 Call the meeting to order review of the agenda are there again this is for the organizational meeting. So, if there are any request to add or add anything to the agenda for the most part we need to maintain things in the order that they're in. But if there's any request to add anything. Sarah I see a note. I'd like to not add anything but to edit item number five that should say appoint finance committee members. We do not elect our finance committee members per the confirmation in the charge that was amended in 2019 so we the chair does appoint the finance committee members that should just say appoint not elect. Okay, so quick procedural clarification on that. Great. Any other points of clarification from the commissioners. I want to take a moment to welcome to new board members. So we have one an alternate for the city when you ski. So, and a new commissioner for Wilson so you know why don't we start off by giving you a chance to introduce yourselves give us a little idea of your background, your knowledge of materials management, you know any anything that you would like to share the board would be great. I'll go ahead and start if that's okay. My name is Dr Ron Stotine. That's the way I'm listed on the list of commissioners but I hasten to point out that I am not a medical doctor. I have a PhD in journalism. And I'm retired former associate professor of broadcasting and mass media and former broadcast journalist and radio and television. Currently, trying to write a second novel. And it's going fairly well. This novel was called the Chechens revenge. And if you want to talk to me at some time later I'll be delighted to tell you about it. Great thanks Ron and do you have any knowledge of background and materials management waste management at all. I do not really. I have been a manager in the broadcast industry. So I'm comfortable with working with volunteers because I was the general manager of several college radio stations and staffed always by student volunteers so you know I have that kind of expertise that I can bring to the party but other than personal attempts to do composting and and recycling that that would be about the extent of my knowledge. We're excited to have you join us Ron thank you. And kelton if you want to introduce yourself. That would be awesome. Yeah, thank you. So my name is kelton bogaski new representative from Williston. I've been on the calls for the past two years and even before we were in person so I've definitely met met some of you before I currently work for Kasella waste. I'm an outside sales rep for them. So I work with our customers throughout throughout Chittenden County. My background I my expertise in material management I think I definitely what's what's nice is I do get to talk to a lot of different constituents that use our use the facilities in Chittenden County and struggle with different different types of materials and special recycling that that currently isn't offered anywhere in Chittenden County so I feel like I kind of have the year to the ground and it's been a different note with CSW Dan different projects like right now I'm working with Ethan houseman on a film plastic recycled pilot for downtown Burlington, which is hopefully going to start very soon. It's been been four or five years and in the planning. So that's my background. Super excited to join join the board and hopefully bring bring some of what I hear and what I see from from working with different business owners and residents in Chittenden County. Great. Thank you, Clinton. Kelton we're happy to have you join for Wilson. So next on the agenda is the executive board and granting of authority. No, actually the first thing is to like the officers. I was jumping ahead. You didn't want to leave. The bold number four just caught my eye. These glasses on not wearing my contacts. Yes, election of officers. Most exciting element of the evening. And Sarah happy to have you your assistance walk through this. Sure. So in the board packet there you have a memo that shows who had ever sent in a self nomination or was nominated for the officers and for the executive board. So what we'll do is we will vote one by one. If there are additional nominations from the floor will take those nominations. When those nominations are considered to be complete. There will be a motion to close the nominations. And again we'll do that for each, each officer in turn. If there are multiple people who are running for each office. We will. Amy will send out a separate invitation for a separate zoom meeting. And we will call each community into that zoom meeting one by one. It will let Amy know your vote as the secretary of the board and use the secretary of the board. She will record that you will need to come back to this meeting and then we'll go one by one. But that's only if there are additional nominations from the floor at this time. So, Brian, if you would like to ask for initial nominations for position of chair, we can do that one first. Yeah. So we'll, we'll begin with the chair, and then we'll move on to the other officer seats as Sarah outline. So at this time, if there are any additional self nominations, or anybody has discussed with somebody else on the, on the board previously that would like to nominate and have an acceptance of a nomination. Now is the opportunity to do so. Hearing none, I will entertain a motion to close nominations for chair. I move we close the nominations for chair. Essex seconds up or LinkedIn. All those in favor. Hi. Hi. Hi. And if you are not on camera. I want to make sure we have enough indication, either from raise a hand or from coming on camera to indicate your vote. Perfect. I don't have a count. I don't have a camera on this computer. Okay. Handworks Leslie. Okay. Thank you. So it seems like all those in favor for closing chair position. So Sarah, we'll take the nominations for the remaining officers or will we vote on the chair first chair first. Okay. So, all those in favor of the nominee for chair. Okay. So I would like to ask about the second. Acting Paul Roos. Do we need a second for that or Sarah? Nope. So what we, the official motion would be. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Hi. Any opposed. Any abstain. Paul. Welcome to the chair position. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for taking on the role. I guess before we go on to the next, uh, next vote, I wanted to take a point of privilege on behalf of the entire CSWD board to thank you for your exceptional leadership that you provided this last year and also your contribution in the years leading up to this. You stepped into the board chair position was suddenly vacant. You brought a tremendous amount of knowledge and energy and enthusiasm to the board. And absolutely amazing ability to run a meeting via zoom. You are an extremely hard act to follow. But again, thank you for your year of leadership. And on behalf of the whole board, we are delighted that you're going to continue to be with us and make another strong continuing strong contribution. The CSWD. Thank you very much. You're here. Thank you. We'll give you the opportunity to take the baton if you would like Paul, or I can continue on, uh, to close out the board elections if you would like. Uh, I'm prepared to take it over. I think probably it makes more sense since I think you're now officially retired and I'm officially. I'm happy to pass the baton. It's all yours. Um, and everybody, please bear with me as I get my legs under me for, uh, for running a meeting. Uh, the next item will be the election of the vice president of the, of the board. Um, you already asked if there are any other nominations for any of these positions. Um, the only self-nomination is Allen Nye of Essex. Uh, do we have a, uh, anybody moved to close nominations? Close the nominations. We need a motion to do that. So moved. Seconded. Um, any discussion on the motion? There being none, all those in favor of electing Allen Nye as, as vice chair of the CSWD board, please signify by saying aye. We need to back up a moment. We need to first, um, approve the closing of the nominations and now we can move to the vote. So the first action. We're voting to, that's okay. Closing the nomination. Those in favor of closing the nominations, please signify by saying aye or raising your hand. Hi. Hi. Now are we ready to, to vote on the, uh, election of Allen Nye of Essex as, um, vice chair of the CSWD board? Uh, all those in favor, please signify by saying aye or raising your hand. Hi. Hi. Anybody voting no. Any abstentions? Yes. Essex. So thank you, Allen. You, um, you are elected again as the vice chair. Thank you very much for being willing to continue in that role. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, the next position to consider it is the role of secretary of the, of the CSWD board. Um, Amy Jewel is the only, uh, nominee we have so far. We have no other self nominations. I'll entertain a motion then to close the nominations. So moved. Seconded. Uh, I just point out that the CSWD charter does allow for a non, um, commissioner, someone who is not a commissioner to serve in the role as secretary. It's also available possible to do that as treasurer for the past several years. Amy has, has, um, perform the role as secretary of the board. Um, so this is entirely within keeping of our charter. That said, all those in favor of, um, uh, electing Amy Jewel as secretary of the board, please signify by saying aye or raising your hand. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. vote on Leslie Melty of Jericho being treasurer of the board for the coming year. All those in favor, please say aye or raise your hand. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Leslie and Jericho. That is noted. I call the election for Leslie Melty of Jericho as our treasurer for the coming year. Thank you very much, Leslie. That closes the election of officers at this organizational meeting. The next item is item four, elect to the executive board and granting of authority. Sarah, perhaps you could walk us through that. So the executive board is the only other elected group. All of the other committees are appointed. And the executive board has been granted certain authorities by the full board, such as approval of expenditures up to $100,000. And they are able to act in place of the full board in emergencies into that nature. So we do elect four positions. The chair is automatically a member of the board. So you will be electing tonight for four members to sit at that on that board. The nominees and again the officers, officers aren't automatically members, just the chairs automatically member. So the four that we have self nominated, Alan nine, Leslie Melty, Lee Perry, Burlington and Paul Stapler, South Burlington. At this point, Paul, I think you could entertain additional nominations from the floor if there are. Thank you. Are there any any additional nominations from the floor for the executive board hearing none. Ready to entertain a motion then to close nominations for the executive board. So most of the second from Milton. Thank you. Any discussion. There being no discussion all those in favor of closing the nominations for the executive board please signify by saying I or raising your hand. We're now ready to take a vote on selecting the executive board, which will include Alan nine of Essex and Essex Junction Leslie Melty of Jericho, Lee Perry of Burlington and Paul Stapler of South Burlington. We have a motion to elect that slate of candidates. Second is from Colchester. Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion. There being none, all those in favor of electing the executive board, consisting of Alan nine Leslie Melty, Lee Perry and Paul Stapler, please signify by saying I or by raising your hand. Hi. Are there any opposed. Any abstentions. Yes, Essex. Thank you, Alan. The eyes have it and the executive board is elected. The next. Two motions necessary for the official granting of authority. To the executive board and the executive director. And if you like, I can read those motions and yes. So the first motion is to authorize the executive board to approve expenditures up to $100,000. Essex so moved. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any discussion on this, this motion. I take it this is a long standing amount. That's been in place, certainly for the past several years. It was at 50,000 at one point in the last few years ago we raised it to 100,000 I think it was right Sarah. It's been at least five years it was 100,000 when I came on. Okay. There any other discussion on this motion. I would just a question is 100,000 an adequate number at the present time. My opinion is yes it is. It doesn't need to be higher. And I would say that it, for my experience as the chair this past year and on the finance committee the previous year that it is sufficient. Okay, thanks. It's a great question. Thank you. So we're now ready to vote on this motion to authorize the executive board to approve expenditures of up to $100,000. All those in favor of signify by saying I or by raising your hand. Hi. Are there any opposed. Any abstentions. The motion carries. The motion is to authorize the executive director to expand up to $50,000. Have a motion to approve. So, Thank you. Thank you. And again, this is, or any discussion on this motion. Again, this is a long standing practice and this $50,000 amount has been in place for no doubt several years. Yes, this was increased. I believe in 2017. You had an occasion to invoke this authority. Essentially, it's for any contract that is has a value of up to $50,000 so yes, this is regularly put in place. Prior it was 25,000, which required us to bring lots of routine regular contract rules to the executive board. So, this is fairly cumbersome. So we have requested the increase of 50,000 and that has certainly decreased the amount of routine contracts. Thank you. Any other questions or discussion on this motion. All right then all those in favor of authorizing the executive director to spend expend up to $50,000. Please signify by saying I or by raising your hand. Any opposed. Any abstentions. The motion passes. Item five is the appointment of the finance committee members as Sarah had clarified at the beginning of the meeting it's not an election. It is an appointment made by the chair. The board that would be me. My understanding is that we have three self nominations that were received by the time that self nomination closing date had arrived. And those self nominations are Leslie Nulti of Jericho, who was automatically a finance committee member, I believe by virtue of her being treasurer of the CSWD. Tim Lauches of Shelburne and John Gifford of Milton. Are there any other self nominations coming from the group today. I'd like to self nominate myself. Kelton Mogasky of Wilson. Thank you, Kelton. Since this is my prerogative to make the appointments. I want to go ahead and appoint Leslie Tim and John. Kelton, I appreciate your interest and willingness to serve on it on the finance committee. You're certainly welcome as our all board members to participate in the finance committee meetings. And I think, as Brina's pointed out in the past, it is an excellent way to learn about the end of the inner workings, the financial workings of the CSWD and it is a great groundwork preparation. I was on the finance committee this past year. So I guess that's maybe that's a testament that just how wonderful the experience can be because my child Kelton, your number might be coming up sometime to become chair of the board. Paul, this is John Gifford. If it would help you can put him in my place. I don't, I don't need to do it. My understanding of John is he's got a finance background, a treasurer of Milton in the past. Is that correct? Currently. