 All right, so it's 6.01 we're going to call the select board meeting to order. Chris Jarvis is not going to be present tonight. So someone wants to nominate someone to be chair for the meeting. David to be the chair for this evening's select board meeting. Second. All in favor. Hi. All right. Okay. First order is to approve the agenda. We have any additions, deletions or. So we need to add, we need to, you need to re-sign. The promissory note for maskoma. Same terms, same for the line of credit that hopefully we're not going to use, but there was. And then send the third page. So by the time they sent it, and then we signed it, they saw the date on it, and then they said, we need you to re-sign the entire package. So what you'll do is you'll just make a motion for Chris Jarvis to sign, because that's how they did all the documents. And I already asked him, he said he'd come in tomorrow and sign. So we'll have to add the maskoma promissory note to here somewhere. So why can't we do that right now? You told everybody what we needed. You could. It's up to you, sir. Second. All in favor. All right. All right. All right. There you go. We'll process it right off the list. So that was the only addition I had, Dave. Okay. Motion to approve. All in favor. Okay. Hey, first on our list. Lisa. So I'm Lisa Campbell. I am here representing the library tonight. And I watched the videos from December 11th and December 18th. And it sounds like you might have some questions. So I thought I'd come and just see if there's anything you'd like to ask. I don't know the answer. I will find out. And get back to you. But I just thought I would be present and. Answer any questions you might have. I did put your letter that's been it. That nice letter that then it wrote and then the backup. I put that back in this packet to just to kind of brush everybody's. All right. All right. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm just asking a question of. Three so. So that I can review that because I do have a question. Okay. I want to make sure that. Question I have is not already already answered. So it's like this. You want to borrow mine. I believe we were asking when you were. We would have asked. For a. More long range plan for fundraising. And we don't think we, I don't see it here. It's interesting you asked that question. Because I went back and I looked at the videotape from November 26th. 2022. And we didn't actually didn't have a discussion about. Sharing long range planning. Not that we object to that. But it wasn't on my list to follow up on it. I thought, how did I miss that? So, but we can certainly, I can talk to you about what our plan is at the moment. So last year, when we made the request. It was in part so that we can allow our investment account to. We could keep, you know, from. You know, continually drawing off it. We were drawing off about $3,000 a month. And then, and of course, spinning down the investment account. So the idea was that if the town was able to. Support. You know, some of our operating costs. For a period of. Five. I don't know. Depending on how the, you know, how things grow in terms of financial investments. That we could build that account up and then be more of a position to support ourselves. So that was the idea. And we are pulling together a strategic planning committee. We did a lot of researching this year, trying to figure out if we needed to hire somebody to help. Guide the process. And through our research, I found out that most libraries boards just do it on their own. So we're going to go ahead and do that on our own. And it's taken a year for us to get there. And we're going to do that on January. 28. Is our first. 26. Is our library board meeting and we're going to start that process. Yeah. So. Thank you. But, but. It'll be nice to see that in writing, you know, you know, with some numbers and dates and stuff. It's like food shelf. They came through with a bunch of what they're going to do and how much and when, right? All that. Werba does it all. Obviously they want a lot more money than you. But they still, they have, they have a huge financial page. But anyway, something that we all can look at. Certainly also, if anybody ever wants to look at numbers that we've got so far, you know, you know, we certainly have budgets every year and that kind of thing. And those numbers are always available. If you come in the library, there's a book that says minutes on it. And it also contains the budget numbers that are presented at each meeting. But yes, part of our strategic planning is about the financial teacher. Part of it is about what we want for our building. Because when you're working on grants, it's helpful to be able to root for back to a strategic plan that says, you know, we want more efficient heating systems, or we want to update our windows or whatever it is. So that would all be a part of that. Not only the finances, but the, the building. Issues. Anybody else have any questions about. That's quite an undertaking, isn't it? Yeah, it is. We've gotten through grants this year, but it's the hard part, as you know, is not always just getting the grant, but then following through and all the stuff you have to do after this. So we're trying to be judicious about what we apply for. And just the strategic planning in general is, yeah, is tough. The strategic planning in general is different. Right. Exactly. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we've been given some resources or loans, some resources from some local libraries and from the month department of libraries. So we're going through that now to make sure that we're staying on track. Oh, no. Yes. And it'll be helpful for you for yourselves. I'm sorry. It'll be helpful for yourselves also. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So we have done some fundraising. So we sent the appeal out to the town. We talked about that a year ago when we first came to you guys. We've got a $10,000 grant from the American library association to fix our front step and add some better rampage on the back of the building. We got and we applied for an award from Lawson's liquids. A print window. And that's the thing where you go into their place and they have a put it in the jar kind of thing. And we got so next April. We'll put some, we'll put an ad. We'll put a thing in the paper about it. But next April. Where's one. This coming April. That's right. Our cells and the library in Berry. in April so we're pretty excited about that and we'd like to use that to update our heating system that's our current plan for that um we got the what the cliff grant which wrapped up last June so we got money for books we got money for the school to get books and then we got the courier grant so we got a grant to help pay for our courier for the interlibrary loan and for summer program so we're working on it that's great set of things are you one are you a non-profit we are yes so um I just saw recently that preservation trust I don't know if you're tapped into what they're doing but um you would probably qualify this with the building um they do sort of historic preservation Vermont specific they're a Vermont foundation okay um and the reason I was asking about the non-profit status is they just opened up a round of grants that you now don't have to exclusively be a non-profit to qualify for okay and they've expanded so one time some of the things that you hit with historic buildings in you know trying to get grant funding to upgrade them and upkeep them is it'll be so specific on like it has to be facade or it has to be for this and they opened it up in a way that it was really sort of refreshing to see so it's like oh now you not only don't have to be a non-profit to qualify for the grant but it also expanded what you could use the grant for in terms of your facilities and infrastructure of the building and they're really specific about historic infrastructure but I just wonder if they would be I can forward you yeah okay I'll look them up thank you and it was I think it's still open because I just saw the email okay in the last week or so yeah that might be a fruitful one that's helpful yep um so uh and along that topic as far as the incorporated non-profit um we are not a municipal library Chris was correct about that um he said town library but municipal library is what Vermont calls them but we are a public library because we get some town funding and so um that's I just wanted to provide some clarity about that um we talked about how many people we had at the historic the history talks that year 123 125 people show up for um the variety of historic talks Kathy that's a ball up yep um and we had the children's events the teddy bear picnic the teddy bear sleepover we have a book group who meets regularly santa king okay and the mother's day t is also always very popular so you know community events nice oh yep we um we have a bunch of groups who use the library as a space to meet at so um there's I you've probably noticed on the way by we have somebody who's doing a game day so they come and do that um and we have a couple other book groups who meet there there's a closing group that meets there in the winter and we have um the make it better foundation with um supports uh children and families with osteo sarcoma and they write postcard and letters to kids who are in the hospital oh yeah i'm gonna just say a breakfast hmm oh we did a coin we did do a coin drop that was really nice and we did some fundraising up on interstate at the rest area we've done that twice now so and we'll do it again in the spring yeah so we're working we're working oh we're open on saturday mornings now too volunteer staff it but we're open on saturday mornings on 9 to 11 great good chat so I when you called I should have told you that we talked we asked about if someone was gonna be you or Ben or someone to speak you know on town meeting it's just like you guys have always done for warva they usually have someone who steps up and speaks but just so we can be clear and we have it in the minutes you the library would like to be just incorporated as part of the budget in the future and not be a separate article that's what you would like that's our preference okay um and when I went back and watched the chat town meeting video as well because I was just trying to figure out track what we had said and what our interactions were and um uh it sounded to me like Chris was thinking about that when he spoke at town meeting last year yeah it wasn't completely clear to me that that was his intention but um it sounded like that that was a thought so yes we would indeed like to just be included as an appropriation and the good thing is even though you're separated out it's not they didn't you know they didn't ask you to petition or anything like that you just got automatically put on the warning so warva's been that way since I came so I imagine you've always voted warva kind of as its own item you know separately maybe just have someone speak about it or something you mean at town meeting yeah we never had to speak at town meeting before last year no no I mean warva has warva always spoken at town meeting like they're a separate article I don't know how they end up being a separate article that you always know why we're valid um that's for 20 grand asking for 120 that's when you made them I wasn't sure what the history was there so what was the history I didn't hear that when they were only wanting around $20,000 they didn't they didn't do that when they meet in three years I think it was they went from that to asking for 120,000 right and it's okay you gotta fight for that financial and you gotta put on your own your own okay all right thank you you couldn't be well I'm very grateful for the White River Valley I'm doing so thank you for