you're talking about for Corinna Rosemary though is not so much using undesignated funds is just going over budget you know that's that's right yeah so I think that's what you're really talking about that's that's a good point diet can you explain how if we went over budget how that would impact our town finances well it's really it's going to depend at the end of the year because there might be some accounts that you're not spending as much in and if you do go over budget and is an approved you know it's an approved item I just don't see where there would be an issue in other ways yeah you could go over budget spend more than you were anticipating but you might not I mean because there might be other areas that you're not spending as much in so overall I think you're looking at the bottom line at the end of it this is what the the total amount that you can spend is and I don't think that this you know elevating their salaries is going to elevate that expense so this you know is way out of you know way out of whack so you're thinking if we elevated the salaries to those positions we still be within our budget not a problem I think we should be within it or if we're not within it it's not going to be a whole lot that we're out I mean obviously in that line item yes and how would we deal with raises on a yearly basis or is it just a flat salary period well we give them a cola cost of living increase yeah every employee gets that her husband yeah so that's where we came up with a two percent and and to say that I didn't I did not discuss with rosemary what she brought to you but she didn't talk to me about it either that's why when she sent you the letter and then all of a sudden I found out about it that's when I did bring it up to a meeting because I really did not talk to her about that part of it you know there's other issues I talked about in the in the budget with her but I didn't talk about payroll I just I'm sure I didn't with her probably with anybody we we went the two percent and went across the board so what you're saying Diane is we if we leave the budget as it is the bottom line and just increase whatever the board's pleasure is the the the salaries or salary to a full-time position then we'll still be within or we won't be that far in the red at the end of the fiscal year depending on how much you're spending on other items let's say we have another Irene well okay then that's you know everything's out the door but um but it's my understanding and and I have talked you know on occasion to the CPA about this or the the auditor and saying if you're not you know if you're not within the budget there you explain why you're not in the budget within that item and okay if you're going to elevate her pay from 40,000 to 100,000 well then I think that might be a different story but if you're going to elevate it by four or five thousand or whatever you're going to do that is not going to impact the budget so that the budget is going to be over by a hundred thousand or more it's just going to be her just her line item yeah John what was the when you read through the the emails what was the for a comparable size town with the hospital what was rosemary's the the the town clerk getting I'm pulling up I'm pulling it up now I don't want to get the number wrong I have two numbers in my head and they're always off um you could come back to me in a minute Brad I'll have it sure um oh so something for the board I understand rosemary's uh discussion you're also talking about Corinne you want to get something in writing from the town clerk on how the hours are going to run and reuse and and and then you know predicate your decisions on I think I'm hearing friday hours is is wanted I know I've had that conversation with rosemary and and I suggested that she write up that schedule for your all consideration a couple months ago and um um I I just think the sport should should get something in writing on what how this is going to work and so you guys at least get to say yep this makes sense and this and then they then you can justify it to to the to your towns folks based on our our town charter ordinance uh whatever which dictates that the town clerk is an elective position does that allow us to mandate that they put that in writing and adhere to those hours or is that just general uh just basically like a general consensus I mean how would that work like just and I don't know if it's uh I don't know the I mean just it's just common decency and good practice I think on good faith effort by by the town clerk's office if they're if they're asking for additional monies for the assistant clerk and and I would think that the select board has the right or has can can ask where those monies are being used for and and say yes that makes sense and and again having somebody hear from the town clerk's on Friday is really needed you know it it ends up we do it right Diane and yeah we do a lot um but just to your point um Tom I don't I think the only thing that the select word can do for an elected official is to set their pay rate I don't think they can make any other demands I mean they can make suggestions certainly but so if that's if that's the an issue make the other half of Corinne's time a town employee not a town clerk employee I don't know if you can but I'm not sure you can do that because she um the town clerk by law has to have a town um you know an assistant clerk but I don't know if that assistant town clerk can also work for the town that I'm not sure you know as an employee because then where would her allegiance be where would you know like at the town clerk said no you're going to do the birth certificate and then I say no you're going to help me with payroll I mean I'm no so that's an issue sometimes and this is like an estate statute I believe are you making out John between 55 and 60 000 um was was the new um town clerk in Berrytown they don't have a hospital um and that's for a brand new person coming in um um I had the Morrisville number here I just can't find it here in my email unfortunately um the Morrisville yeah they were all mid 50s to 60 um I just don't remember the exact amount and Rosemary's not even at 50 yet with 18 years or 19 years so well she's at 49 or will be an FY 22 she would be an FY 22 according to the budget so it'd be a $6,000 overage in that line get her to 55 yeah I'm not suggesting an exact amount I'm just telling you what was what what was researched and what was found um was it Morristown John that you were looking