 Okay, folks. I'm lame duck. I think we'll call a meeting to order At 640 So someone just has to make a motion to point David is temporary chair so moved Thank you Okay, first item on the agenda We need to approve the agenda is there anyone any thing in the agenda that you'd like to add Or delete you have you wish we were deleting we have to have Form from PVR property valuation review certificate. No appeal or suit pending just a little listers are stating on this date. There's no Pending actions in the listers or suits pending. So they sign it and then the select board has to sign All right, so let's put that down the agenda like now and we can deal. No, we ought to sign it though All right, forget it. Well, y'all have to do where would you like to put it after at the after Dana or before Dana or? Let's I don't care where you put it. Let's make sure Chris is here though. Let's put it down ways. Okay, doesn't really matter Let's put it after Dana after Dana. Okay. Yeah, I'm sure Chris will be here So we'll Ely is here. Yeah, there is a new Community Leon say a new community person at Gifford She contacted me recently to say that to introduce herself and say she wants to be Doing stuff with recreation with the community and then she Last week let me know about the Philip D. Lavec Memorial Community Award We have years and years ago. We had received a $1,000 from them that was when we were doing the first phase of the skatepark and She let me know that This year they're giving away two $2,000 awards so So I'm asking permission I'm asking permission to apply for that I know that other you know, there's no guarantee we'll get it because There are a lot of people that apply for it. It's it's a small Ask your review or someone Yeah And it would go towards the phase two of the skatepark. Yes, we go read the description that we're doing is Really Ready to do the second phase and we just need a little bit more help And I figure The more money I find out there the less Then we need to So so that's So it's it's There's no matching funds And they have the family has come and Visited the skatepark before and been very enthusiastic. I I met one of the sons years ago and it was very enthusiastic of what the skatepark looks like and the attendance of young people that are using it questions or Issues Accept allow whatever that might approve the love back great. Yeah, so Okay, second And then I also have a request to For another fundraiser Recently I Got word that a couple of organizations here in town have Fundraised at the rest area on the interstate They've had wonderful success And so I looked into it I was asking them at the rest area of maybe we could have a slot You know in April or May, but there's so many organizations two organizations here in Bethel and Hartford fire department and the American Legion all kinds of people do this as a fundraiser and Sometimes they they have raised like nine hundred dollars. So so It's it's a donation Yeah, make coffee have apples bananas People, you know, whatever It's between Woodstock and Sharon They now the welcome center. I'm questioning why we would need to give you permission That's Sharon property, right? Well Any fundraising the recreation committee does I have to get permission? Okay to make fundraiser. Yeah, and so anyway, they gave me the slot They found an open slot and that's February 25 21 So Motion to allow Seconders with women know So how does the insurance work out? We need to provide some sort of That would be the state it would be if the state of Vermont wanted a proof of insurance They would ask Ellie for a proof of insurance But since they're gonna be in the building must be the states covering them or or else the state will ask her to Provide a proof of insurance, which we could and they have so many different organizations. Oh, yeah. No, I understand It's a property place. Yeah, yeah, because you'd be inside So, um, yeah, so if the state wants a proof of insurance, they'll ask I have a motion Second Second You're up I came from a middle school basketball game that went great to the wire and then there was a teaching moment afterwards where the student and a parent Thank you for doing that for me So we're yeah All right public comment. So if there anything that's not on the agenda this evening, I'll turn it loose to in person And then we will go to To the zoo Although it is related to to the town meeting warning, but are you getting in-depth conversation about that tonight when you're already signed it? All I wanted I just wanted to ask that you consider If you have anyone that wants to speak as I've done before any of the articles just to think about between now I'll be here for For the prior the last meeting before time meeting to get all the information I'll talk to you about something tonight Yeah, we're gonna go through it at a high level tonight And I guess we you know the few spots there if somebody wants to volunteer or or if we're lacking of volunteer We can work out at that point and you'll do the Crystal do the budget overview like he usually does ahead of time member He stands up and does the budget summary and talks about that which helps, you know Hopefully answer some questions of the audience, but Some people we're not sure about I don't know if someone's gonna be there from morva or maybe Dave Yep, okay, you can divvy them up. Yeah, we can roll for that Anybody else in person Yeah, I actually realized tonight it wasn't when I after I set up I thought it was already online Okay, so I just I made a note at the top of my page Kelly put the PDF there and then release the link for Facebook Front porch forum, and I actually thought it was up. So Yeah, there you go. So we haven't got one yet, but maybe it's in the mailbox tonight. I just received mine today. Yeah Seems to be the Even though I don't think I had any mail for a week prior to that, but I got a big stack of stuff today So long as my big stack today We have a new yes, we do yeah delivery. Yeah Weekend supposedly it's supposed to go back to normal. Oh nice good Welcome Doug been a long time we've been hiding Lenny's online what you go first So Which means the town Just who's multi-regional, has been called the inverse several times to the point where his mother took him out of the school. Oh, hard. My question is, has the left-back intervened with the college school to share this declaration of inclusion right there, to help combat this negativity that's the one one that's not accepted to kids in their own school? And has the left-back always been anything to help with this? So I'm not sure if I sent the declaration of inclusion to the superintendent or not. I'm happy to do so. But no, we have no authority over the school. We don't own the property. The school does. And kind of like, for lack of a better thing, like church and state kind of, you know, separate entities. So we have no pull at the school, just like they have no pull over town matters. But I'm happy to send the declaration to Jamie. But now, I'm not saying that you have an interest. I'm just saying the school is a part of the town. You are the select board. You can at least, can't just select or at least adopt something, say something about the feelings about what's going on there? I think it, I don't think so. I mean, I'd honestly have to ask, I'd have to ask the town attorney. I'm not, I don't know. It wouldn't carry any weight, Lenny. It'd be just like a, well, I mean, I'm saying from like a, we have no pull over the school. Honestly, I think that voters and residents have more pull than certainly than the select board. I mean, do you know if people are, are attending the school board meetings and said? A lot of stuff is going on. People are attending. People are ashamed of people for speaking up for plans. They're ashamed of people on the school board. They're doing the same things. They're not actually factual about them. I'm trying to get them to dismiss from their positions. I'm not saying the select board has influence, but it's the select board's influence. The person did not take influence, but just to say that the select board on the side of Lenny, learning about the witnesses and working with the children, no child should be displaced because of the way they are. They think they are, and no child should be threatened or prayed for the child from the school. In my school, I'm learning about the topic of learning. Let me answer. So I would say Lenny, as far as the town goes, no. I mean, could we do stuff, but will it actually influence anything? I will say that I'd be more than happy to sit down with you directly, Lenny, because I am on the school board as well. I'm not gonna talk for the school board tonight because it's not my position tonight, but I'd be more than willing to talk with you in regards to what is going on at the school board because there is a lot of misinformation out there about what is going on. So I would say right now, the best way is to go through the school first, which would be directly through a principal, or there's Austly Dana, is the equity inclusion coordinator at the school. You could reach out directly to her. She normally attends most of the meetings, and then as well, bringing it to the school board itself, I would say would be the starting point. Because... Well, even she would be in the task for trying to create diversity in school. No, and that's not true. So you and I agree upon a lot of things, Lenny, but this is not one of them. And I'm there every time, every meeting, and I've been through every single thing there, and there's a lot of misinformation going on at the school board right now, because certain individuals want certain extra privileges that didn't happen, and now they are shunning school board members and twisting words to better agenda items. So again, I'd be more than happy to sit down with you, Lenny, and tell you everything that I know, not today, or tonight. Well, there's only the side that is public, and I've been to every meeting, so I know the side to everything. And I know the piece that you are alluding to with an individual, a school board member, will call it being attacked publicly, and that's not true as well. So do have all the information on that. Be more than willing to sit down with you, but I don't think this is the place to do that tonight. Yeah, and Lenny... I'm not getting that long asking about the question. Yeah, I will send the... Make sure that diversity and stuff like that is happening in the staff. Yeah. Because that extends... I mean, if you think we adopt, this is literally an adopted diversity and inclusion that does not extend to inclusion. Well, I mean, the schools, because you unionized, it's this whole White River district, but I will send tomorrow the declaration of inclusion to Jamie if I haven't already. Absolutely. I couldn't disagree more with all due respect. But if... You can disagree, but you don't have all the information. I have the right to speak as a select board member at a select board meeting. Policy right now. And you're gonna go way off topic right now, because you don't have all the information. I sit on that board and I know all the information, all of it, not what people are making up to further agenda items. What's happening over at the school board is embarrassing right now. And you know what? It's not the board fault. So let's stop to misinformation here. This has nothing to do with the town business. Nothing to do with the school board. I am talking about if he has information from a student or anybody else that they are being treated disrespectfully in contrary to what we have said in the statement that we adopted. It is appropriate for this board speaking on behalf of the town to say that behavior is not appropriate in the town of Bethel. We have gone on