supporting them so so we'll just so now at least it's there and it's in the minutes that so next year when we come around to this again we'll be on the same page and write your request right right so thanks should I ask the question you can okay um they are yes a separate article this year this time just because I don't know just like last year they have they're gonna be exactly the same as last year they have 7,500 in the budget and their additional 27,500 is separate article in the warning exactly like it was last year actually weren't expected yeah well I just wanted to comment too that the forward festival as you know is not asking for money this year because of generous donations and good fundraising and all the fun we have doing it um so I would think that perhaps I would suggest that since the library is always building community and that's what the forward festival is all about perhaps that money should be considered as going toward them toward the library thank you well I mean I guess it kind of can we already took we put a zero where yours is so the money just opened up into the budget so I'm not sure yeah they can consider that when they go to do the next they work on the budget here in a little while I'm just suggesting it doesn't have to get back yeah yeah I'm suggesting that that's a good cost well it certainly helped your your money out okay so you would have been better off taking the money and give it to the library so any other questions any other concerns because you said it's not going to the the whole 35 or whatever it is that is wanted will still be part of the warning it doesn't it won't come under the human services budget because the human services budget itself is only okay okay okay so it'll still be on for a warning yeah it's right now it's just like last year so under local appropriations in the budget it says Bethel library because I think we used to give them two maybe 2500 then it went to five then 75 or something like that so that part is under local appropriations which is on the group just above and then the 27 five yeah it's separate right okay I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't sorry about that because I know the human services budget alone is only 30 000 and I was calling them human services I think I misspoke because to me it and then I realized okay no that's local appropriations there's a little header difference I'm not sure why but so yeah so no they're still in there okay so my family's when I'm meeting with them at school if you leave here and you have a question email me call me stop by the library whatever you know we're happy to be or just be as open and straightforward as we can be and if we don't know the answer we'll find out yeah you can come to the board meeting if you want part of the municipality or not technically like your own commission but are your board meetings on the town's web pages part of the community events and they have been but they could be yeah worth putting them on there just so people know when you're meeting and be more informed absolutely we do want if I don't know how does that work for the town you just send it to Kelly and she can if you always meet the same like if you always meet the first Thursday of the month if you just or whenever you meet if it's a set time just tell Kelly and she can set it on the community calendar okay it'll just say I have a little star if they click on that date and it'll just say you know Beth the library meeting at 6 p.m. or 7 or 10 or whatever time you meet okay kind of like the legislative breakfast this morning had the little star on there okay yeah yeah yeah it's quarterly yeah on a personal no if you need if you need anything while you're doing your strategic you know like help with a spreadsheet or anything like that you know let me know I'm happy to if I can I'm happy to help okay well thank you yeah I appreciate the offer yeah let me know okay it's pretty good it's fine yeah like setting up a spreadsheet or doing something like that I'm sure that then it's probably like Ben it's been great about that yeah honestly it's been awesome to have him because he brings out a barrier for nonprofits yeah um so yeah but yeah if you need some just hauler I'm happy yeah it's it's no thank you very much yep right he brought a very nice cake today too he what brought a very nice cake oh he is a good baker a good tea he brings good tea all right um I guess we'll open up for a public comment things that are not on the agenda Kelly okay thank you many of you may be aware every fall I attend the select board meetings when the draft budget figures are being discussed I plan to attend the December 18th meeting however because of bringing that day I had water in my basement that needed to be taken care of however I didn't watch the December 11th and December 18th meetings on Florida I was surprised and disappointed concerning your discussions about the recreation committee especially because there was not any committee member present here to provide you with any feedback or representation of what we do that I'm here to make a public comment I feel that I can give you necessary background and information to clear up any misinformation that was spoken at those previous meetings in the spring of 2010 I was asked to be on a new forming recreation committee the previous recreation committee had folded some time ago upon joining the new committee I was told that the committee operated from April to the end of August it was to interview applicants for lifeguards hold swimming lessons done up and hold an open house at the beginning of the swimming season the new group that formed on in 2010 started looking at the recreation center in a different respect it felt that maintenance at the center had been left it felt that there could be other funds and programs at the center that would attract families to Bethlehem the first week of August 2011 the committee and left board members met at the center it was agreed that a massive plan for improvements were needed the town had been voted at the median town meeting in March 2011 to start an improvement but the committee was given the task to work on a master plan so we did a survey we hired bia out of middlebury to draw up three designs for us to present to the voters at town meeting 2013 that original survey has only been used as a guideline we have never used that survey as a must do the survey showed us that bike paths was the number one thing people wanted number two on this survey was a new poolhouse and ice rink ice bathing rink so the administration and committee got together started working on the new poolhouse the back this is the poolhouse 40 40.9 so the the administration and committee started working on a new poolhouse we met with bia monthly but then all of a sudden we had a new town manager all of a sudden we were excluded from the poolhouse construction this happened even though the committee had three construction people on it willing to help we had lucian hankle marco and quarry stirves the construction of the new poolhouse was poorly managed the company doing the work was given no timelines or oversight it was finally completed in july 2016 with major laws that one of them being no drains in the bathrooms now everybody knows that you need drains in a in a shower bathroom um allows you off the floor that has been remodeled a puff and chlorine rump that needs to be changed now denise you mentioned volleyball at at the our original group had an avid volleyball person in on the committee we had plans for volleyball however keith and abby constructed the parking lot wrong not by the design and put the lamppost in the wrong places that action wrecked our plans for volleyball committees only are relying on volunteers we rely on volunteers though we had setbacks from the arnold ireland administration the committee sought ways to press on hyping trails were a top voter hyping trip 34.1 was a top getter plus we had interest in skateboarding quarry stern set up a design workshop with spawn ranch at that workshop we discovered hypers we discovered skateboarders thatcher henley and shane tinsley joined our committee chris forbs joined the conservation committee we now had the volunteers we needed so where are we going to get the money so thatcher henley worked on grants and quarry worked on getting a tony hawk grant now we needed more money on a monday in march 2016 i was talking to actley leakin from gifford about money they give out she told me that the marco foundation was about to give out money she told me that i had to all i had to do was have the administration send her a request for money for recreation and they had to be to her by friday i called abby sherman she told me that you could not do that without select board okay and they were not meeting until monday i called carl russell he told me no i called ashley back and told her why i could not apply well in april i was in the town library and guess what lisa hill told me congratulations the marco foundation has given you money a friend told me that he read about the torrent foundation giving money to skateboarders so i applied unfortunately covid came and their money source had dried up then things changed and the torrent foundation was able to make money grants again i called this administration therese about replying i was told no because they thought the torrent foundation did not support skateboard parks a few weeks later i got a call a phone call from the torrent foundation the person on the phone said could you use um 15 000 dollars i said yes when graham aggar was town manager we had an opportunity to apply for 50 000 from the land water conservation fund because we had a matching 50 000 from the voter to use as the match the procedure for the grant is a written application and an interview we got turned down so i followed up on finding out why we got turned down i was told that our town manager graham had submitted an incomplete and sloppy application and also that at the interview he seemed to apply that beckel did not really need or want to escape her have you ever read the book the little engine that could to your children our committee is a little engine that was trying to go over the mouth we have worked with four town managers we have worked with a variety of select board members we have been given roadblocks detours had to jump through hoops and been told no yet as that little engine traveling over the mountain it kept going saying i think i can i think i can well we as a committee have kept struggling along the committee doesn't feel we need a new set right to tell us what people want the reason being that the committee has been listening to the families who use the center when they told us that they didn't want a skate park walking their sledding hill we moved the location of the skate park they told us that they wanted the field sales so we we made sure that we got permits for the items in different places so that we could save the field for the families that went into us now the survey said that that 35.2 percent of people want a community center a teen center it's number five on our survey um now Owen from Bay's Leonard me and i met several times in 2022 Owen and i have looked at two buildings as a possible community community center and i have looked at a third building we also started looking into ways to go about financially doing it at the town meeting community dinner last november we just had it a couple months ago Lisa McCoy stood up and said we need a community center i have a group of men that want tennis courts i have a group of seniors that want pickleball courts baren griffin came to our december meeting and we talked about a baseball basketball court at the school or at the center we've also gotten permit permit design for a basketball court of the center