at because I got Corinne's what Corinne sent and for Morristown it's a town clerk treasurer that person's you know it has two titles that person was getting $63,000 a year is it was it Morristown yeah it was yeah year that's so that's the one I'm looking at but that like I said the person's town clerk and town treasurer so what you're if you were to take and go with the town clerk's recommendation and Corinne went full time you would be looking at 20 20 25,000 yeah roughly uh 20 25 five I mean what do people think I mean I just I know this conversation's been had in the past and I've never been a part of it so I'm I'm not you know I'm I'm just trying to make sure that we have good discussion about it as requested yeah I personally have no problems with it um I think rosemary is definitely worth the thing is we've already okayed the budget um we just have to be able to figure out who we're going to pull out 25 five if you want to have right but then you got to take then you got to figure out how you're going to take and get the the town clerk's office open 40 hours a week to the public but we I mean the the budget's not done until we sign the warrant right until we sign the the notice correct I mean we can always take and amend them or put a this would be terrible this year um well yeah I mean that's what that's why I was suggesting you know using using surplus money for 22 is so we don't have to go through and blow up what we just did um yeah but again you know I think right I'm sorry I'm sorry but again I think what Diane's saying that I think I like Diane's solution better you just over spend one line item and then you manage it so you under spend another line I am going into it 20 I don't think 25 if you're talking $25,000 on a $3 million budget is going to be difficult so so um that's how I would suggest just over spend it in her in her line item and so and so you don't have to you don't have to change this warning with you guys don't have to meet again um and you just you just in FY 23 make that correction in the FY 23 budget so the only the only the only trouble then becomes is getting the office open the five days a week because that's basically what we're buying here that's what I'm saying you should get something in writing from from from the town clerk and I think she'd be she'll be agreeable to it I think she will and I and I think Rosemary Rosemary's worth the money she's she's wonderful yep I mean the other thing um if I could just interrupt for a second here the other thing Brad you had brought up a long time or quite a while ago is that um each one of us should have goals in our jobs and if you achieve this goal this is how much money you're going to make so if you are open you know for this you know this time 40 hours yeah whatever you know then we you know we would pay the additional $5,000 you know something to that degree all I'm saying is if you have goals that each person can achieve then sometimes it's easier to solo so you can do that with an employee but I don't know if you know and I just thought of that after you're skipping over that little gray line yeah yeah it would work for me I guess but not for her yeah um well I guess somebody would have to bring it up to her like I said I talked to her about it today and said you know would you you know if we could get Corinne to be full time would you consider expanding your hours and and she went in out to a lot of detail about you know the stuff that she does on you know Fridays already and um work and the stuff behind the scenes that they don't have time to do and there's people in there but you know said that you know with it with Corinne the Corinne those extra hours you know she thinks that she could open up five days a week and I don't want to put words in her mouth but um that you know she would still be able to get stuff done I think and I really don't want to put words in her mouth but it sounded to me like she was more than willing uh to work with us on uh additional hours if Corinne was going to be full time I mean we can go in there and say five days a week and she's going to tell it to stick it up or stick it up a rear end well yeah the the thing that is though if Rosemary wants to take and have the office or do do filing and whatnot for her for her end of it there's no reason that Corinne couldn't be the front person because she pretty much is now exactly right I think I think yeah I think one more time please John I think that's what Rosemary was saying as she thought through it in her mind was you know I would still be able to get stuff done if I had expanded hours where I wasn't the only one here uh Angelina oh you done John yeah Angelina I think five days a week is uh an acceptable proposition for expanding Corinne's position and ours okay Justin I was just going to make the motion to approve that uh we bring on our assistant town administrator to a full-time position this year's well continuously but using uh you within our current budget even if it means an overage for this year were you were you talking assistant town treasurer uh talented uh town assistant town clerk yes I get it sorry I'm sorry it's just getting a little bit yeah assistant town clerk definitely not the uh yeah go ahead um well the the the question would become then how you make it uh how do you make it uh I just made a motion I moved that we approved the assistant town clerk to a full-time position so do we need to get a second we have a second I'll second that okay now for discussion um so how did we take in uh tactfully taken get the uh get the uh extra day in writing I don't think we can I think we have I think that we warn enough business and we have to go on good faith I think that Berlin is busy enough that we warrant two positions there and I think that they really really do work hard for us and I think that we need to trust that in good faith they will do five days a week which is also what we need maybe the assistant town clerk position we could look at it from a different perspective if that doesn't happen to fulfill what the town needs but I I truly believe we need to operate in good faith and think that things will work in the direction that's best for the the town okay any further discussion hearing none those in favor okay Angelina I mean how do we know that it's going to be in good faith that the town's going to be open the town clerk's going to be open for five days a week well that's we don't wait I don't think that we do but here's what I do know I do believe that the workload is more than than than what we have for hours right now and I believe that the municipality as a whole will benefit from this regardless of whether it's open Monday through Friday however I think that we would like to see it open through Monday Monday through Friday and the board can just mention that and I believe that'll occur okay I longer longer term thinking here and I don't even know that Corinne would be interested but when Rosemary decides that it's her time to retire it would be nice to have someone that is prepared and well versed in in that role and so it's it's as much you know long-term planning for town clerk as it is anything else in my view and making sure that we have someone there and you know realistically you know most people can't survive on a part time salary and I feel like we would end up losing Corinne if if we didn't do something here so I support it I agree Mohsen favor I motion carries okay Justin you had something here yes I did I my apologies so in the January February edition of the VLCT my concern was we went to Australian ballot for everything in our town meeting correct we were that way anyway the entire meeting we already were Australian ballot for a portion of it but not the entire meeting and then the January the January to February issue of the magazine I'm just saying it says if the select board votes to use Australian ballot for the town meeting with the informational hearing is it's required pursuant to 17 BSA subsection 2680 G the open meeting laws apply so I believe one of the concerns I had was that we hadn't talked about this yet and I don't believe that prior to our town meeting we were going to have a an informational public hearing we hadn't put we hadn't talked about that to my knowledge and we hadn't said anything for that so we voted to not have one but by law we need to have one I think there was a stipulation there with the vote um say that again I think because of the COVID thing they did not require to have the informational meeting it was all so this is the update in the January February issue from Vermont leagues of cities and towns that's why I'm calling it out or I found it and that's why we need to have a discussion on it and I'm surprised we we should have known this it says if I can share the article my computer rebooted I'm on my phone now but COVID related changes for the town say that if we're going to go to Australian ballot we're required to hold an informational hearing so we we absolutely need to have an informational hearing yeah but the town was already on Australian ballot before the only thing that could be voted from the floor was non-binding everything else was the budget the elected officials all that was Australian ballot already can we get clarification on that then I just wanted to make sure that we weren't putting ourselves in a position where we were in violation of any of the Vermont state statutes laws whatever well because I mean it clearly says in this article that if we vote to use Australian ballot regardless I mean it doesn't say whether you were prior whether prior you were using Australian ballot whether you're you know it doesn't have a precedence in any way shape or form all it says if the select board votes to use Australian ballot for town meeting an informational hearing is required pursuant to 17 vsa subsection 280 slash g the open meetings law open meeting law applies to this informational hearing so it can be held remotely per act 92 the law also lifts requirement that a person collect voter signatures so on so on so I feel as though we need to have an informational hearing for our taxpayers based on that and if we don't need to then we don't need to but I'd be happy to help with it I'm sure that we could get people from the town clerk's office town office to just go through the items that are going to be voted on and have a brief public hearing even if it's a live document that lives on YouTube or something like that but it it appears that we'd be in violation of Vermont statute if we didn't so I'd like to have the answer definitively yeah my only question is how are we going to do that remotely well how are we going to do that remotely well that I think the first question is whether or not we need to the second question is if we need to how would we do it and I would think that we would do that over a live document that lives on YouTube with like a link or something like that where it can be viewed with also a question and answer at the end where we go over each of the items that are going to be voted on but that that would probably satisfy the state statue I mean there's only so much you can do I get that but I mean we'd also have to so that it can be held remotely per act 92 we'd have to review act 92 and make sure we are in compliance with that so I think the questions that you're asking are the answers to the questions that you're asking will be discovered you know as we as we dug into this but I think it's something we need to definitely pursue well probably the thing to do we have Rob look into it I think that's what it is and then if we do need to take and have a presentation we've got till March to do it or probably February mid February to do it but we can get that done I'm pretty sure I'm so I'm I would rather not spend money on the lawyer on this one I think I think we can get the same result Brad if we just call the secretary of state's office and ask for clarification maybe okay thank you Tom do you do that tomorrow Justin I'm just I'm looking through the magazine what page is that on so I could so I know what I'm talking about when I call it should be page four it says Tom meeting day maybe it was prior Tom meeting day is fast approaching yep yep see over on the right hand column where it says COVID related changes one two third paragraph down on the right hand column if the select board is okay yep yep I got it okay all right do you see where I'm bringing that up I mean I wish we had known this before but I mean it is what it is now so I think it's something we definitely need to investigate wouldn't you concur I'll call the secretary of state and see what the page is on this okay and I would also like to know what it is for high-risk patients as I am a high-risk patients and I've been on the select board so I would like to know what their solution is for me personally well the as I understand what Justin is saying as long as the you can take and do the do the presentation or the information private through a