 Hall of Thursday, August 15th, regular scheduled Berlin Select Board to order. My fire left is Justin Lawrence. My left is Flo Smith. I'm Brad Town. Lewis also is Dana Hadley, town administrator and Diane Isabel Town Treasurer. Additions or changes to the agenda, Dana? Yes, I have several changes to the agenda. Again, it was because the agenda was early since I was out last week. The first item, I'd like to remove Phil Gentili's appointment. It's been rescheduled to September 5th from the Conservation Commission. In place of Phil Gentili's appointment time, I'd like to add the Berlin Corner Cemetery, Association Discussion on Cemetery Roads. I would like to add a working in the right-of-way application for Edgewood Development. I would like to add USDA funding for Payne Turnpike North Sewer Extension and to be discussed when you meet with the Public Works Board. I would like to add Eastman Deed from Central Vermont Chamber of Commerce, and this is also due to the Sewer Extension Project for Payne Turnpike North, and that will be discussed while the Public Works Board is here. I would like to add the paperwork for delegating a boating delegate for the annual meeting of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and I would like to add a letter that the town has received from Dave and Beth Doubt. I would like to add a letter received from Peter Hogg, and I would like to add a short discussion about goals for the upcoming year. Sorry, there's so many. Okay, anything else on that? Thank you, no, I think that's sufficient. Okay, any public comment? Hearing none, we'll move to the Treasury report by hand. Okay, I had a grant audit from the State of Vermont last week. Everything went well. I'm expecting a report in the next few weeks, but she did not say there was any issues whatsoever. So once I have that report, I'll bring it to the select court meeting. The preliminary audit is next Wednesday, August 21st. I need one of you to be available via the phone so that the auditor can talk with you. So if it could be, if you could decide which one of you, if I can get your number for her to call tonight, if that's possible. What day was it? It's Wednesday, the 21st. Usually it's the chairman, are you available? Yeah. Okay, so then we'll, okay. And then maybe you can have a backup, maybe lower justice. Okay. It could be a backup. Okay, good. I'll give you my numbers tonight. Okay, perfect, thanks. Or if you can just email it to me or something. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, great. And then I had a tax sale last August. Cecil Avenue was two acres on Cecil Avenue and it was purchased. And it was not redeemed. So a warranty deed is going out and there was money that I held in escrow because we were paid more than was owed in taxes. And so I would be cleaning up at escrow account and sending the money to my company called Mincer Brothers. So that should be happening in the next week and that will take care of it as far as our tax sale properties. Thank you, Diane. Okay, thank you. I'd like to, before Diane leaves, I'd just like to mention last week she had this audit for many of the grants that we have. And it's gotten, grants are always great to get but there's a lot of paperwork that Diane has to do and a lot of documentation that she has to keep track of and it's quite cumbersome. And I just wanted to thank you for doing such a great job because it really is, you're doing an excellent job. The work you do is very admirable. You thank you, Ms. But you know, having a strong financial person is so important for a community. So thank you, Diane. I'm gonna need to embarrass you. The approval of licenses, permits and vouchers. I make a motion that we approve the general fund accounts payable warrant number 20G03 with checks 19461 to 19505 in the amount of $77,702.20. Payroll warrant number 20-03 for payroll from July 21st, 2019 to August 3rd, 2019 in the amount of $42,064.62. Reconciled July bank statements for the general funds, sewer commission and water division and also the July general journal entry. I'll second the motion. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? All right. All right. Motion carries. They are, I think they're planning to come in at 15 because I have them on. Maybe we could move to the voting delegate for the Vermont League. Sure. Cities and towns. Every year, as you know, the League of Cities and Towns, as soon as I find it, wishes each town to appointed delegates to vote at their annual business meeting. And basically a lot of it has to do with suggestions that they're gonna make to the legislature as far as either adjusting laws, adding laws, deleting laws, mostly adjusting. So they need to have someone from each community delegated to be able to vote on behalf of their town. And it usually is a select board member. What day is this? It's on Wednesday, October 2nd, starting at 1 p.m. It's in Killington at the Killington Grand Resort. They do it as part of their town fair. They have the annual town fair conference. You don't, it's not, you don't have to sign up for the town fair to go to the voting, but they do kind of overlap. Who would typically go so that as a just any board member? A board member, someone, you know, a town administrator or, you know, any department head, towns, many towns send different people for the education. There are education seminars and things like that. I will not be going this year because I will be out of town. Right. That's when you're going on your trip. Yeah, yeah. I could do that day. I don't know if something either one of you wanted to do right now. If I'm with me, if it works for you. So I would need a motion to that effect. I make a motion for Justin to participate. And that would be on Wednesday, October 2nd at the Killington Grand Resort on behalf of the board. Do I hear a second? No. Second the motion. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. A few carries. Brad, if I could get you to sign us that under the chairperson, I'll fill in the top and submit it to them. Roy, do you know if Jeff would work coming to as well? I had to call into him, but I thought he was. Okay. But he didn't return my calls. Should we wait for him or would you like to go next? I'm going, I thought you were just discussing. Well, I put you in as an appointment. Okay. Brad, the Berlin Corner Cemetery Association asked me about the possibility of the town helping them with the maintenance of some of their cemetery roads. And Roy is representing the Cemetery Association. We haven't been able to because the cemetery is not a town and entity, we're closely related. And so they asked me to ask you. And so here we are. These last rains, I will point out, washed out of our roads, ground and we've had to close them off. Where is this? The Berlin Corner Cemetery. They had the one cemetery in the stock your road. It was the last one on the list. It was the last one on the list. This afternoon, we were able to show you what we're not supposed to do. Can they donate materials? Just try to think how they can get some. You've got the tractor right here. I don't think that's probably there. I haven't seen what's going on. How deep is the rut and the wash out? Probably foot deep. In the lower go. Where did it go? Washed down into the lower area and into the... Can you even get it established and brought back up? No, I mean, it wasn't really that bad. The only part that is gravel is where the wheels go. The center is grass. What you need is some more material and somebody to level it for you. Yeah. But how much material would you estimate to finance that too? I'm not an engineer, so I really don't know, but I would think about a couple of dump trucks. A foot deep and how long? Like I said, I wasn't really prepared to, you know, I would say 75 feet. I mean, it wasn't that deep all the way down, but the problem is that the center of the road and the sides of the road are higher than the... Middle of a wheel drive. Yes. And it's always gonna happen. And those two roads, I was planning on asking the board of the cemetery to just close those off. And when we get a chance, we'll fill them in and put dirt and air and grass it over. The first road that goes into the cemetery, all the monuments to the right, there's four sections to that. Each of the other roads that go down through are down through two sections. So if we close off a couple of them, it's just gonna make more four-section area than I don't think it's gonna be a big deal. I was gonna say, Justin, if you can get a tractor over there and get some gravel. I can get my tractor over there and just volunteer on my time in labor. I have a tractor right here in the corner, so... That's what we need. Yeah. That's nice. And oddly enough, I do have a permit to dig in the brook this year. So... No, we can use all the material that goes into it. Because the left-hand side of the road going into the cemetery, the way that we want to develop into future grave sites along with the back section. The cemetery had never been fully surveyed, so we had to do that. We don't have a plat of what's there now in the town's office, which is illegal. And we're trying to get that. In doing so, there's supposed to be 37 rows of monuments and in a Google Earth view, I counted 38, so. There are a lot of different problems with the cemetery that we need addressed to. And that was, I think, why Jeff and Matt had come last time. But right at the moment, it's just the driveway. Well, we'll have to meet some time before we'll look at it. Yeah. It doesn't sound like it's too much, really. I don't think it's a real big deal, it's just that we... I can get a box plane from my tractor to... I already got one. I got one. It'll lock right. I mean, we can pay for the material. It's just getting a truck. I think, according to state law, I can't sell it. We appreciate that. Yeah, we'll have to take and go and look at it and get an idea. I'll give you a call sometime this weekend, maybe. I mean, if you want me to meet up there at any point, you could call me. Sure. Well, Greg, anything else we can do for you? There's a lot of... LAUGHTER It's kind of an open ending to my guess. When you do that, you know. No, that would be nice for right now. You could get all the voters to vote for some money for the cemetery next year. Like the library gets. We might consider Roy getting a petition before next town meeting, because that's how it's done. And Rosemary can help you with what you need to do to pull it together, but that would be a way to get it on the warrant. And that's a good idea. Yeah, I mean, we need $30,000 a year more to be able to do what we need to do. And that's one proactive way, getting the petition signed and getting it for the voters. Great. We were two weeks late this year. It happens. Yeah, it's very specific, but she'll tell you what. Yeah, just advertising the food. And how many people you would need. If you were to send out something that we had made up of brochures around the cemetery, well, we would probably help let the people know and grow in the stories. Well, I would appreciate anything you do. Well, thank you for bringing it to our attention. Absolutely. Thank you. Have a good evening. Thank you, boy. You too. What's the working in the right way, Dana? And I think someone might be in on that. That is Edgewood Construction on Airport Road. Can't look at it. Tim has, I need to ask Tom that question when he comes in, I will. I think he has, but I don't know if I can answer that completely. They want to work to be performed a new curb cut. Oh, I believe this is on the state part of the, no, it can't be. Why don't we let Tom explain it to you? Whereabouts is it? It's a 2178 Airport Road. It's Tom Lozano's building. I'll pass the Veterinarian on Airport Road. Those crossroads of the airport itself? Yeah. So the only way the state employees are are going to be able to get to the airport is by the Department of Transportation. So, it's near the deal building, yeah. That's going to be pretty close to the town. It's kind of on that line. I don't know how far beyond the turn into the airport, the state takes it, but it's not far. I think it ends right at the airport, the first airport driveway, if you're going from this side, from 62. I believe you're correct. That would put Lozano's building on the town portion of the road. Yes, which is, I guess why he's asking you. It's for the purpose of a new restricted truck entrance, where to be performed includes a new curb cut, expanded drive and parking to increase parking and improved circulation. How wide is the turn? They'll be in to talk to you, I think, too. They need a culvert. They just said, say, I don't know. You're the most big stuff. Now you're in the results. Right. That's an additional turn cut, not a replacement or reworking, something inside of there. I think they want to use a truck entrance. What does that look like to me? They just worded it. They have to do this. Their engineer has done a sketch. This has not been approved yet by the DRB, so I would suggest if you do decide to grant this, it would be conditional on the DRB's decision. Wouldn't they need it to stop work? We're asking for a curb cut of 95 feet. That would still be for trucks. Yeah, they did say, and that's for truck entrance. And do you need a decision tonight? Do we need to act on this tonight? I think someone from representing this will be in sometime around 7.30 to talk to you further about it. We'd like to have the applicant come in because they know more details. This is a surveyed parcel and description based on the four rod right away. And I do note here, it says the right way for airport road is assumed to be three rods, 49.5 feet. Is there a way we can confirm that or will they confirm that for us? I believe that they are correct that it is three rod road. And it's probably one, as in many cases with our roads, they came by prescription rather than anything else. So what's that gonna have in between? Do we know how far it is in between the other curb cuts there or are there? Yeah, it should show right there. You know, like what's up here. Well, this is, it's all about going to be a zoning thing. That's going to be the developmental review board anyhow. There is a case before the development review board. You know, all this really is just us, whether they can work in the right of way, content general, PRB approval. Exactly. Fairly simple. And I think this gentleman knows a lot more than I do. You came at a good time. Come on up, please. Perfect time. Come here, give me a second. So if you got a moment like this, I can set up a tripod real quick. Great. I'm gonna start asking you some questions. Thank you so much. What are you looking for? We are working, I've changed this a lot. So I'm thinking that right now we're working on right-of-way opportunity. Two hundred and fifty-seven feet both. South of the town. South of the town. East out of the airport road. So, that's what I'm looking for. So this is the problem. No. Yep. I'll leave it there. And then what's beyond that is for the staff. They would be here a little late, but they're in the hell of it. Have a good day. OK. Is that a decent spot or would you like someone else? I think that's fine. We could even bring it closer if you'd like. OK. I think we'd have a better stand for how many of these we do. We're going to have a better one in the week. I hope not. Maybe Bruce will buy you one. Thank you for being here tonight. Of course. I am. I'm from DeWolf and my name is Richard Holburn. They've been discussing it a little bit. Yep. So if you could explain what your project is. Yep. Currently we have a project, an application in with the DRB, the V-Trans and Tom Lowe's on the property owner. They want to do a project expanding the parking over there to better meet the needs for V-Trans and improve some truck circulation on site. So they're proposing a new curb cut, trucks entering only 250 approximately feet south of the current entrance so that trucks can enter here and have an easier circulation around the site and then leaving the site. I think I'll be leaving the site at the new curb set or out the original? Out the original. The new curb cut is trucks in only. There will be no cars leaving that curb