i am also have been correspondent with barnard recreation they recently have a new basketball court a new tennis court and a new pickleball court your survey is not going to tell us anything new because we've been listening to the families we've been looking listening to what they want and what changes um we need to make to meet their needs when you were talking to these people that say a stage that you're talking said you were talking about at uh december 11th and we've never a meeting that i want are you talking about all the concepts that you talked about do you point out that we have a pavilion and ice rink with no space to the task force do you point out that we say the old swing set in with a beautiful new area do you ask them that they use the free picnic table and the free grills for an evening with their families do you ask them how often they hike the trails or use the center how have they attended a recreation committee meeting baren griffin came people come to our are they coming to our committee meetings and telling us do they want to volunteer to out with anything related to the center remember we have volunteers we are limited to what interest time and energy we have to spend on projects we are not town employees where is the positive vibes from the dust we have tennis court the 30 percent basketball court the 29th volleyball 19 percent skateboard park was only 11 percent but we had the volunteers that were willing to put the workers if we have somebody that's willing to put the worker in for basketball like baren griffin came to us we're starting to work on that we will do what people want to help us with and what they tell us they will well thank you ellie for bringing that to our attention now that survey is character so those are from the 2011 yes it is but as i said the families have been coming to us over the years that the end as i said they have been telling us from time to time from 2013 to now they come and tell us we didn't start working until because the bull house was first so they came you know in in 2015 to say we don't when we started working at skate park we don't want to skate park blocking our study so we moved we have been coming to us and saying okay like baren griffin he wants he's trying to figure out about a basketball court at the school or at the center when when we when we got when we get when we had to go before the d r p we've been twice before the d r p we listen to people say we want you to design it in a different type so we have the best the design i don't have that but we have to design for them you know in in where people say we want you know whatever so we do we have it listening and and like like this 2023 baren in 2022 oh and 11 came about a community center um um in in 2020 people came about um what when we started doing the kickflip um workshops people that attended their grandparents are bringing their kids to those every summer we've had three summers and as they're we're talking as their kids are skateboarding they're saying when are you going to do pickleball they want pickleball of course so i i have the phone numbers i have the numbers of the people that want to pick a ball and i have the phone numbers and emails of the three gentlemen at one time schools so i have people that i can follow up on and and yeah whatever so i'm thinking what you're talking about is what was discussed at the last two meetings right the little survey about tennis pickleball right right and i if i correct me anybody if i'm wrong i believe that came about because the survey that part of the master plan because i've been reading the meeting minutes from the from the rec committee and the importance of tennis and pickleball and the master plan which i believe the master plan is from 2012 or 2013 right um is to update that because not everybody goes to the rec committee meetings not everybody goes there this here will be more town-wide because like you said just a few minutes ago 11 percent was the percentage of people that wanted the skateboard park and we the town has since well recently this past year was what 36 37 000 for the rest of the park yeah for part two and when you're saying that the master plan that master plan has changed that master plan okay i'm just going by what you have ellie reading your minutes and in in the minutes it says it was in 2013 because this skateboard park design was blocking the sledding him right because i'm just going by your meeting minutes it says ellie gave a background history of how the master plan for the recreation center came about she and others discussed the progress that has transpired which you just did for us since 2013 and the group also discussed and this is the word that got me the importance of having tennis and pickleball courts so to me that this is just me saying that the group discussed the importance of the tennis and pickleball like nothing else is going to come forward well that's quite fair and fair and asked about the the basketball and yeah and you referred him to the barnard wreck committee and as we all know there's a big difference between the monies that barnard has to spend and what bethal has to spend they can have tennis courts they can have pickleball because they have the people and the tax base and whatever it takes to get those barnard and and bethal is like comparing bethal to burlington we just don't have the same equity that they do but i believe that this new one page survey is for all the residents of bethal to have a say in what goes on because like you know not everybody goes to committee meetings we don't always have that many i know and there's not always a whole bunch of people here i'm on several committees over the years and people show up just at certain points of time um but i believe that it would be for the as what's written as that draft page is to put it out so that the whole town can put their share their say what they want not just a couple people that go to a meeting and say i want a tennis court i want to pick a ball court recreation committee recreation should be for everyone not just the people that skateboard or play tennis and that's what we've always done we right and so for me i don't see making for ice skaters we made it for hypers we made it for kids with the playground with the handy have to sign off to the playground we have been making it for all kinds of people we've made it with our free grills and picnic tables so uh so people can have a picnic there right made it for civilians i hear what you're saying i hear what you're saying i hear what you're saying all kinds of people okay yes i don't guess we're all i'm hearing i still haven't heard what the objection is to having a new survey so that's all we're asking for is just to do another circuit it's not not acknowledging all the things we have done without we're not not acknowledging that from what i can say i don't think that's i don't i'm hearing something very different than just the survey i'm hearing how we as a select board use or don't use respect or don't respect town committees to do our work it feels like that's an emotional thing this is not necessarily reason didn't put it there but it feels not from what i heard ellie say it feels like we're not relying on the work that the rec committee has been doing for years which from my perspective has they have had their ear to the ground better than probably any other committee in town number one but we also heard that last week or last meeting with regard to another committee that has been doing two years worth of work and then when it got to the select board was met with um disrespect for the work that they had been doing and they felt that and i and we do not have any input on what kind of questions you would ask what kind of what kind of survey it would be or what kind of questions you would you ask we had no representation of our input and what what that is coming up and what ends so do you respect them in the committee if you're not even letting us be representatives or not asking us what kind of questions would you like them if we are disrespecting you i apologize as as tonight's chair for the select board because that is definitely not our intent i know we have had several conversations about the good things going on at the rec center oh thank you i hope i haven't heard it lately you again not everybody makes it to every meeting except for us and we don't always make it we try so i don't there i don't believe there's any disrespect uh intended um we have a lot of things a lot of balls to juggle and if we have uh missed that again i apologize well i'll go back to the same question i just asked would you have any objection to uh survey and it's not set in stone so i'll ask you right now would you like to put some questions on yeah is there a committee what they suggested in a minute um do you think you can read what we suggested for for questions because i asked her committee i get i get feedback from for me i don't just think things without feedback from the committee something is whatever they have a right to not need to say the same much what i just i think i want to reiterate because it was said but i think i want to reiterate i think the board does recognize how much the rec committee does i think as a committee in our town you're one of the most active you do a ton of fundraising you do a ton of community events and initiatives like none of that is lost and i i feel bad that you and your committee feel that way that i i don't think it is lost on us but we're clearly not doing a good enough job of giving you the credit for all the things you are doing and i think sometimes when it gets to board meetings we're looking at hard numbers and making hard decisions on a bigger scope for the town and we forget to do some of the niceties and the like hey thank you this was great you know and i think like paul does a great job of kind of reminding us of that of like hey say say the thank yous when when they're there because it is easy to just move on to the next subject matter and then it makes the volunteers and the committee members feel like well what did what did we put all that energy in for if we're not even appreciated for it and so i i hope that you you do see that in the long run we really do see how much your committee and you especially do and we do appreciate that you pushed hard and you've made a lot of stuff happen in the town we're unfortunately again definitely boring members right now so there's we can make some edits what for for ellie said that they talked about what kind of questions they would want next i don't see any in the last um are they from the last meeting the minutes i have are from the december 6th meetings when faren griffin came to talk about basketball that's the mean you should have them um i got the january meeting is yesterday no sunday but we have i don't see him in here oh ellie's been out too so if you usually i'll i see for the oh okay i'm sorry oh i can see yeah yeah because all you have for december 6th is coast border roll call ice ring recreation but if you want to send me questions then then if you send me what the questions you want we can rework this it's only a draft so send me what you want all right it'll send about what questions you it's it's in the pack it's in the package last all this says is what would you like to see at the next recreation activity slash opportunity at the Bethel recreation area now this a park was built a a tennis court b pickleball court c multi sport court surface and parenthesis it's like basketball tennis pickleball volleyball baton but d a floodable rank for ice skating hockey basketball etc or other but if you send whatever you want i'll okay i can yeah there was there's no minute i was looking at the december 6th there's nothing on this and that's fine it's kelly she she's not there she wasn't in today so but if you just send him to me i what i'll do is i can incorporate it here and then send it back to you as a draft and you can make some edits the slide board can't approve it at the next meeting thank you i really no no problem so we'll can i escape that so i definitely think it's time for another survey did that one many years ago people who people come but when you put your percentages off there yeah the skate park had 11% yeah what did the basketball court have the basketball courts had 29% and they had 30.1% i guess i'm kind of leaning toward how did we get escape what part was 11% instead of talking about yeah good question because the people that volunteered to be on the committee wanted to work on we didn't have anybody that was willing to join our committee to work on that because we didn't we didn't have any resources or fun fun any opportunities fundraise about basketball nobody had any organizations that would give us money for basketball i guess where i'm going at with it is if we're listening to our people we go to the basketball court and do that that had the most numbers than a skateboard park it's done i know there's people that like the skateboard park but i'm just thinking that's not anything about me yeah i'm gonna get some information to therese and she'll incorporate it in what we already have okay thank you is there any other public public comment hearing none i'll move on to uh debora move stand cause request to be appointed to the Bethel rec committee so all those in favor all right discussion that was simple all right um ben rogers next and charlotte danforth request to put 226 graham street on water vacancy rate as the water is shut off that's usually the standard pre-ordnance is that the water is off and their house is apparently it's on the market so yeah yeah it's not full right exactly they understand it's a pregnancy rate so yeah so this you you're good at your job i didn't talk about this one somebody else i think it was pam we talked to him and then and then maybe detreat or no not detreat she's on vacation so pam but anyways yeah so they understand the situation that'll be just a lesser rate but so you would be doing this as the water commissioners that that's falls under your purview then switch switch hats yep yep so that would be effective one one entertain a motion move to um put ben rogers and charlotte danforth on a vacancy rate for their 226 graham street property do i hear a second thanks any more discussion no all those in favor all right charlotte just for um clarity if the property sells that automatically reverts back to now it's full yep open yeah unless i mean if somebody bought it and left it vacant then but would they i guess that's what i'm asking is would that new owner just retain the vacancy rate status or would they have to come back to the selector if we caught it we would ask them to come back and the chances are if someone buys it they're gonna move into it but unless they bought it now i don't even think it's probably right now yeah well i i don't know so um but it's something that we usually that comes up because when we get the pttr the property transfer tax return detreat changes so she'll see what rate they're on so then it kind of usually dars us to take care of it and they'll want their water turned back on yes they dare to they love if they're gonna live i like to think so all righty now we'll get on to the fun stuff discussion of the f5-24-25 fiscal year budget and in the packet i believe there's information about edits you've made since last meeting yep well then we just talk that just said yeah let's consider that yeah we covered that yeah so yeah so um obviously christ jarvis couldn't make it he came into the office and we met and he we talked about and i think i outlined that in the in my report that the changes that we made were um um so we added um $10,000 more to the highway rehabilitation and $10,000 to highway equipment both are which are capital funds so they don't have to be spent by june 30th um also added a couple more hours to the admin position for the lister's office and increase the training budget there as well because that's going to be coming in you know a little bit behind someone who has to train and learn like numeric and bt pie and you know all that software so just increase that a little bit um so those were the changes and obviously the thinking is more money in the highway fund you know we're seeing it now i mean the weather is crazy we are you know it's the storm is weekend and then we're getting another storm coming in with snow and then after that it's going to be rain and it's going to warm up so we are going to be cleaning the downtown at uh three uh around three a.m and the reason that the that the road crew wants to do it is because they want to get rid of this snow because when the other snow comes in that it rains if everything freezes up we're going to flood downtown because storm drains be covered so um we certainly realize that some of the roads are in not in great shape and um with thawing freezing thawing and it's rain since i don't know what may and then you know it's just difficult to put you know difficult to manage obviously i think one of the things that we talked about in the report is that when we have mud season as usual in the spring we have a month or two to clean that up but this time in between we had about four days where we could actually be on the roads because our trucks loaded or 65 000 pounds and what portion of roads are held together will destroy so it's just been this real crazy weather pattern i think to acknowledge that um we had taken some money out of the salt budget put more money into gravel and then adding more money into capital roads capital equipment you know it's the only way we can truly battle you know what's happening here with with the change in weather so um i do want to say on that note please be prepared uh the the roads on the back roads are hazardous you know that's frozen they're frozen ruts and then the snow is going to cover it and it's just makes it difficult for travel we're expecting this to be heavy wet snow ahead of the rain so if you have a generator have gas have perishable foods water just use some caution we're expecting there's going to be trees and branches you know down ahead of that so possibly some power outages so i do try to put warnings out on facebook and front porch forum to let people know but it's it's definitely uh it's like a bag of cats right now i just don't know what we're gonna get every time we see the weather not sure whether to cry or smash my head against a wall so um just please use caution and and we and we are aware of the situation with the roads and and where they are and we haven't forgotten about you um we have a list and and kind of at this stage of the game it's it's a triage and that's that's what we're doing so i really appreciate uh it's been a handful of different posts that the town has done um you know sort of out to all the different sources of those sorts of explanations i think that's really helpful and i i'm just sort of curious do you think from the town office's perspective have those helped to clarify to the larger population like has there been a a good shift with doing those sorts of posts i mean you know we've heard of some positive reports that people feel you know better informed and then you know we're still getting balled out a bunch so people are just frustrated so they you know call and and um certainly but i think the focus is for us is we want people to know we aren't ignoring you and we are aware there's just limited when the roads were so muddy it we know it was just hard we couldn't get to you to well because it was so bad we were just going to make it worse and i think that's really horrible to say and we felt horrible i mean we as people that we couldn't do better um but once it froze up we certainly hit it hard for campbell and dart and brank and lisville because we knew how bad it was and certainly our next focus needs to be macintosh and a little bit of gilead so we're hoping that it's going to soften up enough um with the rain and the warm temperature a little bit of frost comes out we may be able to grade those out so it's it's just difficult to kind of stay ahead but i i think i don't think more information hurts it is not helping at any and that is not our detour we do have the official detour and the signage that's out um through j mcdonnell through the state is tells the people what the detour is they're just people are using map quest and they're going that way and and um you know we've they're not going to adhere because they just blow by them because they can see on their map quest that they can get to where they want to go um the wing walls report on camp rook on um friday and so usually has a cure time of seven days i know that the contractor wanted to go a little less so they were working through the state about that if they could do that and then i spoke to um mcdonnell about backfilling and and getting in there so i haven't had any more updates since you know friday afternoon alls i know is that they report and report successfully so you know i just fingers crossed that thing opens up sooner rather than later yes what's down on the landscape is that the road you just did get worked out i start calling the state police right away and it was yeah we could call it windsor county windsor windsor county when they said that it's like you know i don't want to rush to hurt anybody no i don't want to hurt anybody but like i feel like they tell me i need to phrase it around here anyone almost worse than us honestly yeah i i drop it on every time so they tell you to be there i don't care who they are don't don't ride back for me because i'm gonna run into some older person or like sure other ways to deal with it it's all over this region honestly yeah a billionaire your flatlander is just enough and it's like and then it's just bad it's anywhere my advice is to pull into someone's driveway and let them go past you but otherwise you know people are gonna start to like get like that it's just it's just statistic of me it's down in heart for it everywhere too it's like you know no matter what your age is especially if you're old or younger we don't know those roads are terrible yeah well now that we have um we just started contracting with the windsor county my sheriff hopefully we'll see a little bit less of that but i i know what you mean i actually live on a back road myself and sometimes i do feel like the pace car and but i'm like hey this is what i'm willing to do and um so you know so i can understand but yeah windsor county sheriff is who you want to call and um i believe their information now our contact information is on our website and but hopefully as we see them doing bigger patrols we'll you know increase patrols we'll see a less of that so i know it's it's a bit crazy it it's true it's true so budget back to the so we had um so those are the changes that we've made and why so um the revenues obviously didn't change i don't know i think it'd just be easier if you have any specific changes or questions it would be easier to do that than go line by line or page by page with the grant writer okay yep under no it was just um we had contract it was after the last meeting you guys all seem to agree for consensus to cut that back to 10 000 so that's still 10 000 i got your email gene after i'd already sent out the warning and everything so um i'll have another okay so okay so so at the end of the last meeting you all seem to agree by consensus that you didn't think the iraq was going to happen and so we all kind of read so it's at 10 and then i got your your new um information right so what's your new update well the new update is