YouTube okay I'm just making sure that I'm not going to be exposed or have to go into a situation where I'm not comfortable no so I think I think the second part to that Angelina answer your question would be we needed to do it and pursue into act 92 which is specifically addressed in that paragraph as well paragraph as well so the I think the secretary of state or John Quinn I think your recommendation would absolutely be where we get all the information that we need to make an educated decision on this topic yeah we would still vote that way we just we would just have a meeting beforehand or or a presentation online I mean it could be as simple as reading down through the through the different ballots at the beginning of a meeting in a special hearing to and letting people you know address their questions I don't think it has to be anything super fancy it could be that presentation like Justin said I think I think it's easily doable I think we should just see the secretary of state office says and go from there after the next meeting honestly I almost feel Angelina in in consideration of what you just said as well I almost feel as though our our taxpayers deserve to hear that so I think it would be a great idea to go ahead and give a rundown of the items that are going to be voted on give an explanation on how they came about and give just a brief rundown on everything anyway so would that mean that that us as a select board meet in person or how would we do that remotely I'm just I'm not trying to be you know a pain in the ass I'm just I'm just asking what it's going to look like no what I think that would consist of is that would consist of one or two maybe whatever board members felt comfortable doing that along with maybe any town administration that wanted to discuss the specifics not even all at the same time but everything could be put together and it would be pretty easy to have a quick rundown of the everything that we're voting on it doesn't mean that the board needs to get together in person face to face if that's what you're asking it means that maybe the board can delegate this task to an individual or two which by the way I'd be happy to do you along with other members of the the the municipal office that would be able to explain this to the taxpayers so that they know what they're voting on and they're educated on the topics that's all okay that sounds good to me okay so was there anything else on that Justin not right now Brad but I mean I think well we'll get our answers from the secretary you know from the station we'll go from there but thank you yeah but I think I mean even even with the time we've got I don't see a problem with getting something put together to at least go over the budget not at all I mean I think we can go over the I think we can go over the all the items that we're voting on and we can go over the town budget on an individual basis and I think we can get a lot of collaboration which is it'll probably be more informative than anything we've ever done in the past for the taxpayers which will be great and I well the the only thing is is usually when we do the appropriations at the at the previous town pre-town meetings the the people who were requesting the money were there to take and give their spiel on it right so I don't I don't know that we would go I don't know that like as a as a select board we would cover the special appropriations here you mean items like not to single anybody out in any way shape or form but one that sticks in my head is like CaliCover library yeah we always that's a special appropriation I don't know that we're going to be able to go through those we may be able to provide a resource where people can continue over to to see why maybe CaliCover library or anybody else is looking for that but you know my my thing was the big things are the the town budget you know the school the school board the school they always have their budget they always have a video for it I think the town budget should have a video or and I also think that the fire department should as well those are those are kind of the big drivers in the community at this point in time and I think those deserve a large explanation and I think that the that's my piece the fire department that's a special appropriation right so I think that any of the any of the special appropriations that are out there they can develop their own and maybe maybe in the same scenario we can provide a resource you know where you could you could see the town budget and then okay great now we know we've got 19 special appropriation items and here's the ones I want to listen to and if somebody doesn't want to one of the one of the special appropriations doesn't want to make their own video or or or give any example of why they're asking for what they are well then that's they didn't do that but if they want to then then they have access to that as well but I mean I just think we need to we need to give everybody the opportunity to throw that out there on a digital platform given our circumstances currently so so if what you're basically saying is just put a link to the if they have one to the special appropriations or even go a website if they happen to have them well I think I think so I mean I'm not much on internet I'm not I'm not much on web design or or how we can do that obviously but I think if you had a simple landing page associated with the town of Maryland's website that had you know hyperlinks over to these other areas I think it would be enough of a resource but I mean at the end of the day it's still going to go back to I'd like to see what the Secretary of State has in association with this Act 92 you know I mean that's going to determine a lot of what we need to do if that makes sense to you yeah I'm all for it I was kind of wondering when I was reading the uh when we were doing that how they're going to take and have any kind of uh informational thing if we did away with the pre-tell meeting but okay so we'll get that done tomorrow or Tom can call the Secretary of State and go from there anything else on this okay town meeting warning language I'm gonna pull that up here Brad I sent this out Saturday I think to you all this is Rosemary put together for you for your consideration tonight um if you make any changes she said she needed it back by Wednesday and we should make any changes on this document so want to scroll back up to the top yep okay so due to COVID-19 restrictions there will be no pre-town meeting or town