record to say it is not. It is appropriate for this board to speak for itself, not to address the school board, not to try to solve any of those problems. But if people in our community and in our school are being abused, we have a responsibility to speak on behalf of the town as a select board and express that we have adopted this statement for a reason. This is gonna be on discussion that I reach out to do a little bit of research to see what is appropriate because I'm not sure we want the school commenting on town business, but let me have a chance to look into this issue and maybe put it on a future agenda just because I don't know how the statute is on this and I would hate to do something that we shouldn't be doing. The school has all the policies in place to take care of any type of behavior that happens in school, not just race or gender-based issues that happen at school, which unfortunately, those do happen just like other stuff happens at school. They have all the policies in place at school to deal with that, both policy-wise and state-law-wise to deal with that. If there's issues happening at the school, which I can tell you that I have not heard about these individual ones right here, I will look into it, but this isn't a widespread thing going on at the school. It's not a wildfire, maybe there's a couple of cases of it, just like there is everywhere. But the school has all the policies in place to deal with it, so if something's happening, not we, but individuals should talk to those administrators to follow up on that and have questions about that, but for the town of Bethel to be micromanaging the school is ridiculous. I didn't ask you to micromanage it as a non-hobby act. But Lenny, even if we... Can you all hear out the letter you finished, please? I am talking about the fact that the declaration of inclusion was adopted by the select board, and this select one governs this town in half a step. And as Jean just eloquently said, the select one can say, this is what we're doing, this is what we adopted, we want to be aware of it, so forth and so on. That's not water in the school. That's not jumping into the school. That's stating what the town had adopted. And if they haven't received it already, that they didn't know they adopted the declaration of inclusion already, that's troublesome to be a select board as not for this out there for all the town to know. As a member of this town, that's troubling to me. You adopted it just in a moment, so it just sits there and you kind of spread it around the town. That's troubling to me, very, very troubling. Well, it is in the town report. We put it on our website right away. If I didn't send it to Jamie, that's certainly my bad. We put it on the website immediately and we did a, I worked with Al and did a, oh, what do you call, you know what? Oh, why can't I think of the word? Where we put it out to let people know, and but if I missed the school, that's my bad. I'd have to go back and look. But it is on our website. It was right away. It's in our town report, I think in two places. And then, yeah, I did do a, oh, press release, sorry. That's the word I couldn't come up with, Lenny. So we did do that. I worked with Al, who was super helpful, by the way. I mean, I'm not going to assume that you did, and I'm just saying, they didn't, this one down in that spot. Yeah, I'll have to, I'll look and see, because I don't remember if I sent it to him or not. And honestly, in my day-to-day work life, I don't think about what's at the school. So certainly that's my bad, but I'll rectify that tomorrow. And Lenny, I just want to say, I apologize for barking at you. Now, it has been a very frustrating go at the school board, because there's a lot of things, a lot of topics at the school board right now that have spiraled in many different directions. And none of them being productive or being positive. So there's a lot of influences on different sides. And I will say they're not even local influences. They're non-local influences that are creating this havoc in the school. And I will say that I get a little emotional because I try my best to make sure that every single person in that school, in this town, is treated the same no matter what. And I do fully believe that we have the right policies and there are gonna be bad actors. And when those actors happen, we are gonna fight aggressively to take care of those behaviors. And again, I'd be more than happy to sit down with you, Lenny, and field any questions you may have. And I will definitely be a liaison to the school board to ask any of those questions that you guys might have. Okay, thank you. If you don't have his email, Lenny, just send, if you let me know, I'll give you Chris's email. If you email me, maybe you already have it. But if you don't, I'll provide it. You are welcome. Okay, and it looks like it for public comment online. Anybody else? I see Owens on there and Paul. Anybody else? Anything else in person that might have come up? I just wanna make this comment for the town highway department. During this past winter, I have checked some of the roads and stuff. I was just getting out there and I must say that they have been doing an excellent job out there. Yay! I was kind of surprised that they stuff up as much as what they did with their hand. You were kind of surprised, what? I was surprised. They did do what they had done, what they actually had to do. Oh, sorry. I was quite proud of their actions. Oh, you know what? I'll make sure it doesn't work and he'll be happy that you're happy. That's very nice. Thank you. We've had some equipment. She was in all the normal stuff that you're aware of. They're considering our downed equipment. Yeah, I think they're gonna be out of the shovels in the bucket pretty soon. You won't be later, Rhys. You won't be later. Yeah, but thank you, Doug. I appreciate that and I know it'll mean a lot to work with them. I know you work together for a long time. Rhys, who else is on the Zoom? I can't read that bottom. So Owen is on and then Paul Hansen, Leonard Meek, Julie Kraus, or Comedia and us. Yeah, okay. I couldn't read Paul's name there. Yeah. All right, no further public comment. We'll move forward. So we have an appointment to the Planning Commission. I think, I believe you had brought it up last, go around. Oh, you put them on the DRB last time. That's right, yep. PC needed the, it's an unusual one because the Planning Commission actually has to vote to recommend, so that's, we just... You didn't have that last time. No, cause we didn't have a quorum. So, we didn't think we had a quorum. So we do now have that in place for Dana. So. Okay, we got a motion. Second. Okay, second. All in favor? Aye. All right, so we'll move in forward. So, Planing Commission, you're at what now? Four? Let me see this. Not count yourself? Okay, Rick, Denise, Adam, Zoe, Dana. Eric Webb, six. Oh, good, okay. But, I'm not, yeah, I have a couple I'm not sure about. They're gonna see it. And what's the DRB board sitting at for individuals right now? DRB is Rick Benson, Chuck Washburn, Penny Griffin, Owen, Brad Andrews. Okay, so they're sitting pretty decent. Because they just lost one, huh? Is Penny still on? Yeah, I thought I started with her, no? And, but he's, he just lost one. But Dana just came on board, so. Because somebody moved, sold his house, second picture him. Yeah, Keith. Keith, thank you. I'm like, I'm just losing. He's over at his top bridge. So, Keith is good enough. Yeah, which is too bad, because he was a big help. So, we added this form underneath Dana. So, it's the Certificate or no appeal. It's the, the Listers and the Select Board certify that on this date, there are not any appeals pending from the action of the Listers nor suits pending to recover taxes under protest relating to the 2022 Grand List of Bethel. So, the Listers sign, then the Select Board signs, and. I don't remember ever signing one of these before. You sign one every year. Do we? Yeah. Because we sneak it in under the radar. Yeah, I guess so. Okay, so we'll take your word for it. So, we just need to. Why not? It's going on. All right. So, we just need a motion to accept the certificate of no appeal or suit pending via the Listers for 2022. So moved. Second. Okay, all in favor? All right. All right. So, I'll pass this one on. You just need to. Sign this one. All right. Oh, I thought it was fancy paper though for a second. Yeah. It's just the way the coffee is. It does. It looks like it. Excuse me. All right. And then we have. Liquor licenses. Yeah. At this point, it's like it's like, there's really no power. It's like, why do we even do them anymore? I mean, you do have. The state has their own form that we can't sign or touch. Yeah. You really have no power of anything. They're doing all online now. So it just says the, it's. So second class liquor license approval of. Yeah, I mean, if somebody had. Westville and Sanborn. Had an outdoor. That's okay. I think, Eugene. If somebody had an outdoor seating, outdoor consumption area, was there music, had hours, then there's certainly more intuitive. If back, years ago used to be informed every time somebody had a violation, but they don't do that anymore. So. Yeah, it just seems like we're just so distance from the whole process now. Yeah. And now that they started their own online form that we don't even get the right honor. Yeah. So just need a motion to accept the second class liquor license for Westco and Sanborn. So move. Second. Okay, all in favor. Aye. Aye. All right. Westco is who? The Champlain Farms. Okay. And yeah, Sanborn is the. You don't take. Sandwich shop. And we have the annual adoption of the town road and bridge standards, annual financial plan for highways. Yep. It's something we do every year at this time. So it's two separate forms. So this comes into play when FEMA comes down. If you have any damage, they look to make sure that we've done this. Also for getting grants, state grants for VTrans. We need to make sure that we have done, you know, both, and we work with two rivers to make sure that happens. And then obviously the annual financial plan, they fill in the top right from the state. And then we fill in the winter maintenance and I sort through what's what and then kind of do a split of the remainder of the budget. Is there any variation from what we've been seeing every year? Sure. You know, I'll take the, I always try to take the same amounts. I didn't bring last year's for you, but they're pretty similar. Obviously this one's higher, you know, that our description, our expenses are a little bit higher this year, but not by a ton, you know. Well, that's, I'm just talking about, we have an additive deleting miles, I guess that's the question. Oh, no, and this isn't about that. This is about just us certifying that we're in compliance with the town road and bridge standards and our network inventory. And then the annual financial plan is them telling us what they're gonna give us for money and we're telling them what we're gonna spend. What we're spending, yeah. So they're gonna give us 154,000 and we're gonna spend 883,000. So that's, okay. That's really, that's what it is. We just kind of, they like to know what we're up to. And this form here, we don't have to include any grants or anything like that that we have? No, no, because. I just see what it says, major construction projects. Last year we had put in, like we were gonna possibly 75,000 for the town garage that we didn't do it. If we, once that we do that, we would put that in here, so just need a motion to adopt the annual Vermont road or town road and bridge standards and annual financial plan for highways. Move to adopt. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. So there's two assigned, here's, this is the highways and here's the. And then, oh, I thought Rick was sticking around for this one. No? Theresa, did Dave add something after the agenda was approved? Did Dave add it? Something we were going to talk about after the day of home roll. Oh, we added the, oh. Certificate of no appeal or suit pending. For the list. PVR. Yes, PVR, yeah. If you just write PVR, I'll fill in the blank for you. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. So how did you want to do this, Theresa? You wanted to do the, go just quickly run through the warning quick. That's what I thought. Just to keep it on everybody's mind and then. Yeah. And then I can just do some highlights of the budget. Yeah. If anybody wants to hear about it and then we'll talk about the Bonn vote phase two water project phase. Yeah, and then next Monday on the 20th we'll have our special meeting, which will be, this will be the only thing on the agenda. And then we have another, the bank gene and then on the 27th we do our, you know, you have to legally have an informational meeting X Monday's for town meetings. So we'll do it on the 27th as well. But in the past, we've always kind of done it at this meeting too. Just in case you had more attendance. Yeah. And again, we have a bit of a full agenda for town meeting day this year. It's been a while. So we're just going to definitely have pie before you go because it's going to be a while. But we have to talk about when lunch is going to be served. So just the normal stuff that, you know, electing the time moderator, town clerk and treasurer, those are always done. I believe we have somebody for each one of those spots currently. Yep. And then we have the two select board member positions that are open. So Paul's position, which is a three year term is open as well as my position, which is a two year term is open. And then just for anybody that's new to it, if you do want to run and you're there on town meeting day, you have to make sure you have somebody there that can make a motion to appoint you. Yeah, nominate you. To get the ball going. Yeah, it's going to nominate you. Hopefully somebody will second it and then you'll have a chance to vote on you. So. And we do have the, we have two-lister appointments. So we have the balance of a three year term, which is one year's left to succeed. Pam Brown, who had been filling in this year that was appointed. And then there is a full three year term to succeed Judy, which I believe she's rerunning. Judy is running again. Is there somebody running in the list? Other Lister spot? I don't know. I don't think so. Not that I'm aware of unless Pam ends up running to do the last year for them. I don't know. So there is a one, a balance of a three year term, one year's on the Lister position. And those type of positions are like the perfect ones to get in if you want to, maybe you're not quite sure, but you want to take the leap because you're not committed for three years, you're committed for one year. So it's a nice one where you can get in and kind of understand the process. It takes about a year to kind of understand what you're doing serving. So if anybody is looking, has some, I don't know, say you have to have experience, but if you have a willing to want to go out and look at houses and take control of the grand list. Yeah, there's a lot of training that you have to attend. And it's nice if you have either banking or real estate or construction. And it's a nice one because you could just serve the one year out on the term and you could say, ah, it really wasn't for me and I'm not gonna re-up or you could say, wow, I really liked it and I'm gonna re-up. Yeah, exactly. Definitely a good one if anybody wants to look at that. Yeah. And the Lister, you know, other than Mo and Judy, I mean, we have been struggling to fill Listers. Thank God we have, you know, to a family that's doing the Listers because other than that, we wouldn't have anybody. Yeah, especially to start with a praise. We're only as strong as our grand list. So without the grand list, none of the budgets happen. No, school or towns. Yeah, and we're starting the townwide reappraisal in July. So if someone's interested in becoming a Lister, that's also, you know, a really good training, too, to see how. And it is a paid position. It is a paid position. Called part-time paid position. So opportunity to earn some money. Then we have Trustee of Public Funds. We have two. So we have a full three-year term and then we have a balance of a three-year term, which is one year left. Is Paul, are you running for that one or? No. No. And Sandy is running. And Sandy is. So again, there's, on Paul's end, you know, there's, you know, the balance of a three-year term one year. So, you know, if you wanna have the opportunity to get in and see what that's all about. And I mean, how many, how much hours do you think that you put into that one? It's really minimal hours. Sandy takes care of the financial end of it. She's like, you know, an accountant. So she takes care of that. So it's a lot of signatures, but it's kind of interesting to see where all the investments have gone and how some of the old time, like the Whitcomb estate, you know, left money 50, I don't know how many years ago, 50 years ago or more, and to see how that's all developed. And, you know, so it's interesting stuff, but it's mostly signatures and... I spoke to Sandy, and I know, because Rick Benson is the other trustee of public funds, that she's hoping someone will run for the balance, the one-year seat that you've vacated, because they need to do some research because of Carol Ketchum's passing. The current trustees aren't, you know, wanna get, need to get copies of the wills and understand, you know, the trusts and who left what, and what are the bequests, and there's some questions. Some of the money that was left over was designated for certain things, and some of those things have happened, some haven't, but in the meantime, those funds are earning more dollars, and so we do. It'll be interesting. I think the will end up... And trying to pick up after Carol is... Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. Yeah, so it's definitely, it will be an interesting time if you wanna be a trustee. Yeah. And then we have the budget vote, which is the, you know, the full amount, which, you know, right now is 2.655 million. Local revenue taxes, which is local revenues or taxes are things that we collect here in Bethel. That's not tax, or not home tax related. So it's dog licenses and things like that. Yeah. So the amount to be funded by the taxpayers would be 2.164 million. And that doesn't include the library, the recreation facility, or the playhouse, or the social services. They'd be voted on separately. So then we had, so a little history on it. So we had the town of Bethel's library. So they have been using an endowment, right, for, yeah, their endowment, yeah. I don't know, ever. For years. And then, of course, through the last 15 years or so, the interest rates haven't been there, so they're not really using the interest anymore. They're drawing down the overall balance on that. So they were in here back in August, maybe. Yeah, and then they came back recently when we were doing the learning. So we were talking about what's division at the library, or, you know, because they had asked us, typically we just put like $2,500 a year in there, and then last year they asked for five. And this year they asked for 75, and we said, well, what's going on? And they said, well, we're kind of running out of money. And so we sat down with them and said, what do you really need to keep the library functioning? So we have decided to increase our budget with the appropriation, but there's also this extra money would be what we really need to fund that library every year at a minimum. So this is just a barely, we'll call it a minimal functioning library that will keep them from withdrawing the principal balance of their funds. I think they were taking about $30,000 a year, and then they realized it was probably costing them $50,000 to $80,000 a year to run it. And so when Bennett Law joined the trustees, he was really big help to them and kind of sat down. And so this could just be, it could be more next year. We're not really sure they're, but they put a nice write up in town report. So did you get yours yet? Denise, you got, you were looking at Joe's, but yeah. So. I think my mail at 1030, 11 o'clock this morning, it said all mail is not up yet. Okay, so when you get it, there's like a two page spread in here in the town report that really talks about the library and they, Lisa Campbell and they, the trustees worked together and kind of explained what's going on. So. So as a board, we felt that rather than just putting the money in the budget, we felt by adding a separate line item, it would open a discussion point for us at town meeting to say, not just approving, you know, the extra, because really the goal is we need to give a $35,000 a year minimum to have that library function. But I think the goal is to have a conversation with, with the residents of what do we want to do with the library? Do we want to fund it every year at this minimum amount? Do we want to go more? Or do we not want to fund it at all? Because every community does things a little different like Randolph, for instance, they fully fund their library. Then there's other communities that partly funded or maybe don't fund it at all. So I think it's a good opportunity for us to have a conversation on town meeting day and see what direction we want to go with that library. I also think it was an eye-opener. Not everybody realized that the Bethel Library is its own entity. They're not a town department. We don't own the building. We have really their own thing. So I think that that was something that people were like, really? We don't own it. We don't run it. They're not a budget. I'm like, if you ever approve one, I'm like, no, they're their own deal. And so I think that might be an eye-opening conversation for people to say, wow. And again, my taxes were paying for the library, but they're not. And again, what we're looking for, that's minimum budget. I mean, they have a lot of things that need to get done there. There's accessibility pieces to it. There's technological advances there. I think Bennett Lawson's talking about the fact an average library that size is about $150,000 a year to run. And they were doing it on, like, $80,000. $60,000. And they were shoestring. Yeah, it was amazing. So we have that on there. I guess if we're talking about potential people to talk to that, we figuring that somebody from the library is going to have a discussion about that? Yeah, Bennett or Lisa, I'm sure, will be there. Yeah, because we told them they had to be there. When the article came up, they had to be there to talk about it, just like the next one. We told Ellie when they came to the meeting. I think it would be good if not just asking for $27,500, but maybe have some sort of discussion on the roadmap of this library and what that looks like. And we did talk to them about that. We told them they could also put a print out on the seats of at-town meetings. So we've given them enough information that they should be prepared. And then the other piece of it we had was the recreational department had come back to us about phase two of the skateboard park. So initially what they wanted to do was they wanted to recategorize some of the current funds that are in the recreational department fund that wasn't set aside for the skateboard park. And we had decided as a board and committee that instead of reclassifying money at this point that we would ask the voters for the amount. I do believe that there are some bumps in the road on the cost of things have gone up and I think their budget's getting kind of constrained on doing it, but I think they needed $30,000 at a minimum to make the second phase of the park go. And they're willing to cut it depending on what they, depending on whether it gets approved or not what they're willing to scale back to but they did have a grant of $25,000 from the Land Water Conservation Fund with a $25,000 match. And that had an accessible sidewalk that has to be built so even if they don't get all their money they're in order to get that $25,000 they have some things they have to do. And then at the same time we have some additional work that's going to have to be done over at the pool and then near future, you know, some renovations at the pool itself. And if we want to continue to have a pool there's those costly every couple decade things that need to happen and one of those is coming up. So we were, I think I didn't look today but we had what, $90,000 in the fund or something like that. I think we had, oh I can tell you. It's not about like $90,000 or something. So we didn't want to draw the fund down anymore because we're probably talking about a. Massive. We don't know. A quarter million dollars or more to do pool fixes here in the near future so. Yeah, the rec fund had 87,000. 