 And the echo is something we just didn't have to deal with. But I have to say, when we listened, it wasn't too bad, you know, on the radio. You know? No. No. Nope. No, we just bought a brand-new laptop from full-fed till that week. I have this laptop that I use that is to count. And then we had bought a brand-new laptop. It's got to be the setting someplace. Yes. So it's just probably in the setting, like you said. All emails to TJ, from our own talk to TJ at Vermont Digital, and that was kind of for Halle's. So I'm not sure if maybe even next meeting, we do another trial just before we just to kind of keep trying to work the bugs out. It's going to be easier to manage one person than 12 if we can't get it working better. So it may take us a couple of meetings to work the bugs out. Because I, you know... I'm pretty rough. Yeah, I know. It's true. I know I know you're handful, but that's all right. I think I can't work as a bit of my type of rough. Yep. No, I know. But if you have... Yeah. And I'm sure you can, but it'd be nice to figure out why we can't work right, right, right, right. Because I don't know. I've never used the projector or whatever had to. So I don't know. All right, we'll call the meeting to order. So two, first on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Is there anything that needs to be... I don't know if it's existing. Move to approve the agenda's written. Second. Okay, all in favor? All right. All right. First, we do have an appointment this evening. So Patrick, welcome. Hello. So Patrick has a request at the board and everybody get the information in the packet in regards to his place on Liberty Stable Road 21. So I gave you Patrick's letter and then a letter that I had sent to Patrick and it's quite clean on June 19th, 2020. So it kind of gives you a history of the water issue looks like Patrick had had a deal with the town of Bentown manager Keith Arland, day to June, 2016. And he requested for a more torrent on utility fees until July of 2017. In hopes he'd have one apartment completed by then. And then in October, 2017, then town manager Greg Magger removed any charges incurred from May, 2016 to 2017. And so it looks like you've had a few years of no water bill, maybe since 2016, since June, maybe 2016, since you made agreement with Keith, right? Other than, so if you could just to catch us up because the boards and the town government changes often as we all know. Could you just give us a little history on the property itself about what you purchased it, when you purchased it, what you're playing on doing for that, and then kind of more specifically what you're looking for the board to do for you? I purchased it in 2009, I believe. Been sitting vacant for I think since 2004. I was in the process of renovating the property across the street, 20 livery stable. The plan was to move on to 21 afterward. Once I get into it, there were a lot of structural deficiencies. Pretty much everything was, it wasn't going to be a quick turnaround for apartments. Foundation was washed out in several places. All the bees in the front area were completely rotted out. The first floor was, you could reach your hand and just tear up chunks of wood. So that was all re-framed. One thing led to another. So it's been a very, very long process just to get it structurally sound. Which is pretty much that now. But now it's the process of putting it back together. So all the plumbing, all the electric, all the finishes have to be put in. And it's just been a very, very talkative process. So there's never been any water used or any sewage used. All the pipes have collapsed or been, everything's ripped out now, anyway. Nothing was ever useful. So I'm hoping, going forward, that my goal right now is just to get rid of it. Because I've had it now for 10 years. There's been issues with my health and some other things that have kind of just slowed the project down. The overall feasibility of building five or six apartments just doesn't make a lot of financial sense. So my plan now was to kind of divide it into three separate units. And perhaps sell them as condominiums. It's really the only way to make any kind of center or financial return on it. So my goal right now is to get it to a point where somebody will look at it and seek potential in it for doing something like that. Because we put it on the market in May, I think, for a very, very, I thought it was a giveaway price of $40,000. And there was little or no interest in it. I've got to put, I would say, probably another $25,000 to $30,000 into it to get it to a point where somebody would see the potential in it. So it'd pay another $5,000 a year for sewer and water. It's kind of a big chunk of that. Yeah, so I mean, just how the current system works, anyway, it changes a little bit every year, but it's somewhere close to 70% to 75% of your water rate is built into the fixed rate. So that's all the plumbing, all the people, all the resources up to your curb stop. And then the other 25% is your consumption. So it sounds like you've been on, has he been on? He hasn't received a bill until recently. And so I think we sent you a bill for, I think you're in, I can't remember, in for three apartments for three EUs. How much did you say your bill was, Patrick? I'm sorry. The last one I got is for $1,400. Yeah, how much for, say, just sewer? Total amount is $1,308.50. Did it say how much it was just for sewer? On this one. OK, fine, original one. No. OK, so my guess is 1 into 8 or 1,802 a week. Plus what's part of it? Has he paid like a vacancy rate or has he paid the full? I think he's paying the full. But I think he's paying times, he's either paying times three or four units. So because that's where he usually set up his each place, obviously, is assigned X amount of EUs by apartment. And I know his had been dropped. So I think that you're either at three or four EUs. So basically what you're being charged is the vacancy rate per EU. Another option possibly is for this life board to charge you one EU for the entire building. So instead of paying for apartment that you haven't constructed yet, they could pay one, they may, an option would be to charge you one EU if they're going to charge you for the entire building since there's not yet any fixtures, right? So you're not drawing any water, so. No. Because right now, yeah, you either be in charge for three or four, look. So another potential use of the boat is to sell it as a single family property. So charging for three or four EUs. Yeah, I mean, so usually the board has five voices. But typically, to keep things consistent, what we've done at the board, at least since I've been on it, how the oldest one on it, is to be consistent as we've done a couple of different methods. So there's either, in your case, is going on to a reserve where you're not paying the full amount of the water, you're paying for what we call the vacancy rate, which is like 70% of what the total amount is. We've had a couple of cases where we've had buildings become inhabitable, either through fire or, I think, we had one that got hit by a truck. There was a couple of odd and dense things where we've actually taken those off of service completely. I remember, right? That's not right? Yeah. And then we've had the most recent where we've had some recent, here in the last two years, of new owners that have bought buildings that were beyond their time and has come to the board to request a period of reprieve from their water bill while they do the necessary modifications to get it to rentable or sell it, or whatever type of thing. So we've done those things. So it sounds like, and I just wanted to make sure I get it right. So it sounds like what you're asking the board is for a complete reprieve of your water and sewer until when? Until you sell it, or, I guess, because? Well, if you have a timeline, I would say April, because I'm asking you to have the building reassessed by the acceptance anyway, because they have to change to the square footage ability is smaller now, whether or not it has three floors. So now, in order to kind of utilize all three floors to the sprinkler system, so the consideration of eliminating the third floor to eliminate the cost of having to install a sprinkler system is also something that's in the mix. So it has been, because I'm trying to do this on my own with work and stuff, it's been a little time consuming. So I've taken a staff or leave a vacancy from work three months to the last, each five years to work on it. And kind of an ongoing, sorry, I really shouldn't have much more dialogue with you guys about the building than I have, but the fact of the matter is I'm kind of out of point now. The only really major structural issue left is the rear roof, which is in the process of tearing off and fixing it. I think once that's done on the building, it is pretty much 90% to 100% structurally sound again. And I'm hoping by April that there will be functioning water and functioning electric in at least one level, the second floor, to where it could be utilized as a living space, or close to being utilized as a living space. So that's what I'm asking for, basically, April. So I looked back, so I looked about in the software. So you're currently being billed for four units. And you're being billed, he's not being billed a vacancy, because he hadn't meant to slide forward to get the vacancy. Right, yet. So that's one of the. So that dwelling is four units. And he's being. Well, right. He's being charged for four. Charged for the four. Because, yeah. So because, yeah, because I don't have, because for your ordinance, I don't have the authority to give somebody a vacancy grade. So they have to come in front of the slide forward to deal with. So the one is giving. But there was, so there was nothing when there was, how many in that building? Well, I don't know. Just right now, that's what that property you're asking about is. So there was no billing into October of 2017? No, I just barely built him. Yeah, so he hasn't received a bill since 2017 until now. So the balance right now is. The only reason. Right. Because. 20 up ahead in June. Yeah, I just barely, so we just, when we read you bigger, you just put it back on. So it was the first bill he's received in many years. And so, and he knew he wasn't connected. However, it was finally, this was like, you have to come to the slide forward and deal with it. So we're looking to erase that bill and then continue on. That's your choice you could. You could erase that bill. You could put it on a vacant sewer water, make him pay one EU. I mean, that's what somebody else in town pays on one EU for the whole building vacancy. So, you know, that's your call. It's been a long time. So obviously, as Patrick said, there's needed to be some communication between the board and the EU. You're still using infrastructure. He gets one. I'm not sure about that. Well, you're using the pipes and stuff that go to your house, even though you're not. You're not utilizing them in what way? You're not utilizing them. You are. You have access there to there. Yeah, the town has to maintain them to your dwelling whether you use water or not. Well, you know, the structure, you know, needed to be supported in a, I really don't know. I can't find fault with that. Utilities charge you line fees, infrastructure fees. They generally charge you for them unless you're utilizing your service. But that's why we have the vacancy rate. Yeah. And that's what that's basically what that comes. I'm just clear on that. And what is the vacancy rate? It's around $85. It's, yeah, I think of water. It's $146.54 per sewer and $93.02. So the total bill is $239.56 per quarter. For one EU. For one EU. One vacant EU. I mean, it seems to me like at a minimum, bumping into one EU because this is not a multiple unit. There is an ability right now for it to be multiple units. I mean, I spent a lot of time thinking about this issue today and I think that one of the big things is, and we're sort of stuck as a board, right? We have the issue of we've got to support a water system that has minimal users. But we also really need to support people like Patrick making infrastructure improvements. We have a lot of buildings that need this, have needed it for decades. And if we don't, as a board, support that, we're in the same position that this town has been in for decades of under-supported infrastructure and that people like Patrick won't invest in it. And so thus, we're stuck in that terrible cycle. Yeah. I think that's why you guys have been in the habit of giving people like six months reprieve, saying, OK, we'll give you six months. I think that that's what you just did for the people that bought on Main Street. That's an existing is kind of here. Yeah, six months reprieve, and then they come back. In this case, we've been on going reprieve. But yeah, we're just basically trying to find all the EUs and have that conversation. So as you said, it's a closed system. And what do we do with the card balance? Right, you'll have to make that determination as well. But looking at some consistency of what we've done for others in Patrick's case is some of these other dwellings that have the potential of multiple EU usages over time, once it's completely rehabbed, but is going through the process right now, looking at with Teresa's software, it looks like we've been charging one EU of usage for the whole building rather than. When they're under, yeah, yeah, right. And that seems logical for me to add a minimum bump down to one EU and then have the discussion of what do we do from there about the current bill and then the next six months. Like I think, I think sort of almost separating them into two separate issues is. Right, I think we're going to drop it to one EU and one EU may be retroactive to this current balance. When was this bill? June. I don't know, it's June. Yep, because it would have, or it would have been July because I think it was, or maybe it's June. I'm trying to remember the billing cycle's a little funny. So we end on June. So the bill he received would have covered. There was a bill from June 16th, 2011, 302.1, which at least is paid. Yeah, 302.1. That's a one EU. Yeah, was that, that's not, is that your other property? Oh, okay. That's an old bill, because it was 308. Yeah, that was an old bill, must be, yeah. Well, yeah, so the bill that you received, I can tell you, I just looked in the software, so it was for four. So that's a motion you could make, Paul. Sure. This is something that throw us away. We have a problem of paying. Yeah, one EU. Right. I understand the type of problem I don't envy you. To go back to Chris's point, my reflection is we have done a full abatement when things are under massive renovation and close to coming online, right? The one that's really sticking in my head is Dylan. Yeah. We did a full abatement and so to sort of keep with consistency, even if it's separate from how many EUs, you know, to from here do an abatement to whatever the, you know, the six month quarter from here. So it's April, I know the billing for water's little bill available for that quarter, right? Yeah, exactly. So if you bill, so the first bill you received in August covers July, August and September. So depending, you could either abate his bill entirely or you could abate it down to one EU or you could, so you have a couple options. But yes, you're right, they're funny like that. Because you are bill. So just say April is, I feel like that's hot. Yeah, well, because it would be, let's see, July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February, March, and then your next bill would include April, May, and June. So, but in the past, you have, yes, you've abated and then you've given them six months and then they have to come back and update you. But it doesn't sound like you're really thinking of having it occupiable. You're thinking just get it to the point where somebody else will be. Yeah, well, I'm at a point where. Yeah, you want somebody to come in and take it off your hands and finish the. Yeah, but in this case, there is no end date for. No, so you could just abate it and then just put it, the building itself on one EU vacant sewer and water and move forward. If you just wanted to put it on one EU at. At the vacancy rate. From that, you know, moving forward, that's fine with me. Okay. In this case, well, I'm not we, but the town has kind of abated his utilities over the last several years. Yeah, cause you've never built them. Yeah. It's not like it's a new abatement where we're giving like two quarters to get it all done, you know. Exactly. And I can tell you. So if we're talking to go to the one EU, that would that be at the vacancy rate or at the full one EU? What were you thinking? What was that? I was hoping for the evaporation rate. So that was the, whatever, two, two letters. Shut up. Yeah, it is. It's not even piped into his house. This is the amount we'll have to. If you would need to abate it, that's what you're looking at, abating. I like Lindley's idea of two separate votes. Abating. If you obey this bill, that's the amount. The one they get sent to. Voting first to, and I would move, that we consider that a one unit facility. That's after. Property. Keeping it one unit. No, that's not, that's the whole thing. So you just made a motion, Jean, to move a one