meeting all articles are voted by Australian ballot polls will open at 8 a.m. and close at 7 so after what we just discussed apparently there will be no pre-town meeting face-to-face but apparently we can do it through uh informational meeting yeah or at least uh do an informational thing and then take and have uh the websites that they can go to look at they want to see what the what the special appropriations are okay the thing that I will add is that I believe and I can't say for certain without speaking to her but I believe in the past Corinne has put a lot of information regarding town meeting etc and what we just discussed as well in the news to knows and also people communicate a lot through front page forum and I think we could utilize that to help us with what we just discussed as well as you know what we're talking about now okay um I agree with you Flo but I'm wondering and you guys have to excuse me because I did just see my doctor about memory issues and that is a part of my disease as I progress through it um I'm wondering about um if we could perhaps have a town meeting where we are what are those screens that go on the wall called that's what I'm having trouble projectors projection screens is that a possibility with zoom what you could just do as we're doing now share the screen right yeah except for on a projection like on a projection I'm sorry my I'm sorry I my doctor did say that my disease is progressing and I'm starting to lose my memory now so yes so projection screen is what I'm what I'm trying to say like is it possible to do a zoom on a projection screen and be able to answer is I mean do we have that technology for Berlin because I know for the for 2020 I had a terrible time participating because we didn't have the technology or there was complications um participating so I want to know if that's a possibility um and what would that look like I have a vision but I don't know how to describe it it's a good question Angelina John can you speak to that not well I I don't know what we have um you know I maybe no I I I just don't know enough about it that's okay I was just wondering from a technology standpoint but Tom are you aware of what's been utilized in the past more further back than when I became on the board in terms of what's been utilized in the past well I think there was met in a hall and there was some sort of a projection screen but again it's just like me pulling up a document right now right me pulling this document up everybody can see that document correct absolutely so so we don't want to put something on a projection screen and then take a zoom photograph of it you just want to do it on your screen and then you could just go through it so so there's no possibility that that could happen on a projection I think it's good I think it's good what what's the difference if it's on a projection screen it's only the size of your computer that you're seeing it on an individual okay so my my my impression was that people were going to go to town meeting anyway no regardless so no no no town town meeting meeting physically has been canceled for 2021 okay so that clears up that I just I what I thought I was hearing was that people were going to be asked to come into no probably the school and to vote well they're they're gonna they're they either can either vote remotely by an absentee ballot or can physically come to here to this office and vote yes but there's no there's no discussion there's no appropriations it's just come in fill out your ballot and leave the the the screens that they were showing at the previous town meetings they were power points for the school and for the town and it was strictly as an informational thing at um people who were there at the time saw it everybody else came through afterward and and voted anyway by australian ballot so it's the at least if we take and do something on the on the on the computer and it's in a it's in the able to be viewed at any time I think people voted better educated than they are with the with the pre-town meeting and town meeting tell you the truth so if you did that somehow um through youtube or whatever then that could just play on a projection screen for people to to see in here sure okay okay anything else on the town warning meeting language town meeting warning language there we go me I think you need to approve it yeah any uh well emotion on that I was just gonna ask for it to be put back up on the screen if I could yep thank you and if you could just scroll through it please let me know if I go too fast you can keep going is everyone else able to see it as well oh yeah great yep you can continue and tom did you make the changes that I sent to you the recommendations I have not flowed no that that's needed to be a group discussion here I see one change right after article 16 to just put a space after the question mark online space yep online space mm-hmm and the same under article 11 I would just do a line space after the apostrophe apostrophe but you know what I mean parentheses thinking one thing saying another yes thank you and you can continue line space after article 23 and between article 24 and the same thing between article 25 and 26 just for consistency and for making it all flow well and look well look consistent okay and so my only other suggestion and we can talk about it as a board but in the past it seems like at the bottom titles have been included and folks have been listed in order of their positions on the board so for example in this case brad is listed as a chair justin and I would be listed as vice chairs or vice co-chairs john is the secretary so my recommendation there is to just put people in the order of their titles and I think that's all it was I can't remember if I indicated anything else to you tom but that's what sticks out to me right now okay I'll have rosemary make these changes this is this is her document so and then the I think the only other thing that I did mention was us possibly signing it sooner than January 25th you know we meet again on February 1st but we're meeting tonight the 18th so if we're all in agreement to it could we date it the 18th for tonight and then just all virtually sign it flow I think we're also meeting again on the 20th so maybe we could just add that as a quick item as well then absolutely that's a great point justin but I'm flexible those are just my suggestions and I welcome anyone else's but I didn't want to make a motion until you know I saw the full document and we talked