that we've had another town that's dropped and so there's updated numbers and uh and then again what i said this morning the if another town drops out well it's a probably already the case let's uh if even if we just went with the numbers that i sent you uh we would we may be talking about if another town then dropped out we would be probably going back to the drawing board about it maybe a part-time position and trying to re-figure that uh the we are the only town that had considered a budget item uh the other four towns on this list are um taking it to their town meetings as a special warned item with and the warning i think the warning would if we were to go that route the warning would set up a fund to deal with this but if it didn't go we would then be able to use the time the months for energy and and climate subjects so that the those have to be a two-fer that the first one had to go on the second one had to fund it that's an easy question for me to well towns need to to promote me date that's and they and they even suggested that it's better to do it as one but but however um so yeah i'm still i still want to encourage it but i think i want i think it's probably best my opinion it's best probably to ask the town to just put it as a don't include it in the budget in the path we're not put it in the budget but put it in as a separate article okay i mean that's that's your idea okay it's so that way we're not goofing with the budget we're not messing with the budget um if it goes down it goes down yeah but that's your idea okay so then leaving you're okay with then leaving the contract labor thing at at ten that item yeah okay and then put that would be as because if this was path we wouldn't include it in the budget just like we don't um the extra funding for the South Royalton or the South Royalton Senior Center or the um yeah so so is there any other class so we'll tackle yours under the warning so is there any other questions on the budget because then you can kind of stay in order i just well no i just this is where i thought it needed to be as well and i don't know if the others agree or i think i would at a minimum putting it to the voters and not just dropping the issue is sort of our due diligence to the committee members that have put in their due diligence um you know and so if we as a board decide we can't put these numbers into our budget then yes i think that it should at a minimum go to the voters i know it's a hard year right but it's also not ours to decide do we pick the food shelf over the library or the library over the energy coordinator you know that's i think that's why this option and this mechanism exists for the towns is there are hard decisions and sometimes it's it can't be just up to the group of five that's up here and then at some point and one of the reasons i precious that was this perfect storm in terms of tax you know tax appeals is uh the fact is we get hit with all of these worthy issues and then perhaps what i believe is something we have to we can we have to stop at some point putting it off and doesn't get dealt with at all and so that's and i think that's where the energy committee is ultimately coming from at some point i have a question about and i don't there's nobody else here from the energy committee but i would i would ask that these all these towns with energy committees which there are some why are they not lobbying uh two rivers harder to to establish this position within their frame we can have it within their framework the problem is that two rivers will charges for administering this kind of a position if it is not housed at two rivers they're charging six percent of the salary embedded if they house it they're charging 80 percent it is less expensive for two rivers to administer it but not to house it we wanted two rivers to house it scott would prefer because he feels there's more oversight that wasn't to take away i could well scott that would be scott's preference let's go uh financially it didn't seem to make sense to the working group okay uh and two rivers will still provide the day-to-day oversight of the position will handle the hiring firing discipline any of those kinds of issues with input from the community's steering committee so it's a it's a hybrid on that is there anyone from bethels energy committee now on that on the planning group on the planning group scott oh scott it's okay thank you i've lost track dave said we've talked about this several times scott i saw scott this afternoon at one o'clock i thought he was out of time no i talked to him in front of the post office for 45 minutes about all kinds of stuff nothing to do with the energy committee um but he came to that one meeting and i i haven't seen him here since and there's other people like ellie comes to the meeting and as the chair and sometimes there's a whole bunch of people from the energy from the rec committee when they're doing the skateboard park but we don't rarely see and you're not on the energy committee i've been sitting with them for a year right i can't i have been sitting with them right right but i'm not a member okay well that's kind of i think what dave was kind of i don't want to speak for dave but my concern is that you know ellie shows up and different people show up from different committees um and explain what they're doing and it's just and it's great you've been explaining but i would like to see somebody from the energy committee come and speak i've looked over the different minute minute meetings from the energy committee as well and back in may you folks said you learned you could apply for um there was a grant for assessments up to five buildings um and you know at the end of last week's meet last meeting i was online and i had suggested it was an emotion of perhaps tabling this for the town of bethol until next year um to see who's doing what and at one point um it seemed like people were in agreement and then you had mentioned towards the end that maybe say to the energy committee this is quoting you what you said um maybe give the energy committee x amount of dollars to help residents themselves to to work with the money that we have versus municipal buildings and trice made a good statement a couple of meetings or last meet maybe it's two meetings ago all the money that the town has saved with the water bills changing the lights um dave has been helping out with some of the energies that that we have taken care of because it seems like this this grant writer person the grant writing is going to be for municipal buildings it's not going to be if joanne needs help you know that that's a fundamental misunderstanding of this position okay because that's what i'm just saying what scott had told us well it is much more than just a grant writer oh i understand that okay it is also an organizer which is not too rivers bailiwick but it is to uh recruit train uh a regional network of people who are concerned about these issues it is to know about study get the information not only about funds that are available but the science around the various kinds of solutions that might be considered it's not just about buildings it's also about vehicles and other all of the energy that we use uh it's um i was personally disappointed when scott came and said i think it's a good idea and you ought to do it basically without giving any of the rationale for the the purposes behind it the history is that nicole sear started this and nicole continued to provide leadership for this until a couple weeks or a month or a couple months ago uh and the and then during her leaving the energy committee she kept doing this while the energy committee was rebuilt scott began attending the meeting um but was scott's not sales i don't know so i was i was disappointed that he didn't second these are these are the things that we're looking for this person to do it's not just grant writing but it's it's a whole range of climate things it's it's keeping the records what are our greenhouse gas emissions not just my buildings but from the road crews and and all of the all the other kinds of things what can we do that's better as a town but also how can we help the citizens in the town do what they can do to weather us to uh put in heat pumps etc etc etc so they might not be helping uh denise put in a heat pump but they would be getting information for opportunities to get education you know what is a heat pump why do you want to think about it yeah or you know i thought about it so i bought my house that i looked it all up i looked at efficiency vermont what i can get for a pre-bate and now i've seen gmp is doubling more than doubling their their rebate pre-bate right on heat pumps but i learned that on the news or i can go online and learn any of that yes the first year pilot program so we had started around 9 000 and then we got so now we're at 22 000 is this subtracting the four thousand dollar subtracting the nerve so the murph on top of it means our share would actually be 26 797 so chances are that wouldn't go down yes yes because this is a well the four thousand dollars from murph right is part of this year's right exactly so my point is so it looks like 22 but in fact it's 26 797 because we're giving them the murph which is right right so next year it could be go from 22 to 30 depending on and we still don't know how to turn out who's gonna say yay or nay at the end who's gonna say yay or nay and is it gonna be a full time is it gonna be a part time right and all of those or is it simply gonna we're gonna throw our hands up and say nice try right exactly i i don't know yes and that's what you're doing right now is one more time bows out it's old it's a it or it's at least down to say a two-thirds position okay and then that's all kinds of other questions but that's that's when the that's my opinion that that that's what the group will say another if two towns go out it's i don't think it's it's not so you won't really know until march will not we do not know we will not know until well i'm gonna sum up these towns have brookfield broadchester royal tin or west fairly that you know of agreed yet to put this on their warning uh broadchester has already got it on their warning there okay the broadchester is on the warning okay you got one royal tin is leaning that way so no votes yeah okay no votes well because they're in the same boat as we are but they're all in the same boat so that's fairly as go oh they are go okay awesome um so it's it's it's alive in these five times that it's as firm as we can get i know so if we'll that's a warning question so back to the budget does anybody have any questions or concerns about the budget we want to talk about and then we'll you can tackle that at your next item for your warning did you have any budget question no that was that was my line that i wanted to exact okay that's perfect ladies any warrant budget questions no nothing okay i'm good okay so we will talk about we're wait paul valley is saying pick me i'm sorry paul i didn't so paul may have a question sorry i didn't see him hi hi can you hear me okay yeah so the bottom line increase on the budget let me turn my volume down a little bit the bottom line uh number on the increase of the budget over last year is 2.38 percent if i read the sideways chart correctly for the expenses yes but raised by taxes is 2.7 right and that so that does not go ahead that does sorry paul that does not include that does not include um the 25 000 for the food shelf 6 000 for the you know it doesn't include those add-ons okay yeah before all that so just at that point so that converts to how many cents well we're saying that a penny a penny on the tax rate raises about 20 000 right yeah i think i said snap i thought i read let me say hang on a second i thought i wrote it down one penny on the