87,000. At the end of June, yeah. So it's, and we're still getting prices obviously. We have, the staff member who'd normally do that has been out since middle, since the beginning of November so. But the fiberglass lining is failing and it's leaking where the skim baskets are. So when after Irene and they built the pavilion when it comes out from building and it's blue like from there out it's older like underneath the fiberglass that the pool is actually black top which I did not know which was, I didn't know where I mean I've known for a while now but what I thought was interesting. So it looks like from the blue part over we're gonna have to dig it up and so that it's gonna be costly. So certainly the select board didn't want to deplete the money and any money that had been voted at town meetings specifically for the skate park, the skate park has already been given. So, so hence the select board said, go to the voters. Yep. Skate park getting used a lot unless there's a special event there. Is it being used a lot? That's what the rec committee says. Yeah, they say that there's people there frequently and yes they have done their camp kick flip and Dietre did say last year when the pool was open that she saw quite a few kids there. You know, around the time if they weren't at the playground that they were also at the skate park and I think too when school is in session maybe after school it gets more but you know, hard to say numbers. I mean I don't know what the correct usage would be of the park but when I drive by there every day so I see it being used more than I thought it would be. So I always see people over there. Now I don't stop to see if they're skating or what they're doing but there's always people in that general area doing, partaking in something so. Nope, nope, we have signs up and we met with talk to BLCT, our insurance company before and there are no wooden structure there which is nice because that has caused problems for other towns because they let their wooden structures fail and then of course someone gets hurt and you know. So no, we haven't had any, honestly I have any issues. But as we're seeing in the budget there are certain things, preventative things that we have to do every year. So there's sealing of the park and things like that so you'll see in the budget that there's I don't know $1,500 or something to seal it, you get to seal it once a year or every other year or something like that. So to keep the concrete positive so. So we also, the social services piece of it didn't really change much dollar wise from year to year there was, I think there was a couple that came off the list this year that didn't ask for services and a couple of the current services had increased a little bit but the offset was pretty similar. If I remember right. And Paul, you willing to talk about that at town meeting day and have you had any identities that have reached out afterwards that? Curious on. No, we just had Safe Line sent us a nice thank you note for our consideration of their request. I didn't know if anybody said, hey, we didn't make it in there. Nope. Intest bait anybody asking to be added or. Nope. And then we have the White River Valley Ambulance once we get going in the budget, White River Valley Ambulance was quite the increase this year over last year. It had been going up at a rate of and a less than 5% a year. And took a significant 20% increase. There was a couple of years we didn't have any that they were level funded. So this was a tough one. I think some of it is, they hadn't really done much of an increase over so many years and obviously some of it's just inflation, fuel. They had mentioned staff paying staff more. Yeah, they did. And they have some new financial people too, don't they? I don't know. I do know that they took a big hit. Like the rest of us, their health insurance premium went up 21.5% and just staffing and having to pay for professionals, their salary had to go up, which is understandable. It's a niche market that they have. So yeah, that was a big increase. Percentage-wise, that was probably the biggest jump in our budget that we had. I've certainly seen in five years. I assume David Aldergetti will be there to speak to that. I can make sure. So if Paul's gonna do this, Ellie will do this, Library will do that and I'll get Dave Aldergetti out, text him about that. And then we had, there was a petition that was done to add to the warning. So number 15 is to authorize the expenditure of $1,000 that would go towards the Playhouse Theater in Randolph. So there's kind of two avenues to put things on the warning for town meeting day. Usually the most common option is to come before the select board and ask for it. But there's always the, if you get so many signatures, the percentage of the list of voters you can add an item yourself. So that's how that had come about was, there were individuals that had petitioned that and got the amount of signatures and have asked for one time donation of $1,000 to the theater. I assume Bennett will talk about it, be my guess, I think he's gonna hand it in the petition. So I'm assuming someone will be there. I think they also did multiple towns. I don't think we were there. And I think what would be nice to understand is, like when it comes before the select board, at least we kind of get the story behind it and why, you know, like, like is this the library again? Like are they, like are they in trouble and they need money to stay open? Is this gonna be a recurring ask? You know, like what is the story behind it? And I mean, even though it's not in Bethel, I mean, quite a bit of us use that. I know I take my kids over there quite often, sit in there. So I don't know, because yeah, we don't know. So I'm sure- I guess the question is being that the Playhouse and the drive-in are owned by the same identity, correct? I don't think so. No. Oh, no? Oh, I thought, why was I thinking they were- That's part of the issue. I believe they are. Aren't they? I don't think so. The Playhouse is just- The Playhouse is just undergone a restructure. They are no longer owned by who they used to be owned by. Right, because they're not- It's now a non-profit organization that is running it. So this, that's the theater. That's the theater. Okay. So there's no- No, that's a number. Affiliation between the two of them anymore? 15 says. How or what affiliation there is between the two? I don't know. Because it used to always, I thought there was an affiliation between, because you'd see the same common individuals, staff- Well, that may be at one time, but now, recently, in the last 18 months or so, the theater, the Playhouse has become a non-profit corporation, and so their funding is very different than it used to be. Gotcha. It's not a membership organization in the same way. Yeah. And that would have been nice. Well- That's the conversation- That's the conversation, that's the background that would have been helpful. And I don't have all the details. I just happened to- Well, I think it's interesting, because some people might first look at that and say, why would we fund something that's not a ham, but then you think about, there's a lot of us that do go to drive in and to the theater, and yeah. Because we heard it a few years back for something of random. I think it would be helpful. We might invite Bennett- Yeah, I'll reach out to him. To come and be able to explain that to the town. I'll email him, because I'm assuming he's also gonna be there to do the library with Lisa. So, but I'll send Bennett an email and find out. And I'm like, you gotta have somebody here. Because people might have questions and we can't field them. Right, right. And then 16 is just normal when Therese wants to make everybody pay taxes. So, those dates are on there. It's all about Therese. And then, 17 is, so there were, there were some, looking here at the last spot. There were a few things that have been a discussion point at the select board and or at the state for a couple of years, but due to COVID and we had elected two years in a row of doing the Australian ballot that these topics couldn't get raised during Australian ballot because it wasn't our traditional way of voting. So now that we're going back to our traditional way of voting this year, that these items can be put on to the ballot to be questioned. So, we had quite a bit of discussion over the last couple of years on Australian ballot itself. And we talked about either the whole town meeting going to Australian ballot or do some sort of hybrid, like in this case looking to put the, to vote by Australian ballot, the town officers only. So, people would vote for the town officers only but then all the other traditional pieces, the budget and those discussion points would be had in person. So, that would be the vote that we'll have on number 17 is by electing our town officers going forward by Australian ballot only. And so, if that passes, it obviously would become an effect next year. Yeah, next year. In March of 2024. So, if you look at the warning right now, you would just take off your town officers and then the remainder of the list is what we would do in person. If that is the way people want to go. So, that is on there. And so, number 18 is, maybe Theresa wants to talk about it. Sure, shall the town provide notice of, so basically this was actually a question that someone came to us and brought to us. So, I gave the select board two different warnings and this is the one they signed. So, this is gonna be a vote at town meeting on the floor saying, do we want people to, what's that, a postcard telling you when town report was ready and where you could pick it up, maybe at the library, the town office. Obviously, if you call, we'll mail you a copy. And it would be online and we would put the link out on Facebook from Port Form, et cetera. So, what this would do would, it would save you the cost of shipping it because we all know that a lot of people read just certain pages out of the town report and then it goes into the recycling. So, I think what you would see is, I think this year we printed 715 copies. So, you would see a reduction in copies printed so that people who actually want to read it would request or pick them up and then other people may just read them online. So, it's on there, is it A or N? So, you'd still be notified, you just wouldn't be sitting home waiting for it to come in the mail. You'd just be waiting for a postcard to tell you where you could get