about if there were any changes that we requested I'm sure rosemary will make any any changes that we seek I agree is that something that something we can make all the changes flow recommended to and then take it back up briefly on at our meeting on the 20th please well if we take and if we take and have rosemary make the changes then we can take and we'll be all set on the 20th that would be wonderful thank you yeah anybody see any else you guys are just gonna prove it with those changes and then you could just sign it right you don't have to meet again to discuss this yeah well well we can we can improve it with those changes but we can see the document again give us a couple more moments to review it and just take it up again on the 20th and sign it yeah I haven't been able to sign anything I haven't gotten any of those uh requests for signature which are pretty easy to do through google I have sent those to Angelina so I don't know why you haven't received them okay I have not been able to or seen them okay because I have been sending them right along and I've always had you at the bottom of the list and and I just haven't gotten them back on the docusigns correct correct yeah I always include her no and I do look for it so I don't know what's going on but maybe check your spam folder I'll take a look but I don't think it goes there so uh someone will make a motion with those changes and they'll we'll get it sent out to you right rosemary's back tomorrow we'll get it sent out to you guys tomorrow I think we're just looking I think we're I thought we were just looking to have those changes and then we'll review the document one quick time again just at the next meeting on the 20th is what I thought we had said tom but maybe I'm wrong we're meeting on the 20th is is a public hearing right it's also it's also it's a public hearing but we also have a it's a select board meeting it's a worn meeting so we could make additions or changes to the agenda we could add that briefly it doesn't I mean there's no reason we can't just take a peek at it again then take action right am I wrong I guess all right so like so that's what I that's what I think we are requesting to do that way everybody's comfortable they can review the document they can see it we can have those changes done we can take action at that point in time it's only a couple of days away hey can when the rosemary makes the changes can you ever send that out yes I'll send it out tomorrow yep okay very good thank you well let's see here minutes for December 21st 2020 January 4th 20 21 in January 12th 2021 have a motion on the minutes I'll make a motion on them individually so starting with the first one I make a motion that we approve the minutes of December 21st 2020 here a second second that additionally I make a motion to approve the minutes of January 4th 2020 1 2021 a second thank you and I make the motion that we approve the January 12 2021 minutes as presented here a second yep second though any discussion on December 21st 2020 if none those in favor hi hi motion carries January 24th 2021 you mean January 4th Brad yep yeah January 4th hi hi hi motion carries and January 12th 2021 all those in favor hi hi motion carries let's see here approved licenses permits vouchers and applications I have it in front of me I'll make a motion that we approve the payroll warrant 21-14 for payroll from December 20 2020 to January 2nd 2021 paid on January 6th of this year 2021 in the amount of forty seven thousand five hundred one dollars and sixty six cents also payroll warrant 21g 15 with checks 28 30 to 28 68 in the amount of 39 thousand seventy four dollars and six cents included in the motion is the reconciled December bank statements for the general fund sewer commission and water division and the December trial balance budget status report and delinquent tax report we're here a second second any further discussion those in favor signify by saying hi hi motion carries uh any executive session tonight tom no the round table I have I have two things uh one um I believe Corinne or rosemary I'm not sure I can't remember which sent out a reminder about town reports we're still waiting on a couple reports that select board report a town highway report and there were a couple of other things I just wanted to make sure that those were being worked on or those were done I know Tim's working on the highway report highway was one yep okay rad do you have this select board one no data did them uh I tell you what um I'll take in uh I'll take in right one but I want somebody else to take in uh proofread it and to uh add or subtract from it I'm not real unless somebody else wants to do the report I'm just not a real I'm not a real uh uh English major I yeah I mean I can I can try to take a crack at it if you want not that my English is going to be any better than yours but um I've done them uh in the past I can usually whip it out in an hour or two um and then it'll just someone's gonna have to go through and uh fix some of my grammar but uh it'll at least give us something and and just you know just so we're all on the same page what I what I've done in the past historically is kind of talk about the investments we made throughout the year uh talk about you know uh the upcoming budget how we how we got to it um and kind of leave it at that kind of try to leave it uplifting and positive for the future I don't know about I don't know how uplifting budgets are but okay well just it's just a you know I just look at it like an overall report not just a budget piece but kind of try to walk them through you know where we made investments and um they're just trying to make a give a general walkthrough of where the the town's heading in what direction and yeah vision overall vision right right right and you know a lot of it um you know has has been focused you know at least the past few months on that the town center right and a lot of our discussions have been around that so um I'll I'll try to get something together by tomorrow and send it out to everyone and uh and you guys can edit the heck out of it along those same lines yeah along those same lines I was gonna say I'd be willing to proofread it and also have we discussed dedicating the town report as well so Flo has not been a discussion on that I think we should discuss that mainly because they're going to need that information as well fairly quickly and do we want to also give feedback as to how many town reports to order this year or is that Rosemary that