cut. Currently when they come on site here in the northern axis I'll call now they'll come in and they either have to stop and jimmy around and back around and this will just improve their circulation. How many trucks are they? It's like three to four a week. So it's maybe one or maybe two. Tractor trailers, box trailers. Tractor trailers. Loading docks in that building? It's not loading docks but they have two 12 foot wide and 20 foot tall doors I think on either side of this building and they tend to bring trucks in and either the smaller ones that they can drive through and the bigger ones can pull in here and then back into the building. They won't expect this to take an increased truck traffic on the airport road or at all? It won't increase traffic. It shouldn't have any effects on traffic safety because it's only trucks in and no one's coming out of that entrance. You said you have to go to the DRV still? We do. Our meeting is next Thursday. Tuesday. Tuesday. Yep. 20th. Yep. So that's just on the town road, right? It's just beyond the state. It is. I think this switch of pavement right there that you can see in that picture is the change in the state town road. Do you have any more questions about it? Any concerns with it? No, I'm just starting on the increased traffic or anything else. Well, like I said, because of, I mean, the distance between the two, as I think I mentioned in that application, just under the separation distance based on the V-trans rules, but because it's entrance only, we don't expect it to have any impact on safety. Make a motion to approve the work in the right-of-way permit for edge road development contingent upon the DRV approval. My second motion. Any other discussion? Those in favor? Motion carries. Tom will have that for you tomorrow. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. That was helpful to us. Of course. We did update the plant. Sorry, I should have mentioned this before. Nothing changed. I just added a little more annotations. So you can see that we're going to have signs showing that it's exit only. But I want to, if you want to keep that for your record, I will look at these. There's not a lot of changes. We've got to do that a lot faster than I expected. I had a whole lot of material just in case. Always good to be prepared. That's right. Well, thank you very much. Good evening. It was tough, Tom, but they got through it. The email did say 7.30 at 7.28. Right. Well, we expedited it tonight. Thank you. Good night, Tom. Okay. Public Works Joint Meeting. Yes. Members of the Public Works Board are here. And they would like to discuss. I think you would like to hear about their sewer project. The extension on Payne Turnpike North. We have two questions that have come up. One is the USDA funding. And I'll let Tom or the Public Works Board discuss that with you. And we also need some signatures on an agreement for the easement deed for the Vermont Chamber of Commerce. So maybe let you all come closer. And I think this is an opportunity we had talked last time about having the Public Works Board, or many, because oftentimes it's Tom and me that you're getting our information from. And sometimes I think it's better to have it from the committee. So I think I'm going to talk. So the Police Work Board has three major projects going on right now. Now many of you have heard a lot about it. The first is one of the very active events for about 18 months. Payne Turnpike North, which will bring Gravity Sewer Service from Route 62 to Fisher Road. That is when you look at the new zoning regulations and the town plan, that's really the last piece of sewage needed for this new town-centered concept. In effect, it circled up the new town center with the sewer. A municipal water was put in there in 2016. As Dana mentioned, we've just heard word this morning that USDA has made an offer of a 2.75% interest on a 30-year note for this project. The town voted and approved a bond initiative on this project in August of 2018 to $2.2 million. We're going to try our best to come underneath that $2.2 million. So we just received a very important easement from the Chamber of Commerce on the corner of Fisher and Stewart Road there. So when you see the Chamber of Commerce, please express the gratitude towards them. They have asked for, in granting that easement, they asked, are there any out-of-pocket expenses that the town reimburses them? And they're asking that that would not exceed $2,000. I think it's going to be significantly less than that. I know Chextoro has done their legal work on the easement at Gratis, and so I think it's going to be significantly less than the $2,000. So they sign the easement in good faith, and Dana has the out-of-pocket expense agreement there for your folks' consideration tonight. So normally you would have had this first. Correct. But due to the way life is, it didn't work. And they did this in good faith. Right. Absolutely. Right. So that's the pain term pipe north. I think it's had significant value to the town. There are several projects that are in the planning stages that have been rumored about. In this corridor, nothing has come to the zoning office yet, but I expect soon that there's going to be some activity there. The other sewer project that we have is the cooperative effort between the town of Berlin's public work department and eight to nine neighbors on Crosstown Road. The town put in a grant