tax rate equals 25 000 25 yes there so what does that increase convert to in pennies you know what you're you're short because uh chris jarvis is a penny person and i'm the percentage person so we always do this out i think i think dave's gonna do the math i think it's just important to be able to tell somebody if you have a hundred thousand dollar house this increase is gonna cost you i don't know 50 bucks a hundred bucks whatever exactly well i did i did figure that um based on i did a 250 000 home and without the additional articles taxes would be 3000 213 but with the additional they'd go up i think it was additional about 75 right so if you so for every 250 000 dollar uh value of the property your tax is going to go up 3000 would you say that's your total tax based on a 250 000 home yeah um with with the budget that the select board is presenting yeah taxes for the year would be 3000 213 that's just a that's just a municipal tax not the school that's that's total total tax though yeah that's total tax yeah as opposed to what what what was it last year so what's the increase what's the actual increase um i don't have last year's tax rate with me paul uh well actually i did hang on a second i might because i have my budget folder i might let me look you're pushing the right questions for me well i'm just i noticed in the paper there was an article in the paper about chelsea dealing with the you know law enforcement and they had they really had specific numbers about how much it was going to cost to have each you know variable that they were looking at for law enforcement at this number here at 2.38 cents three cents on the tax rate three cents on the tax rate is what davis saying yeah that's without the extras yeah without the extras and i'm looking to see if i have a copy of the tax rate in my folder hang on you know chris would have the math whipped out by now because i do percent and i think last year if i remember correctly paul didn't last year we figured that the percentage was about if it was a three percent increase it was three cents i think we kind of were at that vote last year yeah but people you know it's it's a hard transition to make from three cents to how much is it hit my tax dollar you know for my dad yeah so i i just can't answer your question right now paul i mean i don't have i don't know what this year's municipal tax rate is off the top of my head so if you have a tax bill you could tell me what it says well i can and i know that i know that the school you know portion of it is a large percentage of it 65 66 percent whatever but right i think it's good to say and that and then the the additional items you've got 61 thousand dollars worth of potential additionals yeah those will cost somebody about set that's going to be about 75 dollars a year for somebody i believe with the 250 thousand dollar homes that's the difference i did that on the second page so um actually if i take three eight three two one three yeah the difference was 75 dollars so the additional on a 250 thousand dollar home the additional appropriations are going to cost somebody 75 dollars additional per year in taxes okay and that's about about 61 thousand dollars worth of additional yep okay yeah you think it would be more but um that's what yeah and i'm basing that too well that's three cents yeah exactly and i'm basing that on a randallist with no growth at this point so you know the numbers are you know we go to kind of estimate tax rate i'm basing on no growth so you know how that goes if we lose then the tax rate goes up because we don't have the multiplier but if it goes down we do so um but that's where right so that's three cents on the tax rate so that gives you an idea of what we're looking at so the so the the increase in the actual budget that's being proposed is what 3.6 cents yep so you know so it's a little bit more than maybe it might be 90 dollars or you know yeah that sounds right that's the helpful information that's the number that makes sense to me yeah it's the the dollar amount of increase over the course of the year which is information we will start you know we always publish in town we'll publish in town report um but obviously you can't go out and do it without an approved budget so i did hear that the school is coming in with some kind of change in the yield we thought they were going to drop a little bit but i'm not sure currently what their tax rate what they're they're proposed to go down at first but i think that has changed so we'll see what the school rate's going to do of course that's a whole other beast but okay well i think it's just good to have those numbers to be able to show at the the budget presentation before town meeting and yep yeah we had we had talked about putting a little notes on the end beside each article on how much it would cost on the tax rate and um so it depends too some of it the way you break it out on the what the cost value of your home is so yeah but um but yeah it'll go into town report so we'll but um so yeah that's the answer so we got 25 000 per penny okay thank you you're welcome okay do you guys have any other questions on the budget or this is what we're going to go with and i'll build a warning around this we don't need to make a molding no you guys okay so any you've seen minutes another oh wait we gotta do the warning oh yeah and there's a didn't want to do that i'm sorry it was it they've like wait come on here yeah almost 7 27 got time so uh denise found a mistake in the warning so we're gonna fix in the draft warning um it was that the select board under article a okay what's article a article one article one oh yeah all right hang on yeah i had this select board here we go had this select board um i had a select board member for a three-year term and then a one select board member for a one-year term and it should have been a two-year term so fix that and the list yeah and so article two now we know what that's going to be um then there's the library the food shelf the social services um royalton senior center i have to check with pam i think they hand in their petition but morva um friends of the store playhouse those are all things we're waiting for you know vote dates or property tax due dates is ghost or nine article 10 is to the voters to eliminate the office of town lister to replace with a professionally qualified assessor and that's certainly what we have built the budget around i did put a little note in there because this is unusual but per state statute this vote has to be paper ballot so someone's gonna have to you can't do a voice vote you'll have to do paper and rick benson is aware of that i gave him the draft to edit and then um so then you roll into the non-binding so it just looks a little different this year because article one just kind of weighs out that you're electing those officers by australian ballot and any warning ahead it tells you up above where the polls are and what the time they're open so so i don't know if anybody found any other edits on the warning besides denise does denise get extradited she should yeah absolutely that's that's that's you already had that yeah i do i have the suggested language for the energy coordinator person it and so i just want to speak to that for a second and say when you vote the the wording for that is very important when you vote a capital fund why you're creating it stays with that until you vote again if you remember um we had to vote i believe at a town meeting in last few years to change that we were going to add money to the um appraisal fund because of the way the article was worded so um you have to be really clear you know think about that long term um the wording of the article and um so just keep that in mind when you're doing i think it's important for you to understand that that it stays with it so you vote again and then that would be this 22 i guess it would now today so and and i assume you'll check with two or would i will but that's if you get these other three people to agree to put on the warning but yes i will double check with them just because i was drafting this one and i was looking at their last year's advice and it was a two question but the law probably changed no big deal i'll ask them so i heard you say it say it again what we can do with this money if we get on the warning and it passes but then the position blows up yeah we've got the money and we can use it for um municipal or residential or whatever what was the do you have the email oh let me let me print it out let's see i must figure um the one that gene that with the language in it that gene code today we're going to do the next level of exploration into a town garage oh here it is if if this committee but if this position doesn't happen would the town then use that set of funds towards energy efficiency inputs into the new building right is it yeah he's saying okay so it says shall the town of bethville create a reserve fund of 227 97 for the purpose of firing an inter regional energy resilience coordinator in collaboration with other towns approving the position and funding energy and resilience projects as determined by the select work so it's an interesting it leaves it it's interesting because we don't a capital fund most generally is created for capital buildings or capital fund it's not usually created to fund a position that's an odd a capital fund reserve fund well same difference reserve capital or just the same thing it's the same just different words for the same point so um so shall the town you know so you're creating it either for this person and funding energy and resilience projects as determined by the select board um we had written this before and she said no because that didn't be because it's two different things yeah you could also say for the purpose of funding energy and resilience projects as determined by the select board um which gives the select board it removes the iraq out of it but it still doesn't doesn't say they can't be funded via that it just narrows down this you know what i mean you could still fund a person out because it would be up to the termination it's saying how the money works and then the select board would decide to it almost seems like you would be i mean i i get the i get the i'm trying to think of the most practical way part of me thinks if you're going to fund it if you're going to have a position then that's your article you go to the voters for 9 29 or whatever 22 000 put 227 97 and then they put it in the budget or they don't and then you could start your own capital fund separately you know what i mean i i'm of concerned and it's probably more from an accounting position that we're creating a capital fund of fund a position and i'm not not saying it can't be done i just i think my concern would be the opposite of if we limit ourselves to only the position and then the rest of it falls apart then we've got this chunk of money that we're hamstrung and we can't do anything right it would go into your it goes your undesignated fund balance you're right yeah you're right position and yep projects as determined by the select board then it kind of gives the select board and any select board in the future more flexibility right it leaves it definitely leaves it wide open because it's saying and funding energy and resilience projects as determined so here i would say that since it's pretty wide that the select board could say okay say the funding didn't go and we're moving forward with you know bonding on a town garage and then in the future i mean obviously we'd register that project i mean i don't know it seems like more of a capital fund i don't know whatever it's so my point being that the wording of the capital fund warning language is important because it will stay with there until you vote again at town meeting but since