would make that decision we had that we had that the Rosemary and I had that discussion some time ago trouble is you don't want to have too few but we always have a box or two left over true and this year I don't know I don't know I think when we took the put the the reports out to bid I think there was a number there there was a number of copies well I think we're pretty well locked into it now okay everybody everybody bid on the number of copies okay good point um so so my second piece um I was a little unclear we approved the uh move from a part time to a full-time assistant clerk position did we also and we talked about um increasing Rosemary's salary with the overall budget item of both being an additional 25 000 did we do that or not I was just unclear on the Rosemary part you did not do Rosemary we did um Corinne right I believe I mean I I believe I made the motion for the approval of a uh turn the part-time counted town clerk assistant town clerk position being made a full-time position I don't feel we didn't address the the second item that was on the agenda there so I mean I don't know if we can go Brad can we go back to that at this point if we need to oh yes we guess all yeah I mean no reason you can't so if you want to reopen that discussion um the town under the town court budget uh what's your pleasure so to increase rosemary's salary to an even 55 000 I think that's fair based on the discussion we had and also comparable salaries and the amount of work that she does and her extensive experience that's my own opinion I would second that I just looked at Norfields town clerk and that's right in line with that as well flow so I would second that on both of these are these effective immediately I I think rosemary's is effective with the fiscal year okay I would concur with that okay I agree I concur and John when you're writing the documentation that you're going to put together I would also include like changes in personnel appreciation to Dana and how we really um sincerely appreciate all of our employees just everyone's working so hard and diligent on behalf of the town yep you know and flow flow I'm going to say something that might be a little bit ridiculous but I think you might appreciate this I would almost recommend that maybe I know typically we don't we we put the uh town report out um for somebody who maybe is retired or no longer with us but maybe we could even even dedicate the town report this year to rosemary for all her years of dedication while she's still here in service um well I was thinking more about David senior yeah been a lot of years here with the road my rosemary it's John Quinn how are you John you're on not on you are you watching the meeting or no no no you're not missing much I've only hit I've only banged my head oh I've only banged my head against the desk about 30 times John you're not on you um I just want to make sure um I updated you as I said I would and the board took up both of the the recommendations um that that you request okay Justin anything for round table yeah I had a quick question um I don't know when the decision was made or how it was made I had about our our town administrator position I was on the original uh the hiring committee and then I realized that once the position wasn't filled with the first round I was removed from it and I wanted to know when that decision was made and how that was made well when you um were there there was one time that you couldn't make it and you've uh substituted yourself for John we just went with that right so I there was one time I did that so why why would I be why would you why would you have continued on with that that I'm just curious that wasn't a board decision that was your decision and um and I'm not calling out on it but it sounds like I am uh because I definitely am actually but I mean it was a hiring committee's decision well it wasn't the hiring committee's decision to determine the hiring committee so the hiring committee didn't determine that I shouldn't be on it so who made the decision because it would come to me but at the same time you took and passed off your responsibilities I did not I never passed off my office my responsibilities I was not available so I'm just asking I I would have let in and furthermore I had no outreach on it so don't you think that that would be something that would warrant some some uh communication so I get emails of people that were interviewing uh forwarded from another board member that I've and I've been removed from the hiring committee that I was originally placed on that was that was the the not the hiring committee the select board opted to have me on and you made the decision to remove me so I find that quite bothersome and I wanted to know I didn't recall that happening in a select board meeting so I don't know why that would happen just based on uh an opinion well the and I'd like an explanation of it because I certainly didn't shirk any responsibilities that were given to me I was unable to attend a meeting and that doesn't mean that I'm unable to fulfill that role well I can't take in the really I mean I have no I have no uh real good explanation the the only thing I knew was that John showed up John was on that meeting and he was at the rest of them and right right right so I was there were several that after that meeting there were several others that he was there but you weren't I didn't get invites to them because somebody made the decision that I was no longer on that meeting so why would I attend those if I don't even know they're going to occur I didn't know you didn't get an invite well I hadn't so that's what I'm trying to get to the bottom of I would have absolutely attended them but I was not privy to the information I didn't even know when the meetings were happening so I emailed Tom and asked Tom what the situation was and he said that you had made the decision on who this new hiring committee was and that I should take it up with you so that's what I'm asking right now well I'm like I said I I have you know the John had been there and so you just assumed that I wasn't going to be on it without communicating with me and just I was left off it so where did the ball get dropped that's what I want to know I want to know where the ball got dropped where I became removed from this hiring committee that the select board put me on and when I stopped receiving those emails and why I stopped receiving them and why I was no longer a part of it that's what I want to know it's just