application to the Northern Borders Regional Planning Commission, and we've asked for approximately $130,000 of a $260,000 project to bring Gravity Soar to Crosstown Road. How the balance of that money is going to come from is that 25% of the money is going to be paid by the folks who connect to the system, and 25% of the monies will come from the capital reserves in the sewer division. So we are supposed to hear, I thought we'd hear by now, any day if that project's been awarded. So one of the folks who reviews that is the governor. He just happens to be a Berlin resident, so he's having coffee with them some day, asking about the project. The third item that we've really been working on and very successfully, as we put in 2016, the new municipal water system was, and Berlin's first municipal water system was put in, and we've sold out of our capacity on that system. We're not, and I say that from an allocation standpoint, not from a use standpoint, we're probably about 50% of the actual uses out there, but we have granted permits to folks to build, and there's been some speculative buying by developers to purchase water from this company. And so we've in effect been reached our capacities to sell new water. We spent the last year looking and developing a couple of new water wells. We looked at taking an option on two wells near the wells that we have now on Dodge Farm. We've drilled one of them, and it's wells coming in at 200% capacity. So we're very pleased with that. We are now in the final stages of exercising that option. We expect closing by the end of the month. Thank you to the select board for the monies that we needed to make those option payments. The plan is then for town meeting of 2020, go to town bond vote for the completion of that water system to get that water system. There's a couple pieces that the public work board is looking for that project. One of them itself is the well and connecting to when we build our pump house up there now, we left capacity for one more well, so we don't really have to do anything to the internal workings of our pump house. The tank is adequately size of our lines or such that none of that's an issue. It's running the pipes and the pumps to get it into that pump house. But the other piece we're looking at is how billing is done for water and sewer. You have water meters at all of our customers. There's no sewer meters, so you take a reading off of water and that's what we bill both water and sewer off of. Some of those meters out there are 30-some years old. None of them are owned by the town of Berlin, so there are different models. So we're very good likelihood that part of this bond vote next spring would be to replace all those meters with smart meters now where you can actually drive by and get the readings. It's downloadable. You're not having Diane having to type in all these things now, all these readings. It tells you when a meter was offline, so if a customer bypasses your meter, you know when that happens now. We would know when that happens. It'll forewarn you that this 100-gallon-a-day customer is now 1,000 gallons a day. Something's wrong. Yet you're proactive on the maintenance side of the business as well. So we really see that as a little cost savings for our customers and for the management as well. So that bond vote, as I said, will be in town meeting of 2020 with probably a likelihood of construction in the spring of 2021. What is your estimate of the dollar amount of the bond? Because we still haven't got firm estimates on somewhere between $300,000 and $500,000. How far across town are you going? Pardon me? How far across town are you going? Oh, it's from just the intersection of Painter and Pike North up to Bosworth. What's that bond? How much is the meter change out? We had a real rough estimate of about $200,000. And that's every meter? Every customer? It's only all at once. It's none of the larger commercial meters. Those are all relatively new. So all the two-inch meters are not going up? And they're also very expensive. But all the new meters, the large meters were installed for the water system. You can put a module on those to make them wireless, because they're new enough. So with the old meters, I don't know if one of my properties in Barry had one. So the city gave me a meter, but it was at my expense to install it. Do you think a lot of people will do that, or how are you going to handle that? I'm just curious. Well, I think the savings that we will incur for not having to go door-to-door and read meters, I think we could probably put out a contract to install it. That's what the bond was in, that we'd install them. I would agree. I think it makes sense for the water division to own the meter, for them to put it in. If there's a problem like a frozen meter or something, then the customer, of course, would be expected to pay the replacement cost. How much is a meter, I hate to ask. It's about $230 a meter. The small ones are half-inch to quarter-inch. As this grows, and as the water and sewer grows, the door-to-door meter readings, it's going to become a bigger project. I just think that the fact that we can automate and save that. I mean, I shouldn't be saying that, but I think it's a very good idea. Usually those smart meters are very handy, too, if you have a water leak. Many times you can tell what time of day the water is being used. I would think, I mean, it's quite handy. Save