EU. Make it a one unit property. Vacant. No, I'm just dealing with any vacancies or abatements. I just wanna say it's a one unit property. Okay, so that's his motion. Okay, Helen Bailey. Aye. Okay, so one EU property. Now I think now it's just, what do we wanna do with that? Do we run it as a vacancy for now? And then what do we do with the bill that was given? Well, I was gonna say, I think if Patrick is comfortable with the vacancy rate, that seems like sort of the win-win for all parties, right? The town is at least still covering its fixed costs and it's not breaking his budget to be able to continue renovations. But that's separate from the second part of your question of what do we do with the EU. I mean, can we? So that means you take the existing bill and change it to one EU. Right. Can we do that retroactive? Yeah, of course, yep. Change it to the vacancy rate for one EU. Yeah, so I could reduce it. So basically I could right off the bound, they could right off part of the bill and leave it. So is that your motion, Lindley, to make a two-part motion to move him to one vacancy rate retroactive? So you're gonna abate a portion of the 130850 and put him down to one vacant EU for sewer water and leave that building at one vacant sewer water until there's more development there and a much less wordy. Yeah. Well, I guess my follow-up question was, Dave brought up an interesting point. So you were saying you paid the June, July bill of 13, 14, and 11? No. Oh, you didn't tell me the number one that you paid. Yeah, yeah, that was the question. Yeah, no, no, yeah. No, he has a current, there's a current balance on that of 130850. I think the system, I need to, I'm in my favor of this general idea that I think the system is what we've done. It needs to be a, it may not call it an end date, but a date to revisit us. Yep, yep. But something comes up in April. Yeah, that's fair. We're not ready to do whatever we need to come back because as of April, we're gonna say, okay, we're gonna back to full date. Well. Unless we hear from you, we've not done it again. I guess my encounter with that is that for Boone and the vacancy rate, he has to come in to have the water turned back on at any point in the future. And so. Well, that's true, yeah. So would that be prompt to have it come in when, whenever that's ready? One unit, three units doesn't matter. Because you do have other buildings that are undeveloped that you charge, that have the opportunity to be much more, but you charge them for one vacant EU because they're not currently using any water. So you do have that existing situation now. So it would be make Patrick fair to blend into what you currently are doing. In English, in English. Okay, so I moved. I can tell you what the rate is and we can just do the math. To put Patrick on the vacancy rate and retroactively abate the June quarter. Difference? Yeah, the difference of the June quarter, June 2021 quarter bill and then effective moving forward. Okay. So basically you're moving, it's fine. You're going to put them on a vacancy, the motion is that you're going to move Patrick to a vacancy rate for one EU and retroactively abate the difference between the four full EUs and the one vacant EU. Perfect, I can do that. No problem. Okay, that's the motion. Do we have a second? I'll second that. Okay, all in favor? Aye. So you got $10,000 for it, all in favor? I'm going to make all, go in and roll. They're going to abate all of the bill except for the one vacant EU that you want. So I'll move that interest and penalty. You'll just pay what's due. I'll email you a new bill. Yep, and then moving forward, you'll just be charged one vacant EU for water and sewer. And then as you develop the property, you know, let us know or once you sell it or whatever, just shoot me out an email, Patrick and keep us in the loop. Sound good? Yeah. Thank you for coming in. Appreciate that. That's where everybody is. I'm not really familiar with town government. I don't know who you're from, I don't get that either. I'm Lily Braynard. Okay. Chris Jarvis. Chris Jarvis. Paul Valley. Paul Valley. Gene Krause. You are. She's taking the minutes for us. She's lovely to do so. Yeah, we want to do so. So lose my business. It does. Good to go. Thank you so much. You have to be here, Patrick. See you. Good luck. That's where you go. The only thing I would say while we still have our water hats on is maybe Trees needs to go look at a few of them in there to make sure that some of them that I looked at there that are on the same. Well, we review them. Tim and I go through all the EUs every year and we send out to the, we do a mailing. So everybody that has more than one unit gets a thing they tell us whether or not they have a grease trap what was the day they cleaned it, what their uses are. So some things are looked at. But so we'll go. And I know we've done a really good job over the last couple years trying to get a current and have a formal system but there's still a little couple of stragglers out there that we could probably. And that's kind of hard. The reason that he got a bill was because he'd been off so long and we hadn't heard from him. So I knew what would get his attention with the bill. I just see how those charges were abated by Trees. Yeah, so he got a bill. Yeah, never, I don't remember that ever coming. Well, of course, I guess it depends on when they abated it. But I came on right at the end of Keith there. And I don't remember. I think that they just did it. I think that they had managed to done it. But what we did was we ended up, because some people hadn't heard from him, but I know it would get their attention with the bill. And it, and it did. He usually does. Yeah. Perfect. All right. So we'll move on to public comments. If there is anything anybody wants to bring up that's not currently on the agenda for this evening, now's the time to do it. Yes, Jesse. Only, but this is, Lylee is being so wonderful and we're trying to work the bugs out and it's probably gonna take another meeting or so of somebody of that until we're trying to work out the hybrid aspect. And right now it's, Orca is doing the video and the audio but what we were unable to do tonight was connect the new town laptop to the older projectors. So we're still working the bugs out. So we're not going public until we can figure out Lylee, bless her very much, is willing to participate, see how the audio was, how was it going. And so we're gonna give it a few, you know, a couple meetings to sort out all the bugs. I missed the last meeting, but did it come to? No, we actually have the laptop as ours. We have the projector as ours. And so Orca was willing to help us since they come anyways through the audio and the video. So we didn't, hopefully I'm having to make an outlay of cash. I'm gonna have to talk, well, besides the Zoom, but we'll have to talk to Vermont Digital to say, I don't know if I'm just missing a chord or what, so we'll see. But luckily Zach from Orca was able to make it work through his old Mac tonight. But, so just working the bugs out, Jesse. We will also appreciate if there's a volunteer on a regular basis or multiple volunteers on a rotating basis who could monitor the Zoom feed while we are in meeting. That frees the select board to do the business. So take that to heart. Because right now we have Chris and I are monitoring so if Lylee sends a message in the chat, we're reading it so we can, so so far she said, it's great, she can hear. She's going right at those dishes too. She is, and she were watching Lylee do the dishes. She's watched the same dish six times. It's on your plate. These are Chris and someone else's right there. Yes. And then just remember, just because we have a new person taking the meeting minutes, they may not know all the names. So just make sure that you present your name so we can just make sure you're in the record correctly. That's all. Eating, that's what's, I noticed there's a comment. I heard a story recently about a family who was a victim from their home here and the bank held a sale. And basically they lost $45,000 of equity and whoever bought it, then put a deck on it and painted it and stuff and a matter of weeks sold it for over $200,000. And there are other stories like that floating around about what's happening because of COVID. And I wondered if there had been any discussion of thought about, I lived in a town in Colorado which where I, when I arrived, for $100 you could buy any lot on Main Street. And today you can't buy a one bedroom condo for less than a million. So what the community did at one point was to adopt a transfer tax to be used for the benefit of the schools and the town and things of that sort. So that at very least when someone was making a killing and in some cases very unfair to a family that may be struggling and is basically losing all of their equity there so that someone else can take it to the fire sale and resell it. Should we give some thought? I was shocked to see, I don't know if anyone here is connected to it, that in last Saturday of Sunday's Valley News, a house in Christian Hill Road was in the paper for $849,000. Two bedroom, two bath house, nice house. But I mean it's, that makes me nervous. And I wonder if there's a way that if people aren't going to be coming in and paying cash and basically making it very difficult for families to buy property here because someone else comes in and outpits him or offers cash to the people that the town has some way to make some kind of a benefit from that. Just to follow up, this is not where I came in. Currently I'm not aware of a municipality that certainly Colorado is different, they're more of a county style government. Right now the tax, any property transfer tax between sale of properties is paid to the state not to the municipalities. And it saddens me to hear that about COVID. We have been pushing any programs that we've had for utilities, electric, buy internet connection, arrearage programs, the town has received over $16,000 in arrearage through people that have applied through the COVID program for forgiveness of water sewer and there's still more of that coming for people that have applied and other aid. So it saddens me to hear that someone wasn't able to take avail, avail themselves of some programs that were available. But currently John, the only thing that towns can do is maybe set up a TIF district which is really just an extra sales tax. So currently I'm not aware of anything but certainly that would be something to speak to, you know, Kirk White or John McBlank and the other gentlemen. Dick McCormick, thank you so much. Dick McCormick may be on the state level but that's too bad. The only thing that the town gains is when someone turns around and does a sale and you know like that and buys the property the only thing to have the grand list value goes up but you're right, as far as cash there's no current tax. What? One of the things in New York commented to me that kind of stuff. You believe that some of the pages putting the property in there that you know, 13 acres or something but it's still it's ridiculous. And he said, well, you can't buy one bedroom apartment in Manhattan for 850,000 dollars. That's crazy, the real estate market certainly is crazy, but we've seen the boom. But the reason you're coming here is that we have something that the people of New York don't have. So we should not be taking advantage of it. Yeah, that's true. Just something to think about. Thank you. I'm gonna move up to a question of affordable housing as a big one that we all need to address especially as we move into climate issues because we're gonna have folks who are coming to Vermont as climate migrants. It's not just people and that will include people from New York who are trying to cut their expenses. But we're going to see an increased demand on housing I believe here in Vermont and anything we can do to bring awareness and make affordable housing a reality here will be most welcome. Any other public comment? Any nod on the agenda? Seeing none? I'm just thinking. The affordable housing issue is a lot bigger than what we're just talking about right now because it's everywhere. I think it's a great idea and I would love to do it for folks. If we make, if we do a conscious effort to do something and regulate so that there's affordable housing in a short time, there'll be none because the people who are not being regulated will be moving here. I think this is a lot bigger than Vermont. That's what I'm saying. It's a national issue. And if Vermont does something, it could hurt us badly. If we were the only one to do it, it could hurt us extremely badly. Everyone, and especially the ones who are trying to help, the lower income folk and whatnot because the people from, I've seen it, I know the house you're talking about. I know places that I've seen sold. The guy comes in, he's got a wallet that, he doesn't care. But it goes, you know, he came from a place so he doesn't care that it's affordable housing. You're absolutely right. It's an issue that's bigger than here. And I'm concerned if we do something, if we do something drastic that it's just gonna hurt everyone. Oh, we've seen it in Vermont since the late 70s. It's, you know, when the, when the sprawl happened from the cities in the 70s. I mean, that's when the Burlington's and stuff started to, you know, go full hastures to big cities. Right in this town, late 60s, and people came from Connecticut with a boatload of money and taxes went crazy and because they picked a few pieces of property. They come out, they buy all the real estate and then they change your government and everything else they do. Well, anyway, this is going to be fine. And I think this is bigger along with the ride at that point. It's bigger than that. Yeah. I mean, did you start about, I mean, it was certainly national level that housing is a big issue for the country, you know, everybody. And I did see, you know, and we all know that Governor Scott had mentioned about COVID money coming and trying to do more with, you know, finding more housing, what, you know, an affordable housing, worker housing, and trying to deal with the housing shortage in Vermont. So it'll be interesting to see what kind of comes down the pike about to, but you're right. I mean, it's nationwide. If I can just toss that one right here in this panel, Paul Robb, one of the things we did is we created kind of a two-tier real estate market. And to be in the lower tier, you had to work in the county, so you can go down for 40 weeks a year to be in. If you were, then, you know, it's like when the program started, when the girlfriend of mine said, you have to buy one of these in this subdivision, it was all, what they call affordable housing. And she said, oh, I'm scared, it's a lot of money, $100,000 in size. You gotta do this, or you won't be able to work here soon. You won't be able to afford your instant things like that. And she, and the way the structure was that, okay, you bought the house $100,000 and then you agreed to be a real citizen, not someone who comes up for a couple weeks a year or something. And then at the time that you wanted to sell it, you were actually allowed to be making the profit based on the number of years that they set. I forget what it was, five percent a year, but whatever, it was sort of like a bank rate for loans on things like that, so that you could, you know, your equity would be growing with inflation or whatever. And that's turned out to be a remarkable thing that's kept the community by the hand. And that's, I don't know, it's, you know, people think, well, why shouldn't we be able to, if you can't afford it, can you do your property on this one? I mean, in some ways it's a version of current views. You know, it's creating housing for people who live there instead of, you know. And also, Dave's absolutely right, I read a week or two ago, that we're facing in the next 10 years an internal migration of something like 1.7 million people because of sea level rise, who will have to vacate the night warden and you have to draw lines from different places. And there will be this pressure that, you know, we're, I'm kind of worried about sea level rise here, but dealing with people, and in fact, we need more workers than everyone else. I want to call the irons for all Vermonters to buy up every single piece of property in Vermont. And you'll be fine. Sitting on a golden nugget, right, Dave? Don't give away. It's unfortunate, I mean, I've seen people that are older than I, you know, 70, 80, whatever, and you know, they're right, they've got a living, and now here comes the old nugget. You know? And what do I do? Well, these were taken. These are the kind of ideas that are worth exploring. So that we can say to the people that we've talked about, Dave, you know, we're going to try to figure out how we can make it happen. We'll make it, maybe, because we're going to be way off track and we'll see it anyway. Maybe our legislators haven't taken all that money, I'm sure, to check it somewhere else and they have our back. So when you drew Social Security, you drew one up and lived. So you didn't have to take that golden nugget? Well, it's definitely something that's no different than the retirement issues we have going on in the state. It's a good issue to contact your local representation on, you know, leaning on Curt and them and saying, you know, and Dick and saying, what are you doing about this, you know? Because unfortunately in Vermont, like, you know, like Teresa was saying in Vermont, you know, a lot of other states have things more county controlled in Vermont. It's not like that, you know? Really, municipalities have no control hardly at all on anything, you know? It's all handed down, you know? It's not like you have a county, county control or, you know? So you're kind of stuck to that point, but... But thanks for bringing it up anyways, and I'm sure it's always good to get that up to your legislators, or that time will be coming again pretty short. I do. Actually, this has been coming to me because there were a lot of legislators who were just going, it's not in session. And so there are big staffers, and they're all summer and fall, putting together legislation, and people to mark up on them and consider it. So, and I do think we're growing somebody's job. All right. So Jesse and Owen sitting in the back tonight, they got catering licensed, looking at doing, right? See you back there somewhere. I was so impressed. So you guys are looking to do an event at the White Church. Just a motion to approve the catering permit as is. I'll save, he said. Move by Dave, second Linley, all in favor? All right. All right. That was the easy one. How'd you guys make out before the festival? It was awesome. We counted 302 people that came through our lot. Wow. Yeah. It was good. Then you got an advance in the rain, a lot. It did. Yeah. That's good. And here's our sole t-shirts, love for the sell, or all the t-shirts sold, you know? Two X's. We got quite a few two X's. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks, give me some. We're all in a little bit of a mess. Yeah. Yeah. This is where you're going to. You know, certainly, but Kelly now may be married or proud of whoever has the quantity, the price of money. She should put something out on, if you wanted, on Facebook or from which words to remind people, they could still buy them a base or mills hardware. Christmas is coming. Give a two X's for our first teacher. That's good to hear. Yeah. It might also be good if you can go further on the catering permit over there. And we're going to request to use the town hall to waive the fees. And you have a letter from Madi Walsh, who has to say, well, would you like this time on December 24 for a small dinner? Could the fee please be waived? And there's a two hour minimum. So the normal rent for non-profit would be $50 for two hours, up to $150. But it would be nice. Obviously, everybody has been used enough lately. So that is now a request. Of course, the road redes a lot of nice things for the town. Right. So the board, thank you on that. So if we're not going to charge them, why do we have a non-profit rate? You've had, they set the fee schedule, I want to say, a couple of years ago, maybe, for everything, fees across the board for zoning, the pool for this. And then it just happened to happen. And it had a fee schedule, because I think probably it was depending on maybe what was going on here, say, a larger, like AARP, or somebody who's non-profit, but maybe in a larger sense, that could maybe afford the rent because, obviously, the citizens pay for all the makeup, the heat, the electric. So as town hall is used, I think it's like we're at the time, just set a fee. And then was, you know, said they'd kind of look out on the case-by-case. I think in the past, a majority of town-related events here have been waived. Yeah. But again, I think it's more of this thinking of more outside of town. It was a bigger problem. I guess this need a motion to. I'll make a motion. Can we waive the fee for the Rory Club function? October 24. Second by Lindley. All in favor? Aye. It's more of a heads up. That's why it's discussion only. So I haven't given to you an email that, so first of all, Pam's town clerk's in the area had a conversation. And they were looking at Act 64. And Pam had come to me and asked me about what my understanding of the rule was. And I said, at first, it didn't make any sense to me that the select board would approve or not, whether or not the school could mail Australian ballots. So she wrote to JP, the Secretary of State's office guy. And he was great, as always. He's been wonderful to deal with. So what he's saying is to be clear, the issue, so why she's backed up. So what the question is this, is Act 64 allows the school board to decide whether or not they're going to mail Australian ballot. Last year we did it, everybody did it right because of COVID. This year, now, the school board the option to do that. But they cannot do it without select board approval. So in this case, both the Bethel select board and the Royalton select board would have to vote in favor of Australian ballots being distributed. And as JP is saying here, is to be clear, the issue is not whether the select board has chosen to mail the ballots for town issue. The select board is basically allowing the mailing of ballots for school issues. So if the school board had a meeting and said, okay, we want to mail Australian ballot, then they have to make a formal request of both the Bethel and the Royalton select board to authorize. It's almost like you're given permission to use your, to use the, you know, to deal with the voters in your town. But the state wrote the law, that's Act 64. It doesn't seem like it's. I know, it doesn't seem like it's within the select board. There's nothing to do with the school. And you don't, this is only, basically, you're giving permission for them to basically deal with your constituents, which is interesting because when Pam came to me, I said, it doesn't make any sense. It's just one of these like, the horse type things or. It is, so certainly that's the deal with Act 64. I will say that some town clerks certainly feel that the answer should be, no. Because if you want a ballot, you can call the town office 24 seven and leave a message. You can send an email 24 seven to the town clerk to request a ballot. You can go on to the secretary of state's website 24 seven and request your ballot through the secretary's state's office. You can come in and ask for one, if you swing by. And so there's ongoing options for people. What people don't always know is what happens to the town clerk side. So say I mail a ballot, I'm a town clerk, I mail a ballot to Chris Jarvis. If Chris Jarvis shows up at the poll and he does not have his ballot, then he has to either go home and get his ballot or he has to complete an affidavit saying that he lost it or he didn't. So there's a whole process that happens on the town clerk side that the state doesn't think about sometimes voters aren't thinking about. So town clerks are not opposed to, they want more people to vote, but they also want people to participate in the process by coming to the, it's saying I want my ballot, I'm a participant in the system and I want my ballot and they can formally request one. And so I don't know. Have the schools weighed in on their desire yet? That's why this is a preliminary kind of a discussion only. Pam had given it to me and then I, after I did the agenda started that I reread it and I said, wait a second, the school hasn't formally requested this yet. And she said, no. So basically we just said we want you to be aware of that this is what the state has done, that the legislators have passed the decision to the select boards. And then if you say yes, but Royalton says no, the answer is no. And you can't, both towns have to agree. So why the legislature dragged the select boards into school business? I actually don't know what I'm talking about. Is they ballot for officers in our school district, they ballot, Australian ballot for officers, but the budget is voted off the floor. Right, correct. So in this case it would just be. Assuming that COVID doesn't change the guidelines again. Right. She does talk to the school board and give them her opinion on this matter or is that? I don't know. They just, she had gone to a meeting. Pam had gone to a meeting with our Carmen. Carmen and a couple other town clerks that they had decided was that the town clerks in Windsor County would get together every quarter, which is a great idea, because there's always a lot of changes that come down the pike from the state. So they had got together and talked about this. And then Carmen was gonna talk to the Royalton select board and Pam wanted you guys to know about it. And then when we looked into it, I said, you know, it's a discussion only, a heads up that this is coming. So whether or not Carmen and Pam are gonna go to the school board, I don't know, but I'll find out. I suggest that they do. They should go to the school board and say, we either want this or we don't, and this is why. And to go to the school board, you need to say we need it by this date. Or else, you know, it's kind of like that. It's kind of like the joint activities of the meeting, the meeting book that doesn't get put together on time because the school doesn't have it to us on time. So I think somehow you'd have to trace back date because then it would have to come to us to approve, right? So you'd have to kind of back date with the final, like they would have to give a vote at the school level by a certain date to get it to this select, you know, I don't know, I'm thinking out loud. Maybe at the end of November, so that then we have, because it goes to print, what? January? And this is only for annual meetings, so I don't, but then the other thing is too is, because the passage of S.15 states that the legislative may vote to mail, however, I wonder if this is the same as you, is if they're gonna do this, do they have to put it on their warning? I guess not, somehow they're letting them, because if we want to go, Australian ballot, we have to put it on the warning and vote on it, but it sounds like maybe they're giving the authority to the school board. Oh, that's right, they have to say form the, okay, that's right. Except for last year. I forgot you're right, Paul, that's right, so that's why they're not doing it. So yeah, so anyways, it's convoluted why this state passed the buck to the school, select boards, I don't know. Maybe they're just, yeah, I wouldn't put them that aside, it is what it is. Yeah, and so it's a thought for a future meeting. I just wanted you to understand, Pam, why'd you know what's happening. I just want a clarification, because as I read the plain meaning of the text in that law, says that the school board may, after receiving approval from the town, in other words, we would have to act first about mailing ballots. Right, the first thing. And then if we were to act, they could then follow up with that. So, but they have to at least decide, they may not even want to, so it could be a new point for us. So they have to, I guess they'll have their meeting and they're going to decide whether or not they even want to ask the select boards to do that. So that was my conversation. They can only act after we give an approval, but they can make a decision that they'd like to do. I just want to write it down. Yeah. So let's wait until we hear from them. Yeah, we just wanted you to know it was coming down the pike, in case you heard of it, it's unusual. Again, I would just give them a deadline, probably. Yeah, it's unusual. So we'll talk about it. It'll be January, they'll be trying to rush something through. Yeah, in the last script, she's her environment. They're going to support the question mark. And see. The only method of voters only vote for that percentage, the royalty board is going to vote for the royalty representative. That's when you do not get to vote for the royalty representatives. Right. You know how much it runs. Yeah, I got 17 of them last year. I think those votes are more good. Yeah, so I don't know. No, it's fine. It's a common goal. Do you vote for the royalty months between? I don't think so. Sure. I mean, I left mine blank, but it gave me the option. I didn't know who the people were from Rolton, but they were on the family to vote for. The same thing from the Rolton House. When you guys voted, were you able to vote for the Rolton ones? Yeah, I think you could. Yeah, I think so. They had the ability. I know when we were counting them, a lot more blank just because people are like, why should I be voting for this? But I think the way the statute got written that you could. Because it's your district. Your district represent. Now, so probably previously we would. Yeah. No, it makes sense. Very beautiful. A lot of it doesn't seem to add up. Well, let's just see what the school board is thinking. That's why it was just discussion only, just so you guys could know. And then if they want to, maybe just have them into the next meeting and see what they do with the represent, somebody from saying what they want to do and we can put them on and go that route. Hold them hostage for whatever we need. Can't even get a lost town meeting on. Is there anything that we're looking for? Yeah, okay. All right. And then we had, as we had talked about the last meeting just kind of getting back to warning going. How that might look. And then we had talked about some other potential topics to put on the annual warning which could which could be like, you know, the potential option to 12-14. Yeah, vote on the Australian ballot by town officers or with, you know, with the budget as well or hybrid mix of the two or none. And then as we had talked about the last meeting, I think it was just the last meeting in regards to the cannabis realtor piece in order for somebody to open a cannabis store to sell before they could do that then the town would have to go to a townwide vote to allow that to happen. And I won't bring it up again this meeting. I'm going to hold that whole thing because if I vote, if I say I want to do it, you give me permission to open a store and become a real show, you can't take it away from me. The way everybody wrote that law, once you give me the authority to sell it, I can sell it forever and in a damn thing you can do about it. That I'm saying no to all that until they change that, so if you're a bad bag, we can get rid of you. The question for us is the merits of it. The question for us is whether put it on the ballot. I understand that, but I can't. I know we had up until this time, well, I mean, the big thing has been is there anybody in town looking to do that because we haven't heard anything. I haven't heard anything about retail. I was approached in email today about someone who's considering doing the cannabis cultivation. But that would not be a state permit. That would be a state permit that would not be affected by this. Just to backtrack a little bit, I added 12 and 13, which is 12 is shall the voters elect by town, elect its town officers bias for a ballot. Number 13 is shall the voters adopt all budget articles. The kind of the consensus was not the budget, but I put it on here for you guys to decide that. So that's why it's on here. The consensus of the time was no, it would be just the officers, but I just wanted you to know this is what it looks like if we put it on there. 