it. So... And to change the delivery mechanism of your town meeting day information, it has to be done by a vote. Yep, absolutely. So, that's why it was put on there. It's not something that the select board can say, yeah, we're not gonna mail them this year. Right, voters have to vote on whether or not. So, it'd have to be voted on that. Yeah. So, that was someone came to us and asked about that. So, that would be the end of the, what we would do for in-person. Well, there'd just be 19. Well, I guess he'd do 19 after we discussed these, yeah. So, the, and then there's the Australian ballot pieces. So, there are two pieces that have to go before our Australian ballot. So, the first piece was another topic that had been discussed here for two years or so now, is, so when the state approved local municipalities to have retail marijuana, it then needs to be voted on locally at your town level. So, the state said, we're good with it if you're good with it, basically. Now, we elected not to do a vote on it last year. And we have put it on there this year because there has been one identity in town that is looking to put a retail marijuana store in effect. So, this is one that has to be voted by Australian ballot. The piece of it that we have to talk about is, this is a piece that once it becomes, so let's say we accept it as a town. So, if we accept it as a town and let's say a retail place opens, and then let's say a year later, the townspeople say, wait a minute, we don't want this. And we voted out, right? It grandfathered the person that has the retail establishment. So, just because we decide as a town to remove that, which we do have the power to do, the individual that has the storefront would still be grandfathered until they decided not to do it any longer. So, that would be the piece of it that as a town we would have to think about because it's, we can take it away at any point to maybe stop somebody else from putting a storefront up, but the person that has the storefront is in. So, that would be something to talk about. And we did have one individual that wanted to put one down in the main street area that are looking to do that. So. And remember, this is just cannabis retailers. So, growing is not a permit that we even issue. The state actually issues that permit. We got a couple hundred dollars from the permit fee. And then, and we could not legally disclose a location, which is weird because we're in the town. We should be able to tell everybody everything, right? Because what we do is public record, but this you can't do. So, I thought that was interesting. So, in some ways they're kind of treating the retail marijuana similar to tobacco and liquor. You would have to have, we would have to have a board. So, even though we're the wearer of hats of all kinds of things, you know, we're the, you know, the liquor control board and things like that. We would have a marijuana board now. Yeah, cannabis control board. As well. He has his hand up for a question. Yeah, and the cannabis control board is the whole other thing we'll have to talk about. Yeah. Are there zoning regulations? We can't, you cannot legally zone it out. So, what happens is if the only place someone could have a cannabis retail shop is wherever retail is currently allowed. We cannot legally zone it out. And it's only allowed in specific zones. Like in our case, it's allowed in the village district. And maybe the court. Sort of, sort of the zoning. Right, but the state was very clear. We legally had no right to, we can't zone it out. So, they're, they really covered the, yeah. I was wondering how also the school they can be. I don't know about the school. Yeah, they don't really say about that. You would think so, right? Because of, but they don't. They just said. Technically, it could be great next to the school. Because that's part of that zone, right? Yeah, because you have a car salesman shop across the street. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't think it's getting, I don't, it's basically was just where we can do. Currently have commercial zone. Yeah. All right, someone else. Oh, Owen has his hand up. That is a good question, because I didn't even think about the school piece of it. Yeah. Owen has his hand up. Yeah, I think it's also something that we've been thinking about, because like with the school scenario, it's really on that entity, the school, to have to enforce its no marijuana policy on the campus. And similarly, for us, as a bar, you're not allowed to use or possess marijuana inside the bar with our liquor license. And so I think there is, there's some stuff to think about there for the other businesses about what it would mean to have a cannabis retailer for us, especially when it's across the street, or at least take some things to really have to think about. Yeah, I never thought about that, that they can't be, it makes that, I mean, I don't think, and I think it says in the legislation that they can't smoke on the streets, that sort of thing. It's really just a retail sale. Purchase, yeah. Yeah, like they can't open, no open container. But I didn't think about it from your point of view, because you're right, you're right across the street. Yeah, we could lose our liquor license if an inspector saw any kind of marijuana ace inside of our building. Wow. Yeah, so I guess they're, yeah. It'll be a big discussion, I think. Yeah. And we had, I wouldn't say kicked the can on it, we had felt as a board that there was no need to bring it to a vote prior, because no one had asked to put a retail establishment in. But in some ways, we're kind of obligated to put it on there if somebody is asking. Yeah. If we decided not to, that person could go get signatures and get petition, which doesn't take many signatures. I think it's like 20. Yeah. And then they could have it put on the warning anyways, which I'm sure everybody can find 20 signatures, so. Yeah. So the only part to the Australian ballot pieces is it's not like we're going to be up, or somebody from the town will be up at town meeting day really talking too much about it. No. Because that will be going on in the same building. Right. So there won't be really any discussion. The discussion will be had in the informational meetings and there are two more board meetings leading up to it. Right. Oh, lots. $200. That $200 was from where they were doing a grow, where they were growing marijuana. But yeah, I don't know what our permit fee is going to be, but it's very minimal. The state said it, and no, we cannot. The state didn't tax it. So it was really interesting, these tax cigarettes and candy and alcohol. I was really surprised there wasn't more of a tax base that they created for cannabis. But no, and we can't call it out in local option tax it. And some communities, when this happened about two and a half years ago, I think, some communities instantly put it out there, because I'll make it up. Williston, for instance, has a localized tax. So they could not, well, one, they were potentially losing out on money. If they have a realtor come in and they charge 1% tax on whatever, I'm sure that's thousands of dollars to someone like Williston. So if Bethel had a localized tax already, then you could get that as part of your localized tax. But being that we don't have localized tax, it's pretty much treated like a liquor license. You get basically nothing. No, and we talked about having a cannabis control board, and the information on that is pretty vague. We're not gonna, the cannabis control board is really not gonna have a lot of say about anything. They're just gonna have to review it to make sure it adheres to zoning regs. So, and the state says, if you don't have a local cannabis control board, that's fine. They don't need you to do it. They'll approve it themselves. Right, just goes at state level. So it's a, I think there's... And it is challenging. It's going to be more challenging. Randolph just opened a cannabis, not Randolph, the town of, but someone in Randolph just opened a cannabis store. It'll be interesting to see what kind of issues come up that we're just not aware of yet, like anything else. So that will be the first Australian ballot, or that will be one of two things. And the second piece of the Australian ballot is we have the, what we're calling phase two of the water line that we are looking to do. So a little bit of the background information on that is, so the state had come to us three years ago. Oh, more than that. Four years ago. Four years ago, let's call it four years ago. So the state had come to us and said, you are out of compliance in certain areas. And that they were be willing to work with us over a period of time to get us back into compliance. And at the same time, we have aging infrastructure. Every time you turned around, we were digging up something, right, Doug? Digging up something, fix the water leak, right? So we did that many, many, many times. So phase one was to take care of our aging infrastructure that was way overdue, but at the same time work towards the compliance piece that we're out of. While we're out of compliance, we're not allowed to add any users. So let's, we don't have a large footprint in Bethel to add anyways, but let's say a small developer put in three little houses, we couldn't add them to the system. So we have to get back into full compliance before we can add anybody to the system. So phase two is continuing towards compliance and there are a certain infrastructure that, I want to say maybe it wasn't put in correctly years ago, but like Crystal Drive, for instance, doesn't even meet the minimum water pressure ratings. So putting in a booster station and providing water so they can use it. So there's some of those projects tagged onto this. Now if we vote the bond in or don't vote the bond in, we still have to get into compliance somehow. So it's kind of a catch 22, like the first phase one of the water line and we'll get into it here a little more in a minute, but maybe we can segue into it. The first phase of the water line, we were combination very lucky as a town. We were able to, the total amount was 2.... We voted in 2.8 million. 