you all that in the middle of winter, having someone try and crawl over snow banks and things to get to somebody's meter. When I was reading meters and the meter would be under the porch or something. I was a lot younger then, but... It's a great way to help households conserve their water. Yeah, yeah. So, again, none of what we do can't be done without you guys. I mean, if you look at the Newtown plan, the new zoning, with the Newtown Center is the focus of both of those things. I think this board has embraced that idea and has taken that bull by the horns and trying to get ahead of that project. We've already seen a 98-unit senior housing project over there. I think great value to the grand list. There's some conversations with a 60-unit residential housing project over there now that you folks may be hearing about that very soon. They came in and talked to... I know they talked to you. They came in some time ago, yes. The return on your investments pretty quick. When you look at the growth in the grand list. On the water project, Tom, how soon would you think that well needs to go online? It's not right away. My personal... I want to construct it in 2021. We'll get a bond vote in 2020. Right, to be in the ready. And have it online at the end of summer, early fall of 2021. The project's approved and there is a large development that goes in. What is adequate supply in the wells now? We have about 50% of... But we have two... The Berlin Health and Rehab is soon to connect. That's about four units of water. This... Over at the senior project, they wanted 8,000 gallons a day of water, which is another 35 units of water. So if those two projects come on, we get tight. And I've been talking to the hospital, the hospital. They have some interest in us providing some fire protection for them. If you remember back two or three years ago on the board, this board decided to pursue the fourth well. And the whole reason was it takes a significant amount of time to pull all these types of what you need to do together to be ready for it. And that's where they've been proactive on that. So will this additional well be enough to satisfy the town center development entirely? We've gone through... Because in the town center, the hospital's part of the town center, they're on Montpelier water. So that's a good bit of the allocation that we would have... If we had to go it on alone that we were doing our part. So from the water side, I think we're decent there. On the sewer side, I know we are, because we have 200,000 gallons a day in our pocket from the allocation from the city of Montpelier. It's the water, which will be the... It's more finite than sewer. The interesting part is when you apply for your wastewater permit, the formula that the state makes you use tells you how much water you need, and almost every time it's 50% the use of just 50% of what you ask for. So we might be sold out on allocation, but we're not using half of it. I guess that's the best way to explain it. So you play a capacity. Correct. We believe we deal with the well for it. The new well, what percent of the... When the new well comes on, how much more will that be for the system to be able to handle? How much more will we be able to sell? What do we have for gallons per month? There was twice. How many gallons a minute did we get in the first three? Each well was 50 gallons a minute. So this one's twice? Between 100 and 150 gallons. So this is two and a half times the last while we drill. It's two and a half times better than the first three. That's a good way to explain it. Now you'll have to play a capacity. And with this option agreement, we're taking an option on a fifth well as well. We can only hope we run out. But again, we're meeting today. We're looking out in the next ten years where are we going? And so you're always in pursuit of the next one. You have to be ahead of that curve because it takes so long to get it done. What are you going to take and see when you expect to be able to take and see about doing the test well, doing the boring on the next well? We want to get this one in line, see what our customer base is, and then go from there. We really haven't got a time frame or rad. Is there another well site up there now still, or is it these pretty much yet? We have, we're asking for an option on a fifth site. Which isn't drilled yet. But is there any other sites after that? There was none that we, on this last round of investigation, that we thought would make sense. Because now you're getting further away from your pump house. Once you do that, then you have to build new infrastructure and all that. That was a big plus with this well. But it was close to where the pump house was. But if we go to capacity, it'll make more sense even if we have to take the infrastructure in. You have to, absolutely. That'd be no choice. A good way of looking at it is, this well that we currently drilled, and if the fifth well ended up being the same as the first three, we've doubled what we currently have. That's a lot of water. And in Zoning, are you seeing any great increase in applications? It's been a slow year from Zoning, to be honest with you. Everybody, I talked to the City of Barrier, it's sitting on a pillar. Everybody's having a slow year. There's rumors of big projects. I've seen big projects. Tom Luzon was in here for a very, very decent project. He's coming to the DRV here next