a simple question drop the ball then okay that's all I wanted to know yeah so so you made a decision for the board outside of outside of that what outside of our outside of our meetings where we decided I was going to be on this hiring committee yeah but again John was there and you worked well I wasn't I didn't get an invite to it and I wasn't given any of the information where so how the hell would I even be on it so you can go back to that all you want I don't think anybody's going to dispute how much time anybody puts in there so no you can you can try to you can tell me that I John was there and I wasn't but I think we all know that I put in enough time the reason I wouldn't have been there would be if I didn't have the information or I was unavailable and based on the board's decision to have me be a part of it I don't know where I would get removed because I wasn't at one meeting so you can go back to that but that's irrelevant the discussion is why I was dropped off and it bothers me so because that that was the decision that the select board made and I'd like I don't even know it just blows my mind and I'll figure out where to go from here but it blows my mind that that that happened and it sounds like it doesn't matter because John was there and I wasn't is your opinion is that correct well the thing of it is is that the it would have been better if you had just said you couldn't make the meeting and not send somebody and substitute for you and I think that's where I got the feeling that you didn't want to do it anymore in that John was willing to take your place I said you I I remember and I specifically said John would sit in on that meeting for me because I was unable to attend but that's fine I understand if there's we're gonna say there's a communication issue but moving forward I mean why wouldn't I really spend as an original person involved in that why wouldn't I've been involved moving forward I mean all of a sudden once we got to this last position I'm dropped off everything and now I'm out of the loop and I don't feel like that was in the best interest of the town I mean I had spent the process I'd gone through the interviews I'd gone through this entire process and voiced my opinions and and without additional discussion I would feel that if if that's what you were thinking we would have had additional discussion on it now I guess maybe at the end of the day I'm thinking that communication would be a little bit better by this board I'm thinking that if that's what your thought was and you were going to change it and you were going to make these decisions for the board that are the board's decisions to make that you would have at least reached out and said hey is this what's going on yeah I don't understand why that happened to me like that's just not how well I have to apologize then because I made the mistake well I appreciate that I just it's and moving forward I'd like to be a part of it because I think it's a it's a huge piece of this town that I've been involved in okay we'll see what we can do well no we will do that what do you mean we'll see what we can do what is there that you will see what we can do we'll give me some definition on it then we we agreed to have two slack board members on the hiring committee if we have three then it becomes a slack board meeting well then I don't really know what to tell you because I was on the original thing and you dropped me off it so I guess we got that problem resolved yeah well let me think about it there's nothing to think about the original the original wishes your job as the chair of the board is to carry out the wishes of the board the original board wished to have me on the committee you made the decision outside of the board to have me off the committee based on what you thought was the process there's nothing for you to think about it's simply that I'll be on that committee okay and if that means you don't want to be on it you want to step down so John can be on it that's fine but that's the way I mean that's wow you you can't really make that decision either probably because it was the original wishes of the board so yeah okay well let me take it under give us some thought but uh I'd be afraid uh I think John you're going to be off the committee I think John made a phone call I don't know I think the board needs to vote on it well we'll put we'll put it on the for the 20th then all right I mean I've sat through all the interviews yeah well we've only had two so far we've only had the two so far so that that might be good you know so I'm not gonna I'm not running again okay I've made that decision I've been bullied on this board I've been put in position so I never needed to be put in I am on disability I have a very severe disease I have COVID running around and I'm terrified I you know I've tried to be I've been on this board for three years you know I and I try not to put myself into positions where I know that I'm not gonna succeed or be able to live up to the expectation so you and you guys went ahead and cut my stipends which you know whatever I sent the rest of it to the to the Berlin fire department but what are you gonna do the next time somebody gets sick what what is what are you what is the boards what is the board gonna do when somebody gets sick and they can't fulfill the obligations or meet expectations are you gonna punish them I that's I want to know well I don't see what I don't see what can come up now that's going to take in and I mean you can take and do it all the speculation you want but realistically until it comes up you can't say what you're gonna do no but you ought to have a plan I'm leaving I don't give a shit what you guys do really I'm here just because you know well I'm gonna finish this out period okay anything else yeah dismissed as always thank you hello I don't have anything tonight but thank you anything else I have nothing can I go again no I'm just glad I wrote a I wrote a message in the chat I I told rosemary had caller and let her know how our budget went and she was very thankful and wanted me to thank the board for her and Corinne and was very appreciative that we took the time to go over her budget and even more thankful that we did make adjustments but just the fact that we went over it she was she was very happy so okay well that's it hey John thanks for taking the time to do that hey and uh a motion to adjourn so moved a second second all in favor hi we're adjourned have a good night everyone have a good evening