14 is shall the voters authorize cannabis retailers and retail portions of integrated licensee establishments in town pursuant to the statute. It was until recently that the original act that was passed said that we had to vote on it by this coming town meeting or we would automatically opt in the state change that. So now it does not have to be voted on town meeting. The select board could not put it on the warning and could wait until someone petitioned it to come before them to ask them to add it. So it's just kind of an ongoing conversation that the select board has had just to kind of keep you all up to speed on what's going on. So and they're correct as of yet we haven't had anyone come who wanted to open a cannabis retail shop but as I said I did have someone approach me today via email about cultivating. But that again wouldn't be affected by this. But whether or not we put it on there to address Dave's point we can't change what the statute is. Right? No. So even by not putting it on the warning doesn't change the fact that that's still there. And if somebody comes forward and wants the petition to put it on the warning it's still going to have to be dealt with you know one way or the other. And I understand what you're saying but it would be a legislative thing to have to change that part of the statute. Let's go. I'm not willing to put it on there without someone requesting an actual because that's the only thing I can do. Well I know you know some of this will originally the House bill said that you're going to have to do it within so many days of it coming out and I know the Senate bill changed that but I think in some cases like some municipalities would want to get this out in front if you have a localized tax and things like that because then you can set up those parameters to it where in Bethlehem you don't have any of that you know we don't have a localized tax system or anything like that and we don't have to our knowledge right now we don't have anybody that wants to put anything in and there is a formal system in place that let's say in April next year somebody is thinking about doing it and they really want to do it they could petition the board to do a vote you know so it's not like we're not allowing somebody you know the opportunity to do it yeah so much and you vote and it gets voted in favor of saying voting by Australian ballot it won't take effect obviously this year but we'll take the next town meeting so anyways that was charged so if you're okay with it then was it the first meeting in November that you wanted to put that on have a bigger discussion some things either under the budget budget and other business so that if there were a non-binding resolution that were to come that that would be it's number 15 it's already on there to transact any other non-binding business that may legally come before this meeting pursuant to 17 but it doesn't say Australian ballot versus in person I don't follow we're in items 12 we're suggesting whether or not we elect town officers in the future by Australia ballot in item 13 we're suggesting that about budget articles we're not making any recommendation about non-binding or other kinds of business that may come that require a vote but it's because it's a non-binding resolution I mean you do vote you vote from the floor and they count we vote from that actually the town were to say we're going to do officers and budget by Australian ballot then if there were the desire to have a non-binding resolution would we have to have a town meeting well you already have a sort of town meeting anyways even if you vote you'll have an informational I'm not sure you can I'll have to look at that because I don't know because the term non-binding I don't know if you vote non-binding because I've never seen anyone vote a non-binding on Australian ballot so it's a great question let me look I just want to make sure that that is other business that might come before a town meeting and I just want to make sure that we're covering the bases now it may be that we don't want to say anything about that and we don't want to say anything about the budget at least but only for the new officers no I see what you're saying because it's an interesting premise I mean some towns vote their zoning by Australian ballot but for you guys you would have to know the question way in advance around the ballot and then every tone I don't know it's a good question legal question I'll find out was the plan for the rec center was that voted by the town was it a vote vote or was it a non-binding was it just a discussion that you voted on you picked plan A or B did you actually vote on it at the town meeting was appropriating additional money specifically towards the speed part so that was one in our discussion of voting the budget off the floor versus Australian ballot was if you go to Australian ballot for the budget vote you lose that ability to make amendments from the floor which is what we currently can do and so the example with the rec center was we made an amendment and an appropriation of additional funds specifically to the skate park and added that to the budget so then when we voted the budget that was added in so it wasn't a vote on option it wasn't like which plan are we choosing so the plan itself wasn't adapted by the town that was a slight poor decision I believe well the plan was there was a couple of different options and the towns people through town meeting and other you know had talked about doing I don't remember if it was B or C but that was the one that they went with it wasn't nothing binding but there was that into the decision resolution or discussion yeah and then this like board act upon well right so I would like to know what if anything anybody here has any ideas or suggestions about voting Australian versus in person town meeting if you've got any ideas since you're here I mean I know still I continued I've been trying to reach out to different contact individuals in town when I see them and it seems to be still the forum is is at least having the budget in person because of the meaning of town meeting of you know doing pies and visiting with your peers and the interaction piece of it but I you know and again I not to say that I've been trying to get information from long term residents of Bethel more because you know like we talked about here I don't know half an hour ago you know people that come in from wherever they buy a piece of property and then you know want to tell Bethel what we're doing you know so I've been trying to find long term standing residents to say what do you think and a lot of them still who I talk to still want to stick with an in person whole thing once a year they have any idea something I've been thinking about a lot is where is and I think the value of town meetings discussions is that sometimes come in people come in to something if they just get the ballot and they're at home they say oh yeah it's that but if they hear discussion maybe it doesn't even come to amendments but people talking about it that helps make them more informed makes them more part of the process and yes this is you know we have an opportunity here which it's not like they can't they can't have a town meeting in Manhattan unless they get a you know and it kind of goes to the uniqueness of our town I think there are two things there one is we want the most number of people to vote and I think that you know if there are people who are home bound you know we want to make accommodations so that they can when my mom was up at Mennick it was 99 she wanted to vote and sort of like but she could physically go to a town coming here to the meeting that's something that you know we need to be mindful of that but at the same time I think there's really valuable value to people speaking in public and people you know as a group you know moving more towards consensus rather than you know incredible polarization if the issue is attendance I mean first of all the option of being on a Saturday I'm sure that's been discussed and also I just wonder if you know with all the experience with COVID in Zoom I wonder if we've advanced far enough the fact that we might be able to have a hybrid town meeting as well which would increase attendance we did do the town meeting theism last year and had the budget informational theism because COVID we were forced to go you know all Australian ballot and I think the select board at the time and the people present in the audience we talked about this a few weeks ago the majority, the consensus at that time seemed to be vote your officers Australian ballot but leave the budget in person and then you can kind of have that hybrid of back and forth of both but we did have a budget informational and I think there was well there was the six of us and three others I think that came report others that came with that we had more of the prior meeting maybe 15 total the prior meeting but that's why we're trying to work out the hybrid now but certainly trying to find the way what's the consensus you know what would find the happy medium I guess and there has been some studies like you were pointing out about like a potential Saturday and there has been studies that have been presented in regards to doing business you know town-wide business on certain days of the week you know the thought was like we can be easier for people right but they found that that wasn't the case you know just as many within reason you know just as many people showed up on Saturdays they did Tuesday so I think that's why they kind of kept it where it was but you know the challenge I guess still is like you know I've been able to address the budget in a couple of different ways over the last few years in person which even though we do it in person we still have an informational night as a board to get feedback and things like that and then last year you know was that kind of the first time that we did you know the Australian ballot so we you know address the budget you know just like this again and I really didn't see any extra participation between one or the other there was still the same you know four or five people that come the way in or maybe in some cases you know are the same ones that come to all the meetings you know but it didn't really seem like you know you would think like if you were gonna I guess the perception would be is if you were gonna vote in Australian ballot you would think that you would have more people that would come to the informational meetings so they could have their voices weighed in on you know because I remember a couple years ago we had the human services piece remember there was one that was left off that we added on and you would think you'd have more interaction with that but it wasn't really the case and you know there's definitely pluses and minuses to both ways and getting more voters typically when you do do it from a ballot you typically have more voters because they can come in between seven and seven and get one but then you lose some of your flexibilities of changing things from the floor or I'll just point out like the school for instance had a vacancy on their director this past so there was nobody on the ticket so then you get a you know finding your right in minimums you know where from the floor you could vote somebody from the floor I guess but you know like a chance to meet somebody for people to come on via Zoom to meet the candidates hear what they had to say to know them and a number of people took advantage of that and I would argue the people who attend who would have it if we had had an in-person town meeting and voted for officers by Australian ballot people present at the town meeting would have been able to vote for the officers including a right in if with at the town meeting they would have been able to vote so would people outside of the town meeting who couldn't or wouldn't or whatever get off work or be able to participate directly so there's a there's a question for some about whether not just hybrid but a mixed mixed hybrid so that it's both and in terms of of doing part of the meeting Australian and part of the meeting in person so the numbers have not changed I've seen everything that everybody's talking about you still think a hundred white people maximum I've seen towns going one day to a Saturday and they had a meeting that maybe a couple of the people changed the numbers themselves the people that want to come seem to always come but it was interesting if somebody local tried to go Saturday the numbers stayed the same the faces changed the demographic changed but the numbers stayed the same that's important if you have anything on your Australian ballot maybe you could vote at a regular meeting but you can't nominate anybody else the only people that can be voted for the people around that Australian ballot you're not going to change that because they would have to fill in every petition so there's a doubt where you're trying to take in person meeting to change how you vote for your people you can't you've got a list of slate and you're not going to talk about it or anything well this is it you've got to vote for Monday or day that's it well in the end you'll send it to the voters and the voters will decide whether they want Australian ballot on their offices or they don't and I think what we're trying to do right now at the board level is the board can just as easily say okay we're going to put one, both or none of them on but I think what we're trying to do is try to figure out based upon we want to do the right thing but make sure we have the right information too do we do it with a binding put it on the warning to do a binding measure where people can vote binding or maybe maybe we do a non-binding resolution where you can at least get away in from people and say oh wow it's like 50-50 really close or 90-10 most people want to go this way we have all kinds of directions that we can go I think probably a lot of us hadn't really thought of Australian ballot as much of an option over the years until the COVID hit last year and then you know kind of forced into that way of doing things but like I said before when I started my early career in voting in the town I lived in it was all done in Australian ballot like you know of course I was only in my early 20's so I didn't really follow the politics very well but you know you got the ballot in some ways it was kind of you know you look at it and it's like how do I know how these people I don't know what this money was appropriated for and then when I came to Bethel it was like completely different it was like sitting in a gymnasium with 200 people it was kind of neat to see the process before the pies but you know it was neat to see the process like you know at that time it was always the same person we get up and make motions you know it was kind of fun to watch but there was a lot of times I think just about every meeting or something had been amended or changed or there was an opportunity to fix a wrong or you know something like that so I think kind of going back about this is this is one of the truest versions of democracy that we'll ever encounter in our lives and it's not that you negate democracy but you really fundamentally change it and so while I really do support sort of the equity side of this and making it more accessible I struggle with the fact that I actually think we'll get votes for people like oh I know that last name versus I know that person and what they stand for or I heard them speak at informational night town meeting day kind of doesn't matter versus I'm just checking a box because this thing was meant to me I remember time sitting in the and I'm sure everybody here has done the same where you thought you were going in person to vote a certain way and then through conversation all of a sudden you said well you know what I think I will vote a bunch of them you know through some pieces of conversation that you know you know I've done that school before I'm like oh alright you know so it's like please don't misunderstand I come from communities that have never even heard of town meetings and I've lived before in towns that had town meetings this is a wonderful place and way to do business there's no question about that in my mind but I am aware that it doesn't it simply doesn't reflect the will of the majority of the people well I mean and or well I just think that's well the data there is a limit yeah the data clearly shows that usually we get 200 people at town meeting day maybe and you know if you go to a ballot system you'll get probably three times that right we've seen that yeah I remember the first year after the school merger when it was in Royalton remember that the school meeting was in Royalton that year there was only 17 of us from Buffalo that were there 17 you know and I think there was a total of 180 people and it was like 17 Buffalo and people there is no system that can't be gained and can't be and doesn't have weaknesses alright so we're going to try to let Lyley speak so anyway let's see if we can't figure out how to hear Lyley yeah yeah I guess I just want to say that I've lived in Buffalo for about 10 years now I probably lived about 4 years living here before I felt comfortable living at town meeting because I didn't know what it was and it's very different than what I used to so I think that like I think how we do this is an advantage in that informal pornography I also think that there's so much to be said about welcoming people and even people who live here well it's kind of the better thing to tell me just like that idea that he does this and working with child care and working schedules is also the people and like we understand what it is if they're about to be there and it's for them so I just want to say that and then also like is it best that it's during the meeting or is there a possibility that it's going to be but isn't there because of us being as people what kind of really makes you the biggest people there town meeting can be could be the hours could be changed I mean I think you have the I think you have the entire day by by statute and if you were going to do some of it Australian ballot I came to town where they voted the officers by Australian ballot then so the night before so Monday night we had our town meeting at I think it started at 7 p.m. so we did a piece did a few articles then they break the town meeting and then the school did their meeting and then town meeting finished and then the next day you voted Australian ballot all day on either school budget police budget the town officers and questions like that it makes for you know a grueling couple of days for the clerk but it but so there are options highly and then you have the you have the school function too you know no if you yeah no you couldn't do that you would the only you have to do them separately if you if you vote your officers then you could always allow someone running to say a few words if they wanted but you couldn't really you couldn't do anything with the budget except for discuss why you were going to vote on it the next day but you couldn't make any amendments because the ballot has to be printed and legally available X amount of days prior to an election so and you would have already published town yeah town report as well so you know they're just like anything in life there's drawbacks and there's bonuses so with officers and elections there's always the opportunity of a write-in so if you were to have the