2.8 million is what we voted in and we are on the hook for right now about 900,000. So a lot of that was loan forgiveness and grants and some of it was what they call the lead subsidy, even though it's not directly lead pipes, galvanized pipes, so any of that stuff we took out of the ground, we got one-for-one money on it. So instead of us being on the hook for $2.8 million, we're on the hook for 900 and something thousand. So that project went better than expected for us. We had went with the bond vote and said, this is where we think we're gonna be and after everything got done, we were here. So that went very well for us. The phase two piece of it is, again, very reasonably priced towards the last one, except for some less subsidies on this one and as we're seeing interest rates going up. So the biggest challenge on this one is really gonna be, we're gonna be paying interest on this loan where the last one, we didn't have to pay interest on this loan. Right. And we're, yeah, I mean 1.5% but, and the other thing too is we didn't, we are gonna get lead subsidy, but go ahead, Joanne. How is that water paid by all our taxpayers? No. Or is that just for the people losing that water? Because I paid my own water. Yeah, the first phase was completely put on the users and the second phase we're actually talking about. And if you, it's in the town report, but we also sent an additional mailer out. That's gold color that you should be getting. The, what we're talking about. Does even non-water users get this? Yes, because it's a townwide bond vote. So everybody has to vote. So what we're saying in this one is that the debt be shared by the water system and the taxpayers. But the taxpayers will pay for the road work, hydrants and those costs only. So the water line, you know, all that sort of stuff. The booster pump station will go to the water users. All we'll do is because this is going to affect Bicentennial, Highland Ave, Graham Street, Crystal Drive. We have to go pouring under the railroad, Sand Hill. But I hate to say Sand Hill because we did get a separate $600,000 earmark for that, which will rebuild the road. So what I did is worked with the engineer to just pull out just the road costs. And the rest of the costs would go on to the water users. And one of the things that's good and bad at the same time is the median household income for Bethel and across the state jumped. That's great. People are making more money. So in turn, we don't get our disadvantaged subsidy, which we got in the last round. So there is, I don't know the amount off the top of my head. No, I don't think it was half, but it was a good, it was 25% of 25, I think it was 25%. It was 25? I think so. It was a large chunk of money. It was. And so we're not going to see that this time. And the engineers were saying that a lot of towns are not going to see that. And so while it's good, it's bad. But we are going to see the still one-to-one lead subsidy. So if it's a galvanized pipe in the ground, then we get a one-for-one match on replacing it. So that's one of those things. And at the same time, we're working against each other because Denise and I could attest as being members of the Planning Commission, we have been working with Two Rivers to another grant to increase, what's the word I want, density, allowing more people to maybe turn their places into apartments and this and that and add more stuff within certain zoning districts. Well, that's great. But we can do that in the town through zoning, but the state says, no, until you pass your bond vote and you do this, that and the other, we're not, you can't add any users to the system. So I actually did just find a couple, oh, last week, I think, a thing that Tim had done, kind of talking about, and I gave a copy to Richard saying, okay, we were going to do phase one, phase two, then there's a period of time and kind of how many phases we need to do and over what amount of time. And it was interesting because I saw his estimate of this one and of course, little did he know that due to COVID and inflation, that that price tag would go from here to here, so. So it'll be a little bit of a difference. This time around on 2.5 million, we're probably looking realistically about 2 million we'll have to fund ourselves, so a big difference from last time. But again, if it doesn't go, we still have to do something and we could lose potentially the little bit of subsidies that we do have left. So we're kind of in a tricky situation on the phase two one. We would move forward with another, like if it doesn't go in March, we'll come back at it again because we don't really have a lot of choices here. The state has us over a barrel and we want to take advantage of any money now that they have because it could be disappearing, but. So I was just thinking, so with the phase two, I should ask this question a long time ago, with the phase two water, does this bring us fully up to compliance with the state? It will, they will, yes. Once we do the crystal drive pump station, they will allow us to add users. That's the thing that they're holding onto us with. Yeah. So, all right, be covered. Do you want to go any farther into the water? I mean, I think that, you know, just letting people know that the, there is a golden colored mailer that's going to be coming to you. It's also in your town report. We'll be having a discussion about it next week on the 20th, I'm going to release something on front porch forum, Facebook, I think it's out, but it's on our website and just, you know, letting people know that this is also refurbishing of the Boulevard water storage tank, which is, I think, everything to do with the waters, costly. We said constructing the new pump station to alleviate the pressure issues on crystal drive. We're also going to be tearing down the Geico well house that's across from the school on Turzion and carrier property, and building a new well house, because that one is in pretty rough shape. And right now, it's actually, like, they've ever been in their dug, it's like three levels, so we're actually going to level it out and make it all one. And again, this is waterline for Sand Hill, Bicentennial, Highland Ave, Graham Street, Crystal Drive, and a direct boring under the railroad. Because of the width of Bicentennial and Graham Street, I'm pretty sure that we'll end up with a full width pave there. Crystal Drive is just the apron, there's not much pave there. Highland, it's going to depend, I think, that the waterline is maybe right down the middle of the street, so it may be us using, depending how much we can get from the contractor, we may end up putting a little money in there to get full lane pave. And then, of course, Sand Hill, excuse me, water, hydrants, et cetera, I'm out of the bond, but the bigger rebuild of that road comes out of the $600,000 earmark from Senator Sanders. They started with no match, and we got a $150,000 match, but that'll be good, and that'll get storm water as well. Graham Street is two levels, so the upper level will come out of an auxiliary pump? I actually don't know, I can't tell you the engineering of it, I don't know. Graham Street is level 107, and Denny Stern's house is way up in there. Yeah, I don't know how they'll redo it if it's just for Crystal Drive, because I'm not aware of anyone in Graham Street having water pressure issues. I'm only aware of Crystal Drive having pressure issues, so I don't know, can't answer your question, sorry. Well, Denny's far enough below Crystal Drive, maybe it's, they don't have the pressure issue. But I haven't been made aware of that. And there's Bonnie Huntley out on that other road, and there's more houses out there. Yeah, so, and we did get all the signagements and everything from the Adams to build the, you know, to build that. So at this point, we have all of our, I think all of our easements, or I have a temporary construction easement, but everything else is signed. And then the likelihood after this phase that we'll... Do another phase, it's a few years. Pump the brakes for a little bit and see what's going on. And I mean, probably, you know, as we're all experiencing, you know, things are getting more expensive interest rates are going up, so it very well could be a whole pattern for us for a little while, so costs come back down and interest rates come down. Yeah. So hopefully this work, you know, again, this is work that should have been spread out over 40 or 50 years. So trying to do it all here in a couple of years is difficult, but... Yeah. But what is the timeline to have, let's say at least half the completed, you're looking for five years, or... The complete water system itself? Yeah. Oh no, I think that Tim's schedule went out into, let me see, I think it went out and like, let's see, we had, did these two phases, then we still have to do phase in front of the town office, North Main, River Street. I feel like there were four more phases. So, and I think there was a pause of maybe like three years or four years between this one and the next phase and then, you know, and then a bit longer. So, and obviously too, we have to take advantage of when is the state, well, when is the state gonna come through and pave? Like they paved in front of the town office, not Longo, so we're not going to cut that up tomorrow. But we also have to time stuff when we know they're coming to pave, we're gonna wanna get our stuff done the year before. So... But the idea Doug is to have a... Also, it's good to have money. You know, from what we're told is that the system should be on a 40 year cycle. So, 40, so we should be, you know, I'll make it up, if it's five areas or six areas, that should be divided up over 40 years of work. So, you know, essentially you're doing one every, you know, eight years. Yeah. Where right now we were in phase two after two and a half years. So, but it's just been so long and we're trying to pick off the bad actors faster, right? The pieces that, you know, I'm sure you went and dug holes in the ground more often. So we're trying to get those out of the way and have to deal with some of the engineering lapses that weren't looked at when it was first put in, like the pressure and things like that. Yeah, and part of it too is of course is, you know, the existing, we have an existing two inch galvanized, you know, steel water mains. And, you know, eventually as they get older, the lead is supposedly into the galvanized part. So as that fails, it's just something that we need to deal with. And especially because the EPA is giving the state money, it's being funneled through the state for us to get money for lead subsidy. We got to kind of do it while we can. So we're really hoping that obviously the bond will pass. This is work that has to be done. I know the people on Crystal Drive or just want this done because those people, couple of people have pressure, like they're basically sucking the water out of the water line in a couple homes. You can't use water upstairs if it's running downstairs. And that's just not right. So we need to, you know, just should never have been added to the system years ago. I don't want that. And some people have had to purchase their own local boosters for their homes. But the problem is, is that takes away from others as well when you do that. So, so trying to correct that. Yep. On to the budget-wise, we're just, we're gonna just do a high level look at the budget. In the next two meetings, we have the informational and kind of more budget, but tonight we're just kind of high level. So overall the revenue end of the budget's up $56,000 over last year, of which pretty much all of that, $54,560 of it, is due to the sale of the transfer station. So we had sold our interest in the transfer station to Royalton back in July. So over five years, we will get a payment of $54,560 over five years. So that's where that extra revenue has come in to play for this year. The total cost to our budget has gone up by $263,000 over last year. So it's a large number for our town. And probably if you turn on the news, you know, you're seeing a lot of that. Budgets are up 10%, budgets are up this and that. So there's a lot of that. And to break it down more on kind of like what is going on with the budget. So out of that $263,000, $35,000 of that is just strictly benefit increases. So that is healthcare, retirement, those pieces that have gone up. So healthcare went up 21.5% this year. So that is what we're absorbing in this budget is $35,000 worth of benefits for our employees that have increased. And then we have $80,000 of the budget that I have categorized into what I would call inflationary pieces. So that is things like fuel and salt and things like that that have gone up over last year. So that is probably one of the largest movers in the budget is just what we call things that we don't really have control over unless we wanna take away services. So like just an example, salt. We did a really good job a couple of years ago. Remember, Doug, we were up like $100,000 we were paying in salt year. And now we've cut that, had cut that down to $60,000, $70,000. And now the new salt prices have jumped so much we're looking at like $90,000 plus now. So salt alone has gone up $20,000, $25,000 over last year. So that, those are some, and obviously fuel, just diesel fuel makes up like $30,000 of that, $80,000. So plowing the roads and doing