week. This 98-unit senior housing has now just started to rack 250. So they want to start construction spring of next year. So that'll be a big project. The hospital is talking about an expansion down into hospital too, but we haven't seen any applications. Anything else? I would, going back to the sewer agreement with the Board's agreement with the Chamber of Commerce agreeing to reimburse the chamber up to $2,000 for any expenses that might arise. I'm looking for a motion for the Board for that. Make a motion to reimburse the Chamber of Commerce for out-of-pocket expenses associated with the easement, not to exceed $2,000. And to sign the agreement. I second the motion. Any further discussion? Those in favor? Those opposed? Motion carries. We talked about a resolution naming you to be able to sign the U.S.U. That's where we're talking at. We'll be going there next. But thank you for reminding me. Do you need us for that? I would ask if you would stay, because usually when I ask the Board for $2 million, they balk. Come on. It's $2 million? Yeah. It's $2 million between friends. You're putting a lift station on this piece of property at the Chamber? We are. It will then replace the 30-plus-year old station behind Shaw's. And so that will go away. And it will eliminate about 4,000 feet of force main that is through some very inaccessible sections of town. And it takes it into about 500 feet of force main, which dumps into a manhole on a town highway right away. So all around much easier, much, yeah. Force main, so the woods are not fun. No. Through a wetland. And a questionable quality right now. The other issue is the USDA bond. This is for the sewer project. As Tom mentioned, the town voted $2,200,000. And we just got information from USDA that they would like to be able to close this loan within the next week. So they didn't really give us much time to do this. It's a 30-year loan. It's a 2.75%. They need someone to be appointed as authorized to sign from the town. And in their email, it says, will that sign be available from this Friday through next week to sign on short notice? If not, is there a board contingency that someone else could be authorized to sign with a corporate resolution? I asked the Public Works Board to stay so they could explain. I think it's obvious what they need. $2,200,000, but if you had questions, they would know. I wouldn't. So if you had any questions. This is for the paying term. Right. So the question is, can we make Dana the authorized signer so that we can close the loan before the next meeting if USDA pulls the trigger? Can we make a motion to make Dana the authorized signer for the USDA to see 2.2 million, 30-year loan, 2.0, 5%. You have a second? I second the motion. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Anything else? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you for all of your legwork and coming and explaining everything to us. You're trusting us. Thank you. So I'm still here. taxpayer, Berlin taxpayer. Excellent. You might want to do the best out of it. I know. Hold on. Was it before I got here? No, we haven't discussed that yet. Well, there's a public hearing that's the next soft board meeting, but I think it's going to take a while. I see. You don't need me here. We might want to stay for a minute. You might want to stay for a minute. Because we are better touch on it. Thank you. Let's take in, skip to the letter from the doubts. We did receive a letter and I think you have gotten copies of the letter that were written by Mr. and Mrs. Doubt regarding their views and thoughts on the benefit or non-benefit of changing the class 4 section of Black Road to a class 3 section, which is actually from Crosstown Road to just past the water driveway. I'm not talking about going all the way to Emerson's, just that amount. We have scheduled a public hearing on September 5th for this. I would suggest to the board that they take this letter under advisement as a testimony from the doubts for the September 5th meeting. And I did respond to their letter that evening just so that everyone is aware and I forwarded that to Dana just basically outlining that we would have the discussion tonight regarding their letter and how we move forward. I think I just wanted... I think I just wanted you to know the letter was here. They've commented. I think that's good for the town, too. I mean, that's really good for us to get on our roads and have inventory. We have sent, there has been a public notice in the paper, I mailed out to interested property owners, we should have gotten one notice that it was going to be September 5th. I don't think I've received that, the new one. If you haven't, I'll send you a copy. Good? Yep. I'm out of here. That's a tight pair of Berlin. Have a wonderful meeting. Same here. Nice meeting you. I'm glad you want your Camaro back. He has his license back. He's done easement deed, USDA funding. Would you like to do the letter from Peter Hogg? Peter Hogg wrote us a letter and normally you would have seen what he wants but I just wanted you to be aware it came in. He's concerned about the speed limit on Brookfield Road. You'd like to see the entire length of Brookfield Road be reduced from 35 to 25 or even 15, I'm not sure if we can go that low. However, I have spoken to the police about it and I've also spoken to regional planning about doing a traffic study that's normally how we do that but I wanted