town meeting the day before the town meeting could nominate a new person saying there's a write-in for you well the other thing is this 12 and 13 if they went on this year's warning would not go into effect until next year so this year's this year's process would be the same as it had been in the past where everything is coming off the floor and then if this goes through then next meeting then it would change to this form so I'll make sure I guess sounds like we're going to advertise that for a bigger discussion on the first meeting in November but do you want me to leave this warning the same do you want me to remove item I don't know at this point no matter if we move it around or not for now we're going to continue the discussion yeah these minutes then we'll leave it alone and we'll advertise for a bigger discussion for your request at the beginning of November can we make a point to specifically put that out like that's what I was going to call out this is what's being discussed absolutely that's what we talked about looks like you're on to that are all those dates on there the Sundays I'm not sure I didn't go through and look at every single one I'll take them out later but that's just like the numbers aren't good but I knew all the people that were running that Dave Eddie's up, Langley's up I knew the list or position was up and then those were minor dates perfect alright any further discussion on that are we good for today good alright then we had last time we had talked about the climate action piece which there was an engine correct me if I was wrong but we have going back three weeks now it was kind of made available to us to have the opportunity there's some legislation that's already been passed at the state level and to formalize a group that's going to be overseeing the climate agenda for the state and now this is the opportunity at the lower level us to have an opportunity to have a say and potentially what that board would be you know would be addressing inside that conversation so last minute thing you know I think we found out about like less than a week before our last yeah because our last board we only found out like three days or so before so it's kind of a fast evolving if the town wants to do something we got to do it but we got to do it kind of quick and then you know it can come in many different we can come in many different ways it could be you know everybody could send their own letter you know a group could put together some talking points to to send you know it could come with some greater weight by including the select board or other identities to it or your local senator or representatives so it was agreed upon at the last board meeting that that Jean was going to head up a discussion group to meet which they did and then at that time come up with some potential points of interest that the individuals that took the time out to be part of the group had that they thought would best represent the town town say in information to be sent to this to the group so so they've met and we have the information in front of us in regards to that I think it matters who the people were but I was kind of curious who all the individuals were that met with you Jean did you get 4, 24, I don't know how many people you had there were 6 or 7 it was about the same as it struck me the similarity with the emergency meeting we had about the vorac application so I think at this point we had kind of tasked Jean or Jean wanted to head it up anyways to just go get some input in 2 weeks it's kind of difficult to get everybody's input but at least have an option for community members to go which some did take part and then based upon that we'll back up before whatever is on paper at that last time thinking is it something that should come from the board or shouldn't come from the board or is there enough time to get proper way in so that the board understands that it's enough well-roundedness of our colleagues of the town I remember we were talking about those pieces and then would the board endorse something would they not endorse something would we put it on a non-binding town meeting date or did something like that so so there was those discussions on what do we do with that probably somewhere 16, 17 basically there was not even initiatives but there were a number of families that wanted to get a non-binding resolution or actually put some push to the state to say let's make the same let's say this is a serious thing this is critical to our town our state, our country, the world and let's let's get on board with it and that was about final it was about final basically it's what happened was the state and said yeah we have this escalation to go 90% carbon free in 25th now from what science is telling us today in 7th in 23rd it's like what do we do in the next two to three years because yeah in that 20th 30th it's a real hard one and they're in Norway now last year 61% of all the new car were sold for electric this year it's 77.5% and it's sort of like well we came forward we came to this we came to that you know two to three generations I don't know why but they're going to say really good report it's been a shame they've spent $2 trillion on the military and the financing and they couldn't spend a hundred you know a few hundred million on the right track and it strikes me I don't know if you're there that's in the world but here's that place I kept looking at it it's hard I see them coming in they're paving it and putting up lights and thinking like well where's the solar panels they have the charging stations providing energy to the grid and also to the charging cars and doing anything to move forward so there are things that I think is apparently that are really important and we're running out of time and so I think that what my understanding of what is going on is basically just getting to the position of people saying hey that's the concept of what we said we want to make this sustainable and move forward and right now we're saying number one we are not from another five years or whatever it wasn't that we are not taking sufficient steps we're really moving and getting further so at the same time we keep building infrastructure and this is committing this to carbon based fuel for the next 50 years so there's no way in the world and at the same time we're seeing the same came through every day I think about sustainability I think about resilience and I think about affordability and I think about how everybody has vehicles and they're all pretty much I didn't see the criticism apart but you know what we do we make choices and choose the ones vehicles we have and use them and we have but anyway and obviously there is community when a dollar gets sent we don't see we see three cents whereas if we can move towards the point where we are I also got all these wild ideas but it grew top as a way to help save the lives of barns the state said okay here are some funds I keep the structure sound so that we have this iconic when people come to Vermont they want to see the barns and if they see them with solar panels on the top there's a message there so I'm really you know I think the experience I had basically I had to come to town meeting and just basically say this is non-binding but we as a community can be you know sort of nudging this process in a way and I think that we're in the same thing now so the thing that concerns when we were red those various things and three more bullet points added to it there's a system point where most people eyes glaze over and say you know you could party favors for everyone and stuff and I think that I think it should be brought down to very simple stuff about men and I think that whole weatherization things when my mother was towards the end of before she went to Menning and that process we were spending probably $6,000 a year on fuel oil and we didn't really living in a 200 year old house and I think this whole discussion is crazy in terms of all the things we need to do to lower our carbon footprint number one simple it's just weather windows and doors you know they're like layers we can do that and so I think that it's very important that this town supports in non-binding fashion this movement to make the state accountable for the fact that we said we're moving towards here at 2050 and many of us think that that's not enough that's not good enough but we can say alright let's start putting the processes in place so we number one can really evaluate where we are and how we move forward and I just from the when we did the renovation of the old brick house the foam we brought it back down to Mark Cook came in and he said one day and he said you and I are the first people in 200 years to really see the structure of this house because it had walls and ceilings and everything and you've got to see that that house when it was built more than 200 years ago now most of the structural pieces in it were recycled you know and then they did the reason they put in walls and of course their plaster and stuff just to create air barriers to be something they didn't have fiberglass insulation or straight foam or anything and so now too we're at a point where we can really make major changes if we have the will to do it and I think that we can incorporate all of the things in terms of yeah these benefits should not be kept from people who don't have the financial resources to do it and that's a benefit it's a benefit to our town and the state so I'm going to get down there I know when I talk at the board there's a great one second but I know when you know kind of looking through it I mean I think we all like everybody understands that there's changes going on on our planet and we need to find ways to you know do things better on many different levels but I always come back to the whole like two things well one John has hit the thing the affordability piece and I think about our community members that $4 a quarter on water they're down here wanting to know why we're doing that this impact could be thousands and thousands of dollars over the next 10 years that they'll have to invest to and it always seems like my experience with you know since I've been an early adult is the state so often just taking these dates and throwing them on the wall and saying bye 2020 you know and then we get to 2020 it's like okay we're no closer than we were 20 years ago so some of it's like holding them accountable we want something done but at the same time as we want something done but it's gotta be affordable and worth our while when I say because there's often times where Vermont or small communities in Vermont are on the forefront charging we're gonna change things and then nobody else follows us and we're stuck there we just invested a whole lot of money and meanwhile you flip open the paper and China is building three more coal plants and it's like or the big thing like 20 years ago was just charging a waste into the Lake Champlain everybody is how do we reduce sulfur into the lake and then all of a sudden you read okay Burlington just charged 25,000 gallons of waste into the you know it's like you know I kind of get in that thing like we are all gonna sacrifice like we need to have those partners like they get a sacrifice too because you know for what little bit of money we have to invest into this thing for nobody else to do it is kind of tough but the other thing I was kind of looking into it was is how does this line to it's important that things line into like the town plan and you know the energy committee kind of spear you know moves this as it goes so I guess like John was saying I think I like a lot of what was in here maybe we could dial it down some but it also fits the town plan more if you know because we have things in here that aren't in the town plan so it's kind of like we just did town plan but if we back it then it kind of doesn't well I think there's another gentleman who wants to speak there's another gentleman who wants to speak well let me just grab right but on a very practical level what John was talking about is coming Saturday at Central Supplies there's a workshop on weatherization efficiency Vermont which is a great organization that's been around a long time doing these kinds of things we're all advocating they're actually doing it and this thing that's happening this Saturday now how many people are going to show up I mean I saw it in the Herald newspaper I don't know how many people would come and actually learn this thing but there's going to be experts there telling people how to do this that and the other thing small step a small step but it's going to happen Saturday that's all I wanted to say the committee had been sending these tips to Kelly so every base on Wednesday they sent out these weatherization Wednesdays tips to go out on Facebook which was nice too something like that partnering with efficiency Vermont so it's good I'll let Kelly know have her find out the information and do a push about it on Facebook and Front Forge Forum so thank you do that Mary? So we have three members in the meeting which was a big majority compared to everyone else the Conservation Commission is interested in taking a stand but we were at the meeting last week and we didn't have time to discuss it because our meeting is tomorrow night and so the Vermont Natural Resources Council definitely has a plan which makes sense is balance covers all the territory so those things we need to have time to discuss before anyone takes a position I think and that is one of the things we talked about was kicking it to committee's energy of conservation I came in at the tail end of it but Energy Committee of the Conservation Commission did great things so the town plan really kind of I think came a long way in the last iteration of it but it's nice to have a committee come forward saying that they're willing to take something on and at least a lot of time to discuss it yeah I think it's one of the hard parts here because I have time on the way in but it's also operating under a deadline of this Friday and so if you're going to get the weight of whether it's a time committee or a select board but putting that weight behind this which is I think the whole point of this discussion isn't actually what exact change we're going to effect because the reality is we're just telling the climate council here are things we would like you to realistically look at and think about in your resources council has been working on it as long as the council has been in existence they have a seat at the table and they have a very concise, sensible, balanced weight so and we're going to review that and so and I think you know we had touch base on it last time as well as you know one of the probably the biggest issue that we had with it was not because we don't agree with it, it's just like acting in such a short period of time like you know not being able to thoroughly vet the information you know because the longer you usually have to vet the information the more buy-in you get from your community and the shorter period you're just taking a microscopic look at what individuals want that probably was a lack of new creatures which had the opportunity I mean probably ideally in the perfect world it would be like you have this kind of a town meeting day and you know what does the town want does the town want to adopt this report on binding and then at least you have the town support on the document where right now it's kind of tacitified with us do we want to speak to the whole town on this document or something different but all by the way you have a deadline to hit like this you know and the other point is the draft from this committee doesn't come out until December it's not available oh wow from the Vermont climate council excuse me but that's precisely why we need a comment now because the draft is still a draft which means that the climate council is considering public comment they have invited public comment by October 15th so that they can consider the comments from individuals committees, boards in the preparation of that plan once that plan is developed it will have to go to the legislature at which point we will again have an opportunity to say to the legislature we want you to consider X, Y, Z because we we support what's in the plan we don't support what's in the plan so the reason for acting now is because they have requested public comment so there will be absolutely no public comment after the 15th that's correct that's their policy that's their that's what they have put together they're receiving public comment until October 15th which gives them 45 days to take all of the public comment from public interest groups from select boards from town committees all over the state from individuals they are not necessary, you can make comment however they are saying we will consider this period of open when we are requesting public comment and October 15th our request closes now you can make all the comments you want whether it will have any impact or be fed into their process of writing is yet another question this is their policy this is their process it's just like a legislator there is a period for public comment and then that closes the legislature whatever makes its decisions based on that sometime later that's their policy process not ours the conservation commission still discuss it