maintenance to the roads and things like that. So the next piece of it, there's $60,000 of that of what we have increased to take care of all of our grant matches. So good news is that Therese has worked really hard to get a bunch of grants for the town. So as she talked about, we have the Sand Hill piece. So the, what we'll call the road work of the Sand Hill piece, we got a grant. Of course with that grant comes the matching funds that we have to put in that too. Christian Hill Road, we're gonna redo the Wait, seven, nine miles. Eight tenths of a mile. Basically where the black top looks like this. So that we have a grant that that's actually out for bid now. So we hope to do it this year. So there's match money in there. Pleasant Street, we have a sidewalk grant that we got for Pleasant Street. So the sidewalks kind of, the triangle down towards the school is much needed. So we have that grant. We won't do anything there this year, it's like a four or five year grant. We're just starting the, getting the engineer actually just got three proposals I have to read and rate. And then, so that's kind of an engineering planning study. That's a couple of years and then it goes out to bid. And so it's, you know, it's not happening tomorrow. But that's the section from John. And those are one of those things that our goal is to get that project in and done with before they come back and repave the village like they did, what seven, eight years ago now. So probably the next five or six, they'll be back through here. So we want to get that project done. And then we have the Peavine Colvert. Oh, Peavine. Yeah, we're going to replace that bridge on Stoddard Brook at the base of Sandhill. You know, it floods every year. So I didn't get a structures grant for that. That'll happen in the spring of 2024. I was hoping to do it this year, but I can't because I'm going to have Sandhill closed. And I gotta have a neat tour. So that'll be done as well. So I mean, all four of these projects is hundreds of thousands of dollars to match the grant money. Obviously we're not putting 100 something thousand a year. It's just our schedule right this year to make that all work as we've put $60,000 in there. So it's an increase, but it's also, you know, we're getting 80, 20 money or 90, 10 money. So majority of that work is being paid for by others. And the 600,000 is a give me. That's, you know, we have the 150,000 a match, but they end up, you know, we got an 80, 20 split there. And we're also going to have another, we're going to do a project on half the town tour. We're going to do part of Gilead and Right Road, Culver ditching project there, and on top of Macintosh. So we are going to have, you know, if you live in Lilliesville, you're going to be good because we're not going to touch anything over there. Yeah, but you weren't good a couple of years ago when we had the spring flood. So yeah, so we're, you know, so we're definitely going to have a lot of road workout, but we were, you know, we landed, I don't know, couple three million in grants. So 60 on that, and then we have 30,000, which is just some highway garage changes. So that's mostly on, we've identified that to get to a proper gravel roads maintenance, that we, you know, currently our budget to put gravel on roads is not nowhere near what we need to maintain these. I mean, as Doug knows, there's not much gravel out there. It's, you're reusing the stuff that's been there for a very long time. So we kind of looked into it, you know, the experts say that a seven or eight year cycle is kind of the average life cycle to your gravel roads to add base to it. So we've increased some money in the gravel to do that. And then on the sand and the things, a combination of sand has gone up a little bit, but we're also trying this year, and we'll see how it goes this year. And if it works out well, we adding some manufactured sand instead of just doing all natural sand. So natural sand is round. And the majority of time, like Doug knows, as you sand it, and it all goes the side of the road, and it does no structural value to the road itself. So you put sand on and the sand goes the end and it doesn't do anything. And it has a lot of organic, so it becomes slimy. Yeah, so what we've tried this year, and it costs a little bit more money, is we've done some manufactured sand. So it's angular sand that we can put on the dirt pieces when, let's say it's those really nasty rainy days, and there's packed down, is we can put that on. But the good thing is, is after we're done with it, those chips will stay in or around the road and add to the gravel base. So we're hoping that even though it might cost us a little bit more in winter maintenance, it's at least helping the base of that road. Where the sand, you just have one use for it, which just helps you out for a day or two, and then it's just useless. So if that does go well, which we've had. So far, so good. I will say, people are confused about that a bit too, because as Doug could tell you, manufactured sand going on the road looks differently. When you spread the sand we used to get, it was organic and it was very dark. So people are like, you're not sanding the roads. So we're like, no, we are. We're using manufactured sand. So it's building the road base. It's just not that same dark, dirt color that you're used to. So you really can't see it as well. So people are, we've been trying to educate people and say, hey, you know what? This is better for you. It's not gonna be as dusty. It's gonna stick in the road. It's not gonna create this slime with a lot of organics. So we're hoping it'll help us out on two ends. We can build a stone base and it's a good traction for the wintertime. $10,000 kind of overall increase was the constable. So we have, well, open to the whole can of worms. We have promised the townspeople 20 hours a week service. We currently get six maybe. And really that comes down to, we have two constables that are pretty busy doing their other work. That they haven't really had a lot of time to come over here. Or if they do have time, other identities pay them more money. So why go to Bethel for, make it up $20 when I can go get $30 an hour staying where I'm at? So we looked at it as to, we did look at a couple of different things of potentially contracting out to a sheriff's department and those budgets were very expensive. So we've tried to do something more in the middle of we've increased the budget a little more so that we have the ability to pay the constable a little more to attract them to come and do their 20 hours of service that we would really like. And Tres is in the process right now of getting those confirmed commitments through them that we want to see you, you know, either each one does 10 or one does 20 and one does nothing. Yeah, Justin has been on and also has been on. So it's kind of, so we're looking at that. Worst case scenario, if we don't pick up those shifts and it gives Tres some money that we could use some contracted help at different times with the sheriff's department or somebody else. So. And right now with the Orange County Sheriff's Department and the Windsor County Sheriff's Department a little bit. A little bit? A little bit messed up right now. A very little bit. It's, you know, with two new sheriffs, it's created, you know, some issues. So it also gives two new sheriffs a year to figure out what their staffing is gonna look like, what contracts they could take on and that sort of thing. Cause, you know. I mean, we had gotten, so our typical constable budget is, let's say in around the $50,000 a year and we have not been spending that by the way. So there's been savings there, which is good for your pocket, but not good if you're asking for those services, right? But we did ask, you know, just to put it in perspective we did ask the sheriff's department, what would it look like if you gave us a officer for what we would say is the time we want to see and it was about $125,000. So a very large bump. So we decided as a board, let's pause on that one. Like she was saying, let's see what some of these other communities may do and maybe we could fit in with those communities like a year or two down the road, but at the same time, let's make us a little more competitive so that maybe we can get some of these hours done. The, we already talked about, but the White River Valley ambulance is $26,000 of increase and you know, percentage wise that's the largest increase for services for the ambulance. And then the last $22,000 would be what I would say is the normal stuff, like all those little things of adding wage increases for employees, you know, some supplies and different appropriations and things like that. So that's kind of the other $22,000. So that's kind of the breakdown. Some things that we have been, our town has been very lucky with is a combination of one, for five years we do have that extra revenue that helps us offset some of these costs. Of course we have to be careful because after five years that's gone away. The same, at the same point, we have the, lost my train of thought now. So the revenue has increased and. American rescue plan? American rescue plan money? Well, that is good. I mean, we do have some American rescue plan money that we have purchased already. Some things for the sewer plant that we probably would have asked the taxpayers at some point and we do have some money that's allocated that we can take care of of some of the matching money of some of the projects that we're doing. Oh, the, so our budget if. Oh, the grand list. So the grand list going up is what actually helped our budget out the most. So the grand list has taken a, usually grand list doesn't move a whole lot during the year. Our grand list has actually moved up quite a bit. So that has absorbed roughly about half of the increase. So if normally, let's say we didn't have the revenue, the extra revenue and the grand list didn't move. I mean, we're talking, you know, this budget would be like 10 or 12 cents higher, which, which I think if we were talking for an average of like a quarter million dollar house in Bethel, every penny is, every penny is $150 a year. So, I mean, think of 10, 10 pennies or 12 pennies, what that would have done to everybody this year. And, you know, we're definitely not the only ones in this. Everybody's in this whole thing. Yeah, actually talked to Rochester today and he was like, what's your budget doing? And I told him and he was like ours. He goes, well, we didn't have any growth in the grand list. So their budgets up too. And it's, you know, cost of doing business. So we've gotten lucky. I mean, it, you know, a lot of costs have gone up. Just like all of us buying things have gone up. The grand list has helped us this year. It doesn't mean it's going to continue to move. And we are going to go through a reappraisal process. So we'll rebalance that grand list out. So I do feel lucky that we're in a good position. The overall, I didn't bring it with me tonight. But what I call the baseline budget, so that's the things on the warning for number 10. Well, it doesn't, what it doesn't include would be, it doesn't include the extra money for the library, the extra money for the recreational fund for the skate park and the extra $1,000 for the historic playhouse. If we vote that in, that is roughly about a little over two cents increase on taxes. And then if you add in the library, the skate park and the playhouse adds in about another 2.8 cents. So it's, when you look at it, every $21,000 in the budget is about one penny that we pay. And then, like I said, one penny is roughly $150 a year on a quarter million dollar house. So that's all the fun when it comes to the budget. All fun and games. The next two budget informational meetings