this is fairly wide open you probably could interpret it as the select board would decide what projects they want to do so it's just it's just an unusual one that's all so i guess it's just a matter of if uh if you've got enough people here to get this on the warning yep it would uh definitely feel better to me if it was uh less specific which is what that so you mean taking the energy the person the hiring enter that wording you can leave that in there but because we have the other if that falls up falls through we have the other the and funding scope of what could be done right and i don't we just got admonished for not appreciating what people are doing and i just feel if we were to take that position out of that warning right out of the way you know thanks but no thanks right if we leave that in there we're we're we're leaving ourselves the ability to do something else with it so we're also saying well this works right and i and i think that while we've been sitting here discussing this week after week somebody picking up their you know the town packet and the warning and just reading it without anything about a position might feel really caught off guard if all of a sudden then it's being funded it's being used to fund a position is like well why wasn't that clearly stated you know and so i so i think i would lean with dave on this one of the keeping that language with the broader scope okay is maybe to everybody's benefit future select boards plus okay it's a bit more informative to the voting so then so go ahead i was just going to say should we add this the task force is prepared to to make a presentation about what this is and how it come about that made sense yes you know the support isn't going to be able to stand up and talk to the article but so then so you want to add it to the warning you want to add it to the warning you want to add to the warning well not voting till we see denise do you want i mean if you do you want to add it to the drop warning that 22 for the position in the 22 797 okay i know what i do you want to do a different portion sorry dave did you want to do something did you want to reword that or slide the straight news or something we'd like to see that i'm just third of the towns that are that have dropped out just in the since our last meeting you know we started out originally with with like 9000 something and then with the for the first year because of the merp grant and then it was going to be 12 and then it went to 19 and now we're up to 22 without for me there's no guarantee that these other towns are saying yes we're going to go through with it so it's just me it's you know it's it's kind of a kind of a crapshoot you know well i think gene gene's point was they would probably adjust it might not be a full-time position anymore it would be a two-thirds or a half-time position so i think just like any budget-driven entity if you don't get a full budget you adjust what you can do to the means that you do have and so if they don't get all of the funding through it doesn't mean the thing would necessarily just fold it might just shift into a lesser time position so worst-case scenario you've set aside the money for future capital projects doesn't mean you're going to fund the same thing next year you could if you if it say it goes through you may not be happy after a year and so you say no so go back to the select board again next year it's not like the right it's not a given and even to say the position doesn't happen and you've set the money aside for an energy or other funds it doesn't mean you have to fund it again next year but you have 22,797 in a fund for energy projects moving forward so it's a it's just tough because it's last week we thought it was a tabled issue so then it this whole project is crazy thank you be careful walking home and um sign sign and she did she did she did so um so yeah it's a it's a quandary and um i think it's the part that's i think it's just difficult more difficult this year than any other year just because you have all the add-ons the food shelf in the library and then she at the library lisa gave a better even though it's not on paper gave a better view of what they got what they're getting the food shelf did a spreadsheet with a pie and this and that and and i don't i know we've asked and chris has asked for like something on paper besides just this like what exactly is this because like i said scott said it's basically from municipal you're saying it could and i know it's for more than a grant writer but there's the education it there's just nothing on paper like the pie that says okay we can do this this is what this is going to encompass it's been a little bit of this and a little bit of that and yeah at the end of the last meeting i rewatched the meeting it was more like we're probably just going to table it and it might not happen and you know we might just say for the energy committee you can have the mirt money and say another six grand out of that capital fund to do xyz are you concerned to are you concerned that say bethels paying whatever our percentage if we're just i'm going to make it up say we're paying 30 percent are you concerned that we're not going to get 30 percent of the benefit of the yeah yeah that's kind of part of it how do we know that one of these other towns that doesn't have i mean do all these towns have a town clerk and a town manager so as someone like less barely going to be using this more because they don't have somebody like with the expertise of like a terese or a grant writer that can kind of get some of our stuff you know because can west fairly say okay this is everything that we want and bethels just want this but somebody i don't know exactly how that works because we have no paper no breakdown of how all that works you know how's it monitored if west fairly only gets you know 12 percent it is two things one or three things we have also been receiving for the last several months anyway the reports of the working group the working group that has put this together so all of the detail is there including the position description the rationale the deliverables that's all there and has been made available so so that that's one thing the other is that we have intentionally not said that because we have 22 percent of the funding that we get 22 percent of the 22.6 so because that we're not equating the work with hours for example that we get 22 percent of the person's time this is a regional position a lot of the work is going to be the same whether it's for your town or my town or whatever and it's a nightmare to try and you know split it out in that kind of a way frankly i think west fairly is going to get more than their share i i just uh but we're the only town that has a town manager on this list uh and rochester has an energy committee kind of but none of the other towns do right so these which is part of the part of the small town for mont reality and this person especially without randolph who can be dealing with small towns not with you know larger communities that have different kinds of resources and and so the point is we've tried very hard to say this is we want to pay for it so that everybody can participate and frankly we expect because west fairly has fewer resources fewer things to spend it on they're probably going to get less in terms of dollar return we're all going to grow and benefit it's a it's an it's been a negotiation that's been quite fun for the last yeah i mean it could be a situation to where you give i mean obviously things are changing we've made adjustments in our own budget because the roads etc about that i mean we it isn't the thought of whether you do it this year next year i mean it is something to consider for you to start a capital fund for energy or you know resilience project so um whether you do that this year in this vehicle or whether you do it in another way it's certainly something for you to think about okay another question our our number of 22 797 doesn't include the 4 000 change of those okay right so we still we still have to give them the four that's okay yeah okay my question is do all these other towns have four thousand dollars they're gonna pick in so it's uh 22 and 23 and 35 and all that okay because they've all they part of the negotiation has been for this year these towns are choosing to use that merp grant of four thousand for this purpose so there's another 20 so basically this is 120,840 and so then in the second year the total hours goes up i don't i don't say i don't i don't like this i don't like this you're telling me something that's not you're not telling the full dollar now i'm sorry that i'm just if it's going to cost 120 thousand dollars i'd rather you tell me that and then say okay but we have an offset rather than what we're telling you a hundred thousand dollars but it's going to be 120 um so the um so they all got the merp and we talked about sorry that that's coming is no information no i kind of in the beginning i knew it was for us i guess i didn't know that all the other towns got the same four thousand yeah yeah i think i think why there's a pilot project that's fine so um anyway so that's so we would know this number would change and there's also concern about once you when you start dialing back with the percentage of the of the job i'd be i become concerned about what everybody's going to get i mean it becomes only a 40 job i don't know exactly how to say it i don't it's either to me it's you know it's either job or it's not so you're oh you're concerned that if the some towns don't make if they don't get on they don't get voted through then the job becomes goes from a full-time job to a part-time job to a less than job right i see with us right i think the idea of worry that's what i thought if one town backed out but it sounds like even up to two towns back out we're going to try to make a job right and then the quality of a person you're going to get when you start running that uh salary down to a much lower level are you going to actually get a qualified person for that job i guess my point is take the scenario two towns voted down so now there's only three towns involved and two rivers starts negotiating it out and beth'll says actually this isn't what we were signing on for and we're no longer going to be part of it that money that's been appropriated isn't lost and it still can go towards the things it was appropriated for and now it's 100 percent beth'll so i think the width to me the wording of that warning becomes allows us to back out even at the very end right and so if if down the road it gets decided it's going to be a half-time position and beth'll select board starts to feel like well we're not this isn't what we were signing on for and what we were wanting out of it it doesn't mean that appropriated money has just gone to somebody else it's actually stayed within our town and now 100 of those funds would be utilized within our town so it's it's not a loss in my mind and i think that the select board would still have that ability to pull out even if the voters voted for but it's the the way that she's saying it's written okay being because i think it's just at our at our discretion it's still going to be at our discretion exactly for the purpose of hiring an inter-regional energy resilient coordinator iraq in collaboration with other towns approving the position so the fund is and funding energy and resilience projects as determined by the select board when i read it i felt like the as determined by the select board was other towns but i i think for here back for two seconds obviously if you create a capital fund you're the only one who can approve the spending of it how it goes so you could put the kibosh to it if another town fell through and then you have an account with 22 000 that you could use or no just 28 i don't know no they said that if it doesn't go through the murph is already in the current budget we're in so that if we're not giving it to somebody else or putting it in this fund later that would i think the energy committee was going to use the four for local okay so okay so the murph money is not going to automatically go to this if we back out no no it's going to stay local that's what he said before and okay so that stays with Bethel and with the Bethel energy all right because when i asked that everyone's going to apply for it's been received yeah all right so i asked at the last meeting i said and we'll if we'll table it you know we can still use the murph the murph money can still be used you're like well we've already are planning on giving the murph money to this whether we're in it or not it was my understanding okay so i mean i had covid just who knows yeah and he said covid she didn't so we'll um okay so then that's clear on the four grant it doesn't that sounds to me like we can decide the four of us could decide to do this as it's written and after town meeting we could do something different you could you have the right i mean because the capital fund is controlled by you how however i would say that you're going into it saying that you're gonna fund a position right but if there what we're what i'm saying is if people start dropping off right we don't feel comfortable right i think that's why the person said and instead of or right instead of or resilience projects so yeah this is so the other thing too is i mean obviously you have multiple choices here whether or not you're going to put on the warning and the other thing is too is um and i hate to say this but just because gene is saying 22797 you could say no you could say we're willing to we will put it on the warning but we're only willing to fund $10,000 i mean just because no offense the gene's asking for 22 doesn't mean you have to give it to him you could say we'll put it on the warning but we're gonna put it in as less at least you know you haven't done the warning yet so you still have the opportunity to to do that just so well i'm not trying to make i'm trying to give you all your options i don't want just trying later saying i know you're right yeah absolutely right i almost said this earlier when we were talking about do we have it on the warning and one of the downsides of being on the warning is you're very savvy with where you where you get money from the budget in and you had already done that of you know we have this spot for the grants consulting and so we could use that so like the town doesn't benefit from your ability to see the bigger picture of numbers in the way that you do and funnel money but we could also say we're you know like you're saying you could say we're willing to fund x but then if two rivers came back you know there may be creative ways to get there and the town may say no we've given you the amount you know so it's yeah it could be and and you don't know if the other towns are going to put it on their warning so maybe you dropping from 22 000 to whatever 10 12 you then you're cognizantly unconsciously making a decision that you know you have just solely said that is no longer going to be a full-time position that's even if everybody goes through if you give less you're saying you know what let's try it at a halftime position so you know what i mean so you're still making that i don't think anybody is seriously thinking anything less than 60 percent right more like three quarters if we could swing it budget right it's it's kind of the the task force comes so you can knock his price down by 25 percent you're a great deal now just for my curiosity does anybody have like a person or two in mind or who might take this position or who you might be looking towards you know like oh well i know like hey you know treason's really good with money and this person knows a lot about energy you know we're we're leaning you know you kind of yeah with you entities like you can't but you know does somebody we really we really at this point are relying on two rivers to provide that kind of expertise and access to the potential candidates nine person will be housed so to speak at two rivers not how's that no because that was the 80% right yeah that much more and they did say i did talk to peter gregory i know they're bringing somebody else on halftime at two rivers and um you know obviously two rivers is willing to create the position and we increase our funding to them so you know everybody's got the handout we know how it works so um but yeah so it's a i guess it will go back around i mean so do you want we'll start we know how gene feels do you want to put it on the warning as the full 22 lindley okay i'm going to have to say no i might go for something small i just not the numbers just keep adding and just and i guess i'm not sold at this this job is ready to go so we could do since it looks like you're gonna split the um you're going to sign the warning at the next meeting we could i could bring a version of the warning without this on it and then i could bring another version of the warning with this on it and if you end up changing the amounts that's fine you would just have to come by the office to sign the warning you can make a motion to approve the amended warning but then you all are going to have to make a conscious effort of coming to the office at least three of you to get it signed so you could since you're going to split you could table the discussion until although he's not going to be there unless there's a snowstorm actually no that's not sure he's no he's going to come here later that's right he's going to be here next time because the girls are i'm sorry to chris is a coach's basketball so he's coaching a game tonight tonight tomorrow on the following monday he's playing in randolph he was going to ask some other coaches to ride the bus home so he thought he could be here by 6 30 so we could come up with a couple different um i could bring one warning without a one warning with it and then you guys could you know negotiate a number or add that on or whatever is that so is everybody reasonable or okay with that idea i meant to say agree everybody agree with that idea go along i'm yeah gives you more time to think about it gives you two weeks to think about what you can we table the vote until versus here yeah that's what yeah she'll have two versions since the morning but tonight was just a discussion only okay we realize that you're not in agreement so it gives you two weeks to think about okay maybe i am willing to do this but i'm either willing to do it for the full 22 or i'm not but it will give you a chance to get a number in mind so that if you're gonna try to come to a consensus or negotiate it okay so what's what's the possibility of getting more i mean since the last meeting we had the town drop out i mean by next meeting maybe we're going to have more dropouts or can we right yeah the other question is it's going to be a move right because you're the so it is so will you other towns will have had select board meetings so will you be able to report back to the relative meeting tonight i mean it's so i guess i'm asking is will you be able to check in with these other towns and let me know like the wednesday you know like as soon as you find out if you just email me so and so dropped out so and so's and then i can keep a tab right well first back and see if they're not going to put on a warning they dropped up basically yeah although there are conversations in a couple of towns about a citizen position to put it out yeah so but they would they have to get their petition out and then they have to and i'm not sure that's a tough one gene because the petition to the select board has to be for an article in which the voters have the authority to vote on so i'm not sure a lawyer would say that that would they could force them to go most select boards will do it because someone's petition but there is the the area that a select board does not have to put everything on but you know what i mean i will not have there will we won't know okay until the warnings have been published yeah whether or not towns are going to head beyond or not yeah it's because i think you have to have your petitions in you have to have your petitions in before next monday before the monday of our next select board meeting because that's why we're going to prove the warning when we're there so um but i can also um i could email victoria at roilton and find out you know you see there's a list that you think there's a citizen is it petition no no no it's okay that's what i'm trying to there is there there are two that are have already been talking to people in addition to the select board about getting a warning um to the town meeting okay yeah excellent so whether it's through with the select board approval or through citizen participation we'll still know before next monday because people will have to have had them in so we can find out we may not know till we get here but i can find out all right so it sounds like you're just gonna hold off table it so so um then it was just a discussion on it anyway so all right so um how may report if you got yep we covered that we're good we're good okay um select board minutes of 12 18 i have two edits for that two corrections um under uh public comment uh samantha goldenhead said she asked about the increase in salaries if there was a budget across the board and uh so i'm going to add the words for just the dpw and town manager question mark tree said yes four percent across the board but she will double check her spreadsheet formula so and i'm satan here but obviously i thanked her for pointing that out um then the other change also under we taught i gave an update on the flooding issue and i i stated um class three portion or class four portion of upper gillie it is closed it technically is a class three it's just classified by the state is not up to standard so i change that from a class four to class three and then put in parentheses classified by state is not up to standard so by state standards they're considering it a four as we don't get money for it so i want to make those two edits to the meeting minute any other adjustments edit entertain entertain a motion to the minutes as an edited vapor i other communications i think that you had planning commission minutes yep meeting minutes you did and um at the december 2023 financials are in here means either me or not to me it's uh oh i think that was it that's all i see any other business necessary to come with the board person next meeting as best as i can oh yeah and my class goes to five so and then it's about an hour drive so i might just be a couple minutes late well you know if chris is going to not be here until 6 30 would it would you like to do the meeting at 6 30 would that give you a little extra time to get here so you're less i don't want to see you going 90 from him no i'm not gonna go no i am late i'm one of the pace centers and i i had a couple reminders pass me on for 100 today and i'm fine going the speed i'm going hey i had someone pass me on christian hill when it was all dirt i'm like what you know that's about yeah because people it was before when it was dirt before it came oh yeah it was before it was paved not that i think it's wrong but i think you know changing meeting times i know it gets tricky for other people who are trying to it does i don't mind it being the same i'm just letting you guys know that i might be okay well we'll put that on the end of the warning anyways or on the end of the agenda so that's fine i just want to make sure you were here safely so i guess i would listen to adjourn yeah so moved okay sir have a good night all right thank you everybody