the conservation and this particular this particular this particular conservation commission conservation commission can can act not act there is a vehicle right here yes so as a conservation commission you are free to act as a confirmation conservation commission we are here tonight talking about whether the select board wants to make its statement and that's a different those are two different organizations and their statements may or may not be the same and this is by the way a proposal so it could be modified in any way that we decide to do it in terms of speaking to the the climate council there is the 12 points there are three other actions that grew out of that committee that we might want to put on a future agenda or even the town agenda town meeting agenda in terms of but if we are going to speak we need to speak this body if this body is going to speak needs to speak tonight and I would point out by the way that the very first bullet has to do with the cost and how that cost is shared and born who bears the cost considers the ability to pay the availability of financial resources when developing taxing and other ways to pay for the emissions to net zero emissions by 2050 we want the plan to consider how it's paid for and who pays for it so what so the fact is that you have this laid out letter that was presented to you that came to you so I include in this the people's climate action plan petition that of course is 350 Vermont which is not to be confused with the Vermont climate council this is a private nonprofit that has so so obviously if the conservation commission wants to make their comments and certainly they can so I'm not sure if you just want to since you all have read this document if you're all in favor of doing as is or if there are changes that you want to make to this existing document or if the majority of you even want to do this there's a few questions here but there's a gentleman with his hand up I'm here as conservation commission person here as a resident of Bethel and I guess I decided mostly because I'm interested in giving a sense of just a general sense informally of how this board views the climate emergency do you sense the urgency that we are in fact in an emergency and do you sense that we will need to be putting it front and center probably in just about any kind of town business that we do going forward because it basically will be affecting practically all that we do in this town whether it's infrastructure on a nuts and bolts letter you know of replacing culverts or installing you know chargers downtown for electric vehicles or designing a new town garage what goes into that it's going to be nuts and bolts issues that we as a town will have to deal with now and into the future so I'm just trying to get a sense of what your sense of urgency is whether you embrace the fact that in fact this is an emergency we already know that we've had enough experiences with whether in this town to know that we will see more of them and it's going to affect us now and it's going to affect our children or grandchildren so that's what I'm here for regardless of any specific argument or plan or anything what is your sense of your role I can speak to some of the nuts and bolts of it and you're right I actually spend a lot of time on the nuts and bolts of it dealing with stormwater runoff and making sure that we get grant money to ride those to deal with culverts to do with upgrades so that we can get the money from the state we just did a project on sandbirds we're going to do another project on Christian Hill two projects on Hooper Hollow exactly to deal with that I'm actually working right now with Two Rivers on a hazard mitigation grant for FEMA to deal with exactly that that's the way I look at that everyday what's going to happen if we have another storm we had when April 2019 there was a lot of damage what's not working for infrastructure and how do we prepare that the same thing with a big $2.8 million water project that we just did not this next summer but the summer after we'll be doing a $1.7 million because of all the water loss that you're you know we're pumping you know using electricity to pump water that's you know flowing out because you know the water system is so aged and is not being repaired so looking at those things looking at the town garage that was a project that we started looking at last year and saying okay what can I reuse that's existing there so I don't have to you know if we're going to increase our footprint but how can we do it what can we reuse for materials that we already have what's the weight on the roof can we add solar can we not that sort of thing and you know we know we have charging stations that the new park that the state put in they have charging some charging ability down there I guess but certainly looking at it and that's what I look at is kind of the nuts and bolts and it's in everything we do from you know certainly in the road department and water sewer from ditching and putting gravel on roads to inserting new culverts that how we're going to deal with it to not even allowing people maybe to have as much impervious surface so that we can you know certainly have talked about that planning commission and things so I think that you're right I think that the battle is going to be won or lost and the nuts and bolts and certainly that's something that you know we're always looking for and trying to figure out a better way to mitigate or to save and we do participate in that metering right now the state has or Bethel has since before I came for several years so and kind of taking a look I know the energy committee I was tasked with that for a while I was going around and looking at all the town buildings what could support you know solar you know panels or that sort of thing so I know that even the energy committee has been on that and to your point including you know increasing weatherization how can we make things more tight we emptied out the basement and town hall was the town office it was old creamery and we just insulated you know the basement of town hall because and I'm going to have to put a new roof on this here because of those things but it's all you know certainly in the nuts and bolts of it and and I think town plan did a nice job but conservation commission and energy in particular did some really nice work on their sections and so I think that it's been a nice driving document for zoning zoning regulations in the select board in general too so and you know usually I mean boards are made up differently everywhere I mean you'll have boards where you have five people that'll have five different agendas right you know I like to think that our board is a pretty good board one of which listens to the people and you know we're you know for the most part you know the binding resolution that took place five years ago you know that's information that has come from the towns people saying this is what we want you to do which is us you know so that when we are putting like three sources of saying doing these futuristic projects that we encompass that into that and I think that's what we try to do now we probably personally all five of us probably have slightly different views on just like anything right we all you know but we always seem to come together you know commonly to make things happen and so I don't know if we actually have like our hundred percent stand is one thing but it is to listen to the community which we have done in the past and and make sure that our projects that we do you know have that in it. Yeah Danny I really appreciate that you asked it bluntly as you did I absolutely see this as an emergency and I think about it daily I incorporate things into my life practices and I see it very much as part of my representation on this board I spend a lot of time both in my business and my personal life adjusting my own practices and now I'm in a position where I work with students and I ask them to question the same things that I question I don't tell them what to do but I help them see you know what's around them and I think that very much for me I see my representation and on this board as a piece of that and I think we do put it into into the mix could we do better absolutely could we do more absolutely I think every single person in this nation in this world should be questioning it in a bigger deeper level than we are and and changing our daily practices changing so much more but I do think that I do think it's an emergency and I do like I think this is sort of where I was going with my question to Mary was I really respect the conservation commission and I want them to have a way in but I think that this board putting its weight behind a resolution like this it speaks volumes and to hold it up or not sign it or not put our names behind it because we want to give everyone a say or get the words perfect we shoot ourselves in the foot and we do it time and time again where it's not perfect it's not exact it's not the right thing or we could tweak this a little more and then we get nowhere and we get ten years down the road and we're in the same spot we were in but now it's worse and I don't think we have ten years I don't think I think change needs to be much more immediate I think our state is seeing that in acting and can be a leader and I you know I think Chris's point earlier is apt that we can do all these things and if all the states around us do nothing then we're on a limb by ourselves but I think that John also made a point of nations that are worlds ahead of us and nations that are worlds behind us and at the end of this do we want to be seen as a contributor to the failure or we made our effort or we tried and we made some enroads and maybe it wasn't perfect and we faltered or we you know made some bad choices or had the wrong language in here but if we sit on our hands debating it out we're also we're losing period one day first every time I come to a meeting I feel with gratitude for each one and the time and the effort that you put into it's not a perfect process but if people aren't trying their best and I think when we come back to the thing about where we are it's also very clear that the major impact on the climate since the birth of the industrial revolution it's about the United States of America we have where all these countries like China yeah they're starting a coal plant and something but there are also you know they the total amount of the impact that has time I wanted just in the idea form here very quickly too there's something very exciting I'm sure you're aware of it but both Lebanon and Hanover are creating cooperative electrical companies within their towns peace maybe 2-3 weeks ago in the Valley news and that people have an opportunity to if they you know like Liberty Energy I guess the New Hampshire one but if you want if you want the same supply basically the Vesco the regional grid feed you'll pay 10% less than if you're a Liberty customer if you're a Lebanon co-op electrical customer Hanover same deal if you're willing to pay a little bit more they will contract 20% of the electrons that go to your house are from renewable sources if you want to pay a little bit more you can have 100% of the electricity coming to your house but the real thing is because it's cooperative the profits can go to schools they can go to the we I feel very strongly and I went back to resilience and sustainability we need to bring down the costs for everyone and we also need to make sure that when the next super storm they're coming comes that when we're I think we need to be able to break down into smaller microgrids be it Bethel be it Rochester be it South Royalton and be able to contribute to the bigger grid but also to be able to after Sandy the next day was a jewel of the day and anyone who had panels there was electricity being generated well you know as a community as a state we should be making this stuff so it's not not get lost in all of the weeds of this that and the next but what is the what is the way in which we can say no we want to rather say yes we want to be able to control the way energy is produced and shared and that this is a cooperative we're all in this boat rolling together I was a select board meeting when we were talking about the new garage or what not and I just remember there was a lot of talk about electric vehicles and EV charging and solar panels and what not so I feel like this select board group does have their finger on the pulse about all that stuff and is paying attention to the climate change and everything so so I feel like the select board here tonight saying the clearing in a non-binding way I think that's what it is to get behind these the climate policy points here I don't feel like it would be a stretch or I don't feel like anybody is dismissive of any of these points and everybody feels like these points are real and good and so with this deadline on Friday you guys need to come up with this statement and I feel that the conservation commission does recommend to get behind for the recommend the town to get behind this and for the select board to declare that whether we are in our meeting tomorrow we see some other things and some other changes that we recommend to the state so like we recommend you guys declare to get behind this here tonight and as a Vethel citizen I do hope you guys declare that you guys may know the select board does the next year more from Vethel the conservation commission if you make your you guys make your changes and then the select board does their commitments more people they hear from the better it's going to be nothing worse working in a bubble or a vacuum I just want to add my voice to encourage you to pass the resolution or approve the resolution whatever you guys do here formally I think the hard work then begins we've all been listening those of us that are some decades old listening to this for decades and decades we need to act and we haven't done anything so hopefully out of this resolution there will become action and it's not going to be easy because you're going to feel you're putting out more than maybe another town or another part of the country but if we don't start to act we don't actually list actions and act on them thoughtfully and not 2050 let's just start because 2050 gives us a pass right it gives us another my kids will be doing in 2050 so I think we have to act I heard something earlier you know there's it would be thousands of dollars I don't know water but reef retrofitting of this that or the other okay well then figure it out how many thousands of dollars is it 52,800 dollars how many how are you going to find the money are we going to raise the money you've got these wealthy people myself included coming into Bethel I bought property I was one of the people from out of state put lots of money into my house paid lots of salaries doing that my kids have worked provided you know hands on the ground in the last summers and so on so there's there's benefit there but how are we going to raise the money you can maintain the lifestyle in the wonderful community that you have like let's figure it out it's not unsolvable unless we don't act that's true there's also two of the factors some of this is really the state that you know people don't understand that Vermont is a Dylan's rule state so meaning that the state of Vermont is a Dylan's rule state means that the towns only have the authority granted to it by the state so you know a lot of this is you know certainly recommendations state they'll do what they do and then and then it'll you know call to us to do what we do but um but certainly you know that's in a broader sense you're right I mean it's basically a message to the state for them to figure it out what they're going to do possibly I'm a single mom they want me to do something down on my farm now it's me I got to figure out how to do it I've learned all sorts of things about the hammer and nail and drills and right so so we can do the same thing we can physically help people with their winter rise their houses oh absolutely right we can do some of this so it's so the resolution is the is the aspirational thing and then the hard work is is the part that's going to have to require and it's just a letter to just to say it just is a recommend this it's a the vote would be the select word to endorse a statement right to the climate action council there's a section here on about a proposed action for climate change about the select word developing the plan for the town of Bethel which is you know so and that's something that maybe if they that certainly could be discussed at a town meeting or in the future to figure out how they're going to make that work because that's a big big action but certainly at this point it's just a it's just the select word endorsing a statement that goes to the climate council. I want to start putting this round table discussion together on such short notice so that's a good effort on on your part Jean to do that I think this is everything we're speaking about it's all it's well and good and we know that things have to change not for my generation you know I won't be around probably when all this happens but my was with my grandkids this weekend and it's going to be their lot to deal with so we need to start somewhere definitely my only question about this particular