and stuff will definitely, if anybody wants to dive into it any deeper, like a certain thing will be more and willing to go into things or more meaning if there are things in there. And I'm hoping to have a PowerPoint presentation, at least for the 27th, from Aldrich and Elliott for the bond informational. So I haven't seen that yet, but hopefully. So yeah, so we'll meet February 20th at 6.30 and this will be the only thing on the agenda. And then, town manager's report. So just remind people that taxes are due on the 15th, the Wednesday the 15th. She's no fun. There you go, that's it. We will take your money ahead of time. Yeah, that's right. And I think the, that's right. Thank you very much. That's right there. Those most people are not bringing us candy. So thank you very much. I said that to him, I'm like, where's the candy cover? She goes, where do you think? So the town manager's report is mainly just updates on all the grants and stuff that Chris and I were just talking about. And working with Rita at Two Rivers just to do two more, probably end up doing a partial payment grant for the portion of Pevine that we're gonna have to dig up because we need to get the right height for that bridge. So that'll be that. And then working on maybe another structures grant, large or culvert replacement on Deering. So, but if that happens, that won't happen, construction till 2024, because Lord knows we got enough going on. The other thing is, if anyone's been following it, we've been talking about Ways and Means Committee. They're considering this whole reappraisal situation about basically stopping giving towns $8.50 per parcel for, put towards our reappraisal. Obviously we've been saving our money for years and adding a little bit more. And then they're talking about instituting a state reappraisal program. So we wrote to Kirk White and Dick McCormick and heard back from Kirk. And then Mo and Judy attended a meeting with VALA, which is the Vermont Association of Listers. And we also heard from VLCT. And there, most of the recommendations that these guys did that the House and Ways Means Committee heard, were recommendations did not extend to establishing a single statewide reappraisal system because they are saying that there's currently 165 municipalities are gonna need reappraisals, and of which only 42 of those 165 have reappraisals planned. But my email was to Kirk was, this doesn't make any sense for you to add more people to property valuation review the tax department when you could just pass legislation and say, instead of basing our reappraisal on what our common level of appraisal is every year, they could just pass legislation and say, boom, you gotta do one every eight years. Then still give us the 850 a parcel, but for towns that are hurting, we're already under contract to start in July, but for towns maybe they don't have the money, offer them some grants. I just think over the long haul, adding more people to the state of Vermont payroll to get them trained to caught up and at the same point they wanted to put a moratorium on and that was a big problem for us saying, wait a second, we've already signed a contract, we can't be in breach of something for you guys to figure out. So they did take some testimony and currently that legislation has, it's not been introduced, it's just draft legislation. So I don't think they got the excitement that maybe they thought they were gonna get because Val and VLCT was saying, no, you know, there's other ways to do this and we've given them our two cents and then I just suggested that, I told Kirk I'd be interested to see what the other towns he represents had to say, but at this point Bethel wanted him to vote no. It just seems like it's something that's being rushed that maybe they need to think out a little bit more. Did they provide the data of the towns that, because if you go, I think it, I could be wrong, but if you go below 85% or above 100 and 10 or 15% it automatically triggers a. Yeah, it says the town, if the town grand list falls below 85% of the fair market value arises above 115%, then the law requires the town to reappraise. And it says- But out of those, did they say how many of them are currently there or no? Well, it said in their most recent equalization study that in 2022 that the majority of the municipal grand lists are well below fair market values. In fact, in 2022 the statewide CLA was 83.1% of fair market value. So I'm not saying towns don't need reappraisals. They do, we should have had one a while ago. We're like at 13 or 15 years, which is way too long. But it seems like I just have a hard time believing that the state taking this over is going to make it any more efficient. And you certainly can't have a one-size-fits-all. Bethel is not Burlington. So I just think- And I believe ours is at 88. Yeah, I just got the most- Which ours went down like 5% over last year. Yeah. And Royalton's went down even more. They went down like 8% or something. So- That's an anomaly. Yeah. I mean, COVID made this an anomaly. Yeah, it's huge, you're right. It's a huge bubble. The price of property is just- I mean, right on Christian Hill, two properties side-by-side they went for over $800,000 that five years ago would have barely made four. Yeah. When we had a property in Bethel that I think was valued at around $400,000 to $500,000 it sold for $1.6 million. It's like, you know, so you're right. It's just completely- People coming in- That was right next to your house, Doug. But coming in and paying three times- Your ears is going up now. And then cash. So you're right. I think you're- I definitely, it's got to come back down to that. Well, not necessarily. Well, it'll be interesting to see how the reappraisal and what happens. You're right, there's still a housing shortage. There's still a housing shortage and we are a climate go-to state. That's right. I did read about that. We're going to be getting climate refugees. You should see this year. I did read about that. You're right. The local working folks are not buying these houses. No. The houses that are selling like this are people that come up for a weekend. They were cash. Or maybe every two months. So we're exasperating, I think it's the word, our housing shortage by these houses is selling the way they are. I mean, one of those, both those houses that are sold were people that worked in the area. One is retiring, the other one moved to Maine. But the houses are there and they're gone for our working people. Yeah, and we know people who've put their house on the market, got an offer, but couldn't sell because they couldn't afford to move anywhere else to find a place. So- We know how difficult the formula for the school budget is to work with. And all those, the school budget works on like four different formulas in the state. So there's the equalized pupils. So there's so much they give you per child. That's up like over $1,000 a kid, which that's a large jump. And then you have the yield rate of the state. And then you have your common level of appraisal. So there's all these different pieces that tie in. And they always usually just move like very small. And this year they're all like, one's way up 10%, one's down, one's, I mean, I don't even know how to figure out that calculation now. I don't either. But that's a just reminder that, you know, the taxes are due and town reports out. One more thing, I think it's important that it's gonna be on Orca, but that people understand that a townwide reappraisal is good for the town. Absolutely. And it's good for us because if it's done well, probably 90% of the people are not gonna see much of a change in their taxes. It's just rebalances everything. Yeah, so properties worth twice as much, but so is everybody else. That's right. And if you have a home that you haven't done any, you know, any work to like build an addition, that's not, so maybe there's depreciation that needs to be applied to your property that you're not receiving. Yeah, maybe your neighbor has remodeled their entire house and then so, yeah, so they're gonna come up, but you know, you may be qualified for depreciation of the things that haven't been applied in the past, because no one... Negative comments, taxes are going through the roof. No. No, hope is done right, they are. You're right. It's basically trying to bring everybody into whack so that we know, and especially when you haven't been in homes for 13 years, you know, you've certainly missed some stuff because zoning permits don't apply to what's going on inside. So I think that's a good point. The biggest movers will be anybody that had just built a house in the last couple of years, they will probably see a bit of a relief. And then individuals that maybe had a house that have done some remodeling to it, make it up 10, 15 years ago, may have to pay a little bit more. But a majority of people like Dave's saying, you probably won't see anything, any reflection on that, which... That should be good. Yeah, looking forward to that. Look to the minutes. Meeting minutes from the 23rd of January. I didn't see anything, let's Paul saw something. No, they look good, I'm motion to accept. Okay, Paul's got a motion to accept the meeting minutes. Second. Second by Dave, all in favor? Aye. Okay, I just have it. And we had other communications that were in there. There's the finances, there was rec and minutes and some legal stuff and nothing extravering. Yeah. So. And we've made any kind of engineering plans or whatever for a right road. Are we still waiting to see when, who comes out of the, what happens? So we are doing this. So we are doing a project down by Brian's house. We're doing a culvert ditching replacement down there, but right road itself along with Gilead, we're waiting until April to figure out, I've talked to the lawyer recently, we have this newer letter to see about an easement to offer someone and see what's gonna happen there before we move forward with a possible, are we gonna make it a trail on right road? Are we gonna just make it all class four? What are we gonna do? So we're also looking at some other pending cases right now and watching that as well, but we won't deal with that now until April. And I do have, we have some other discontinuances. We have some other discontinuances too, a part of Tufts Road or Sugar Hill. There was a piece added way back when and then the five that were added in 2010 that I told you I had Gene in researching. So it looks like we're gonna be ending up doing several discontinuances or reclassifications in April, not just looking at right in the upper piece of Gilead. You could do them all at the same time. It will be, yeah. It'll be much easier to just do them all. It's a lot of visitations, but we'll just, we have to go to all of the sites, but yeah, so we're gonna try to take care of. April's nicer to walk around. Yeah, exactly. Maybe, I don't know, maybe. Well, we'll see. We'll have mud up to our, you see the mud. Yeah, it could be end of April, beginning of May, but we'll definitely, it's more of a spring thing at this point. All right, anything else to come before the board this evening? Otherwise, we will have a meeting again next week, next Friday, Monday, at 6.30. So it'll be just the budget and informational meetings. So budget and that for the water as well. Yeah, it'll be the town meeting warning and water bond budget, just the same, you know, things and we'll be prepared to ask if anyone has very, you know, specific questions about any section of the budget. We're happy to answer that for you. All right, so unless I hear anything else, so just need a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. I shall move. Okay, all in favor? Second. Third. Say bye. Did you make a motion? No, I did. Paul did. Oh, okay.