you to be aware that that's here. So we have gone through your list of changes. I have one more but goals can be the last one, Brad. It's confusing. Maybe the select board minutes would be. Okay. The approval of the select board minutes from 7, 18, 2019. I make the motion that we approve the select board minutes of July 18, 2019 as presented. I'll select up the motion. Any further discussion? Those in favor? Aye. The motion carries. The town administrator is reporting with her. Yes. I really don't have very much other than we discussed earlier that the date has been set for the town fair for the league October 2nd. There will be more coming along with that. I did receive an email from Paul Luciano. Paul, as you remember, is the consultant we're working with for the update of the local hazard mitigation program. He is just reporting on what he's done since then. He's been talking with Weston Mobile Home Park and their mitigation plans and suggestions for the ditching on Route 12 to further protect the park. He is asking if the town has an opinion on this idea. I would think that would be a good idea unless you disagree with me. He's trying to talk with, he's waiting to talk with V-Trans Rep about the status of Dog River plan projects. He is going to be reviewing those with V-Trans. And he has gotten, and Tom has provided him with information regarding our national flood insurance program and our CRS involvement and current policy and procedure. And that was just an update from Paul. Okay. And that's it. That's it. Thank you. Round table, Justin? If we could do the goals. Oh, that's right. Yeah, I'd love that. Many times in places that have been, boards have taken some time to come up with goals they might have in mind for. We've got quite a few projects going on right now. And they can be small goals or large goals. I am thinking that a meeting with the board and department heads and myself would be very helpful. Again, I think it's good for us to get together with department heads, see what their department needs and what goals they have. And these not necessarily have a dollar amount attached to them. We've got, Justin and I have discussed, we've got a lot of, or would be very beneficial to us to update our road records and have easier access to many questions that we get. And it's just over time. We have a new, we've inherited these roles by prescription and there's a lot of information and we'd like to kind of put that together. I think that's one project. So I guess I'm bringing it up so the board can kind of think what might be helpful. Right. Dana and I have talked and, you know, for me being new to the board, whatever coming in, look at it, we don't have a complete road inventory and when we were reviewing, I believe in our last meeting, the board was not on the map. I think it would be good to research that and maybe just, I don't even know how we'd go about it but how we're meaning to discuss something like that. It's a perfect time to do it because we are working on this general municipal road permit through the state. Now that's a long-term project that has to be completed by 2036. I hope I'm still around. But at any rate, the information that we're gathering for that would be very helpful, I think, to put in it. But I think it's one, a project that would be a good one for the town to undertake. And really wrapping, you know, for me, wrapping it around where the town center is, how that's all going to come into play and if that is a goal of the board to help increase the tax base, I'll really support that. It's helpful for me, you know, for the board's input because when you're doing a day-to-day operation and putting out the day-to-day fires, I think sometimes you can miss the big picture. Surely there must be something you want. You must have a goal. Yes, I do. Okay, anything else on that, Dana? No. What we need to do is just start getting all those things together. And maybe we could get a meeting with a few more people coming to the table to talk with you about it. I remember when I was on the school board that we had a retreat. I don't know if you can still do that for goal-planting. I don't know if that works with the select board or how that works. Yeah, I did research that. Obviously every meeting has to be public. Yep, it has to be public. And you're also supposed to be able to allow anyone who attends input. And that might be helpful. But sometimes it might be helpful to have a retreat someplace other than here. Well, I was thinking if we got some of the boards together like we did at the last meeting we had at the Grange, that might be a good time to just actually come up with an idea of having input and you know, congeal the boards a little bit more. So maybe we'll schedule something in the fall, late fall maybe. It might be a good time. Well, before we start doing budget. Yeah, that's going to be a good time. Well, we'll think about it. I'm just trying to think if we're... It'd be helpful before budget time because I mean, you could do it before and do it at the first of the year or in between the holidays. Well, I'm just thinking if we came up with any immediate goals that may need some financing if you have the budget issue or not. Okay, anything else here? No. So around table, Justin? Nothing. Well, any executive session? No. Motion to adjourn. So moved. I second the motion to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Aye.