document that we are looking at is you know we've all read the law I'm sure we went on we looked at the law we saw the breakdown of the committee and all the various representatives that are going to be there's 23 different people that are going to be on this council and I wonder whether or not we as a select board if we adopt this document if we are in fact aligning ourselves with 350 Vermont which is an independent you know individual individual it's a separate group it's a special interest group one of many special interest groups that are going to be asking there to get their agenda into the conversation for what's going to result in the final document so I'm I wonder if we want to as a select board we are a government entity we're not just a group of people we're actual government entity we'll choose to align if we would be aligning ourselves with this particular group if we adopt their set of what nine different points here as opposed to creating our own the last three points that were added on tremendous the first no the three the proposed action one two and three in the in the statement from one through 12 right the first three were added to the statement from Vermont 50 350 Vermont the proposed action items three through 12 are the comments from 350 Vermont okay all right now but that's my and I understand the way this is written is what we would act on is the way it's written is we would support these ideas and we're not supporting 350 Vermont well also I just wanted to throw that out there for a point of this so if you removed items three through 12 from here or four through 12 four through 12 I'm sorry yep yeah I don't know if it's ANR but it is the National Resources Council this is their priorities but we haven't this is great thank you so what happens if I could finish there are there are multiples of groups that we're looking to have their agenda included in the process so do we tie ourselves into a position by adopting the ones the majority of the ones that we're looking at in this document from 350 does that in any way tie us or into their positions because if you go on the website so everybody went on their website and looked and saw they're active across the country in any state that has these kind of issues where it looks like this one that Farron just gave you is the Vermont Natural Resources Council and it's the Vermont Natural Resources Climate Council priorities and so they you know so that's the possibility to endorse this well I definitely when I had through it I mean the first thing when endorsing something is try to endorse something that isn't tagged something else because you could get yourself maybe as perceived as following a certain group or whatever where now look you know I haven't had a chance to go through the whole national resources piece of it but I hadn't circled that you know could we adopt these points could we just take out any reference to other I mean it's okay you can copy pieces of theirs and plug it in there but as long as we don't have a tag to it you know that was one of my thoughts and I guess you know I I the way I like to work is I'm very thorough and when I don't have a lot of time it makes my thing go nuts so of course piece of me of my whole life as I send out letters all the time to my representatives and I don't think it ever changes anything so that's just me but looking through this as like the minded person I am what I had quickly done is like I like the proposed action plans for the town but not necessarily put them in the letter but those would be great to like hand to the energy committee conservation committee and say what do we think about this you know I think it's a great starter yeah and I guess this is just on my end and knowing information of petroleum and business because that's what I meant anyways is you know never never say never like you know like so I guess the full point for me that was that I had looked at was you know taking natural gas completely off the table saying it's not an option which I think we have to come like I'm a realist so you have to come to a reality at some point that natural gas is a waste end of petroleum and you're going to continue to pump petroleum out of the ground unless you want to scrap every plastic thing we have on this earth overnight and tires and everything else which so I guess my opinion is so I guess my opinion was I see natural gas as a potential waste product of something that we are going to continue to use but maybe not at the volume of you know like heat going and all that stuff but just never say never because you never know when you might use it that is the realist millions of dollars for infrastructure so that that infrastructure is going to be with us for 30-50 years and if you're doing it for natural gas crack gas and stuff we're cooked you know so in other words you have to start going tomorrow but again I think on this is just my opinion but there's always there's got to be the practicality portion of this like yes overnight if we could flick a switch and go to all this that would be great but we have to be practical here on like let's say overnight like overnight we went from you know heating oil and stuff like that to electric vehicles and let's say we are heating our homes with natural gas right overnight we've changed our footprint dramatically right it may not be 100% to where we want to be it's much better where we were but to say like we're just going to you know what else did you have maybe that's what we need to do to get through this is to go through yeah well I know on my end like I'm not ready to go into our city because I haven't met so after you read it and this is what drives me nuts is you know we're being tasked to do something when we have to we don't agree tonight that something needs to be done and we need to put our stamp on something you know but we have to be careful to put our stamp on too does it have to be in detail well that's what I'm wondering can it be in detail you know limit well I guess I was going to sort of try to solve you just brought it up so I have a good discussion just wondering if there's a way and this is where Teresa will keep me in line is there a way for this board to make a motion tonight that then allows the conservation commission to have this discussion tomorrow and sort of do that same sort of endorsement but be a little more thorough with it and if we as select board members want to join their meeting tomorrow and be a part of that discussion we could you know but just is there is there sort of a mechanism where we can actually make this happen and give them some way and without just letting the opportunities slip by I think that you could make a motion that the select board could make a motion to endorse the conservation commission's response to the Vermont climate change on behalf of the town of Bethel I think that you could easily make a motion and kick it to them and then they will you have endorsed as board the submission of the conservation commission to represent them for the town of Bethel I think you could easily do it I kind of agree with Paul that I don't want to necessarily align with an organization that I haven't done deep and thorough research on but I also feel like the Vermont Natural Resources Council has especially like Farron is saying it's very they're very similar but I also would feel more comfortable backing them versus an independent organization that I am not as familiar with right and I have looked into the 350 org I'm just saying as a whole I think that's a practical way to do it as you're not you're endorsing that the town whether the town of the select board acts on what's going for there's already caveats in the town plan of things to look on if they want to do more obviously that they can throw your weight behind the recommendation of that and then when Mary or whomever types up theirs they could add type out the names of the select board members as well so then they're submitting I think it would be great if we could do the select board participation I think we had Jean had this meeting to put together folks and he did the due diligence and came up with these three first three and I think those those should be part of the response because that is input from the various folks that were there at that meeting that's a great idea I'm sorry I thought those were still from the 350 and then the action plans that they suggested can be discussed in the future time for the select board to take action on I think that's a great idea I would suggest that we would communicate to the climate council points one, two, and three of the climate action report the one that was in the packet the first three items the first three items that came out of the conversation with the group a week ago on Monday these are not 350 Vermont and so I would suggest that we do that and endorse what the commission comes up with tomorrow the conservation commission meeting tomorrow right and that you can take this whole thing up and that so I'm suggesting that we as a select board support the first three statements because those came out of the group Monday and we would with the same motion or a second or a different one support the work of the conservation commission tomorrow what is the conservation commission thinking you must kind of know what your conversation is going to feel like right now what is that recommend backing the policy probably yeah like I said they're so similar the three bullet points those three are also in the BNRC they're just different wording okay I understand but I understand I would like for tonight I would like the select board to say we want the cost of this to be born economically or in consideration for those who don't have resources first point I would like your plan to support local communities as they develop plans and put them into action with funding and three that we encourage the board our school board to work that they provide support for schools so that schools are continue to provide education around climate action that is action focused and not problem focused so your motion would be my motion would be that the select board endorse items one two and three and that we would support the work of the conservation commission to address climate change at their next meeting I move it no don't take any offense to this please but the only thing that's hard for me to get behind that is it's kind of like sending my daughters down to the grocery store what are they going to buy because I've already endorsed the check you know it's like not seeing it you know not seeing it and endorsing it before I get to see it in hopes that it'll be relying so I'm just kind of like I guess the mission tonight is either endorse this in an amended version or this version or not because I don't know if I get behind something that hasn't happened yet well you have a motion I know but we can tie down it council is there and the conservation commission the I mean I think that we're all we're all in the same direction I know well you know how it is nowadays you could think you're rolling in the right direction and all of a sudden you're both in those different directions and then they're like well you guys endorse that I suppose conservation you could also change the first sentence if you were concerned about that you could just say considers the ability to pay an availability of financial resources when developing tax and other ways to pay for the transition to net fewer emissions by 2050 period you don't have to or you can then you can leave the part state funding and support are critical you could tell them about a progressive income tax schedule rather than property taxes if you don't want to I guess what I'm saying is you could send your message without telling because they're gonna figure out how to do it anyways so you could remove that sentence if that's what if you don't like that portion Chris if you want to um if you want to change it so that you can support it it's just a thought yeah it's still a motion yeah not yet so the motion is Jean move to support items one two and three and support the work of the conservation commission as they address climate change at their next meeting that's Jean's motion I feel like it's gonna get hung up on this detail of these are two maybe two separate concepts the first three and the support so should we redo the motion like maybe this is just a straw pull of board members of is there support if we move the motion as is or would it be better to separate the two do you want to remotion I will withdraw that motion and move that we endorse and send to the climate council points one two and three any further discussion on it before we how would we do that what form would we we basically send a letter or go through the the website of the council to provide that input to the board I can type it in would we put in this first paragraph no as the select board of Bethlehem on newly called meeting held on October 11th etc etc and then point one two and three and yeah and include points one two and three as opposed to including this in with the conservation commission's recommendations from right now we're separating yes so I just want to make sure I have that right so Jean moved Lindley seconded to endorse items one two and three and send to the climate change Vermont climate council I mean sorry Vermont council that that good Jean that okay yeah any further discussion on it so motion in second all in favor well you guys had the motion with the other eyes eyes or nose yeah I think the wording is troubling me I have to say no Dave I have some other questions that go way beyond what we were talking about everybody wants to say stuff to happen but in Vermont for longer than most any of it and I see a lot of things that we'd like to have them off do and until someone can come up and tell me how the hell they're going to do it I'm not going to I can't get behind anything because we want to do this we want to do that we're going to have we're going to have broadband broadband in 2012 we're going to have in 2015 we're going to have in 2018 we're going to have in 2020 it's still about there well some people are I can't get a number and show you some people they have no broadband of course we're making broadband of course you're just you're just saying no that's not what I'm saying at least in 2012 we're going to do it in 2015 and in 2018 we're done that's great I would like to see someone in an electric car load up the shit and I put in my vehicle to be an electrician and drive around at Tony Blow and picture electric heater what happened so let's just stay on task we I mean I I mean I let me clarify my position I'm not saying that these bullet points are not valuable and are good points I think though that as a select board we're in a much different position doing it this way then endorsing these points to be included through the conservation commission's consideration with their meeting tomorrow night looking at the VNRC I think we're in a totally different position we're not just a group of people coming up with an opinion we're a government entity so we have to be very careful about how we identify ourselves because the next select board that's in place you know in March we have two openings next year we're going to have two more openings things are going to change even before the first review of this whole process by the council there's going to be a different select board here so we have to be very careful how we identify we talk about this a lot not just for this but every time we have a certain situation that arises we have to think about what happens down the road as well as what's happening right now so my position I mean I think these points are valuable I like the research and the input that went into them but I don't think that as a select board we want to get into that locked in position but if we go through the decision commission and their consideration we're endorsing it by a resolution type thing as opposed to being locked in as a select board saying this is what we want bank bank bank so that's I'm going to clarify my position that's why I'm voting no as a technicality not as necessarily a disbelief in the suggestion I'm going to stop so then you would vote this motion goes down but you would make a motion to support the yes the conservation commission my rationale for making the motion from the select board is that I think what we are not saying that this is the way it has to be we are simply saying when the climate council develops its action plan which it is required by law to do that it consider these three points we are not binding ourselves to those three points we are simply saying it will benefit the town of Bethlehem if we were to support these three if we were to convey our support it is to the climate council the I think it is more impactful if it comes from the select board speaking for the town I think we are doing that based on town meeting poll that says we should get behind climate change I think we are doing it in support of the town plan that includes climate change as part of Bethlehem the direction we are going I think it is consistent with what the people of the community have said I think it is important that the select board as the select board speak that is my rationale for making the motion that the select board do this I just wanted to do our hybrid thing I would also like to see the select board sign the resolution I agree it is aspirational so I just want to deal with our hybrid stuff Lili had messaged a minute ago one more thing on the sentiment of if we get behind this we are making all this effort and maybe other towns aren't so why what was the point I feel like in my experience in the business world the people who work more do more get ahead faster and I think there is also a lot of value in getting behind this in that it shows that we are a community that those care about this and care about the welfare of the community and all that and that can be a real attractive feature for a town and community I would like to know what is the liability that you face by endorsing something that is I mean it is not super specific it talks about considering the ability there are all words I mean I don't know you think the town is going to get sued if no I think we are not saying policy we are not doing policy or anything that is in concrete odd infinitum but I think it does leave the impression that future select boards would need to stay in the same path and we can't bind them to that well you are well you know that is not going to happen because this is a snow wall that is getting started and it needs to keep going the chances of that happening I would think are pretty slim well that is the whole point I know so it has to be there somewhere hold on I am sorry set the rules back just remember it is a meeting of the select board the community does have input and we give you lots of input I apologize as we bicker back and forth which is actually kind of fun tonight we don't usually bicker back and forth I am sitting here like what can I do to really piss him off but usually I will say this board for the most part we are humans and we all have our different things but we do come together it is kind of a neat discussion that we are having tonight we seem to be in some different the longer we are talking we are coming closer to something we have a tie vote and we simply communicate that the select board could not reach a decision we had a tie vote on these three issues I am not sure it does either I am trying to maybe what the deal is if you have a tie you currently have a tie vote which is one is you just you you drop it I guess or Chris votes one way or the other and breaks a tie which is never pleasant but you break a tie and then it goes that way or is there language is there something which is fine you can vote and tie it and break the tie and that will be the decision you can backtrack a little bit and make it more palatable so that everybody is willing to support it that I don't know either if you put the wording in that maybe this says it is a non binding or something I am not sure what would because I understand the sentiment no select board likes to tie the hands of future select boards it is just a general practice I can understand that and I am not sure if there is something that is not setting any sort of precedent other than we have said something and just as much as we could say we want to build a town garage that is XYZ energy efficiency if we don't make the motion to actually approve the contractor the next select board that comes in could scrap that all I mean it is in no way binding and I am a little bit confused because you started your statement almost really feeling like you really supported this and your only issue was maybe not supporting 350BT that is why I clarified my point in support of the three items going in through that direction instead of this direction it is a technicality that is all so before I vote what does the board I know we have a motion on the table on spin second so it is either yes or no on my part now we need some sort of agreement so I was just playing around with some numbers the word is here just trying to make sure that everybody still has an opportunity to weigh in to this and it gives us now so I mean if we say the select board of Bethel Vermont in a duly called meeting held on October 11th took a non-binding vote to ask the Vermont climate council to consider the following three points as well as future considerations by our town conservation and energy commissions it doesn't say that I guess it kind of gives some recognition to our committees even though they haven't formally put together their own response so it does kind of like we're behind them on what they do but it also moves the three points forward would it say that again Chris? so it just so the select board of Bethel Vermont in a duly called meeting held on October 11th took a non-binding vote to ask the Vermont climate council to consider the following three points which are one two and three as well as any future consideration as well as any future considerations by our town, conservation and energy commissions I mean does that because then it any future recommendations throughout my motion? well I'm just wondering we can have that discussion like do we think that kind of gets us in the middle and we can do everything and I mean gives us a chance to go and do something with and I mean probably no doping we're going to come up with something perfect but it gets some points out there right? to consider the following three points and it also means that you guys could have your meeting tomorrow you are having a meeting tomorrow but you could come up with some points that maybe blend with that one you could bring it to us and say what do you think we'd like to send this later this letter in late in the process you know or we agree 100% what do you think if we add to this I don't know what you just now I can't go with what you just said but I can go with those three points that we because I keep reading them and keep reading them they are ambiguous enough so they aren't asking for things that offend me that they know the state's okay what was causing me to say no isn't in those three points use Chris's word except for now now even from his words do I want to get behind something that I haven't seen yeah but just I mean you're only saying as well as consideration of comments submitted by so you're just asking them for consideration of the comments that the conservation is going to know what you know is going to pretty tightly adhere to the VNRC so you're only asking for consideration for the comments this is going to be even though they want something in by a certain date this is going to be an ongoing discussion for quite some time and there probably will be some other opportunities to put some buy-in here so if all of a sudden let's say the energy commission puts together some sort of draft based on X amount of points or whatever we are only advising them that's true I mean it's going to come Dave has to listen to what any of you guys do we just but any communication that they would send to this board we would get first that's the way that's worded okay are you okay with that Dave or are you still yeah I can live with that I'm not I've got some reservations about pieces of parts I mean it is a little different because typically our board is we're either weighing in on policy or on something like that but not typically putting a board endorsement on something other than maybe a grant application or something like that we don't usually we don't usually do that something like this comes out town meeting day right yeah okay so Jeanne with Jewish motion and I will move what Chris said okay I got it okay so we got second Paul and David no this gag group was laughing over me Paul and David hi wonderful yep we're in crisis this is not kicking something down the road but the planet in this moment and I go back to in 2009 we had my mother she was 94 something like that we knew we couldn't keep her forever but we knew if we didn't get rid of the oil to meet the house and at that point the wood pellet boilers around there was zero rebates in the state and the backing envelope said we just burned oil for one more winter it would take us 17 years of burning wood pellets to equal that and I didn't want to do that that meant $15, $16,000 which we didn't have to but to do it to know that then we had 17 years we were like we were taking a big step there was a stretch for us and that's what we all need to do individually as communities as a nation otherwise we got a roof I would just recommend reaching out to your local representatives to stress the the more local points of how that affects little me and Bethel and how do I pay for it and get to the stage because we know how this is all of a sudden it's adopted and you have to do it by a certain date and by the way you're not giving me money I'm not helping you do this and then you're sitting there going well I can't afford that like you know I mean so so it's kind of make sure those points are made through our local legislators because you guys rock thank you folks and good health discussion we all are guilty of hypocrisy when we talk about these aspirations and we want all of this I'm a carpenter he's a carpenter so when it says Danny and Loggy we don't want to ban Loggy we need Logs to build our houses and people need houses and that's going to continue I'm still heating with natural gas I bought the furnace not that long ago and I can't afford to just yank it all out and I got big trees around the house I'm not going to cut them down for solar so we're all this together and we're not I understand where you're coming from and you're coming from all of us we just got to do the best we can thank you good night Mary thank you yeah well we're going to have to go to the meeting and go watch socks game dinner enough with your dinner the socks are on right now I want to thank the select board I want to thank the select board and I want to request that the action items be put on a future for discussion at least on our next I'm not sure to go on the next one I have to look at what's out there definitely those action items should be sent to the energy you've got the action I do but those would be good for them to work on I would suggest that we at least discuss those in a future meeting I move we adjourn oh we're not done you still haven't finished the adjourn it all depends on how fast trees yeah it's going to be fast 30 seconds go stay here you're going to want to know that application today that the VORC that half million dollar letter of intent that we wrote please to notify us that our application has been reviewed and we were invited to submit a full application the year school was competitive our proposal stood out above 104 unique applications so that letter of intent I'm sorry but I'm going to pat myself in the back I took a whole day to write that how many it's down to let's see so it says 140 it says you are one of 37 applications we are invited to in total the selective applications have requested 12.8 million in funding which obviously they don't have so the next thing will be how we're going to get that done we're going to do some work on it Rebecca Sam Moore stone but so far I think I have two people I'm sure Ellie will want to weigh in because there was some concern of hers on behalf of that letter does it say when the next date is yeah it says that next week we're done so we're going to get a follow up message with information on how to do it and when it's done all I know is that we were we made it so thank you for attending that meeting we made it that far so it is exciting so also I'll make sure you share that tomorrow conservation because you know Chris four was there and everything so yeah so so yeah so I just got it yeah so it's good so thank you for coming to the meeting yeah let's have a good evening see you guys thanks so other than thank you John take care good to see you let's see no I'm not Jean Paul there was the so good news more good news two rivers the bylaw modernization grant we talked about budgeting there is no match so we don't have so that's great so there's no you don't have to put anything in there right so there's no money how much was that grant we wrote for five hundred well the VORC's five hundred thousand dollars the bylaw modernization grant is about eight thousand dollars eight thousand yeah but when we with no match that would be great the not quite final DWSRF numbers that Paul wanted are in your packet still waiting complaining as much as we can to the state we have you know telling them we want more money you posed us going through environmental you know that process we want you know we want like another half mill whether we'll get it or not I don't know but we're going to fight for it why not you know what we can say we can demand so then budget numbers talk about that Ponello bridge is an ongoing saga had a meeting with the FEMA folks from the state and FEMA and the hazard mitigation program so Chris bump and I he sent me a RFP from another town for culvert replacement I turned it into a bridge we put some back up stuff into it we're trying to set we're going to still stay with North Star Hydro they were the ones who did the H&H study for the bridge and we're also going to stay with contact engineering apparently the person that works with the town of Bethel for that engineering firm it already started dealing with them so the feds are saying we can use them and that helps push us a little bit further so I sent that tonight before the meeting to Chris Bum to have him take the peek at so what type of timeframe are we looking at I am still well the hard part is obviously Army Corps of Engineers weighing and now you're looking at spring job well basically the RFP is going to say that we want final drawings and everything done by the end of February but we have to keep FEMA in the loop because we have to look for bats we have to look at historical preservation so there's a good 60 to 90 days worth of review in there but FEMA is saying this is the last project left out of that disaster DR45 so they kicked us out back in the queue which is fine but they're willing to stay involved as we go which is great so once we get a new engineer we'll have another FEMA meeting that way so things go well looking like late spring or something like that we're looking at I would say late summer by the time I said things good so anyway so we're pushing forward to it through it just so you know that's what's going on the earlier we can get that out the better opportunities we'll have the agency of transportation has a very robust program coming out from HGS which means contractors are going to fill up quick well for us honestly I can't control it at this point the RFP goes out I want a response back so we can award it and for them to do design plus also the review is going to take a while I think the town crew will end up removing like 10 trees we're going to try to get A&R to come in right now they're environmental or they're biologists to look for bats so anything that we can get done now is going to but some of the stuff we just won't have control over the timing so anyways that's all I got perfect select board meeting minutes from the 27th Paul promised us a thorough review on those Linda you made a motion okay Ellen favorite nice have it there was some other communication just they know some stuff for you guys to know that the revised outer loop of the trail was re-routed to avoid to avoid a marinal pool you guys had to know that so that's in there think some other minutes information on going thing on right road that we're dealing with but I'm waiting for hoping the class 4 road committee will schedule a meeting they'll go up there look at that I want this class 4 road committee to make recommendation to the select board then the select board can decide on the work as well as having any disgruntled neighbors when would that happen I don't know I've written to the chair a couple of times so of the class 4 road committee I know we've been busy so I'm hoping sooner rather than later but in the meantime it is what it is and everyone got a letter what's going on I'm not sure I remember talking about it we haven't just with something in the package it's an ongoing did you see a letter in the packet between two one of them had been keeping up a water bar that we'd asked them to maintain another the other resident in the area was putting in other water bars and doing other work that was they are that was disturbing the other so one couldn't access his fields from the class 4 road and so basically I just don't pull that thread on that sweater yeah so we have to so I did send a letter you know registered letter to both parties have dealt with both parties at this point the road crew is going to go up and do where some water bars were dug pretty deep so our equipment couldn't get into their own field we're going to put a little gravel in there so the water bars can still water will traverse but at least it's accessible but I've spoken to the chair of the class 4 road committee and asked him to you know put this on an agenda sooner rather than later so they can take a peek because it's a class 4 road so if they don't want to get a permit to work in the road for $125 that we can approve or disapprove then it's tough and it's an ongoing feud what I don't want to happen is the town is to prefer a butter to try to sue the town because we haven't made a decision so that hence the letter saying everybody sees and desist nobody has the right to do anything for the policy unless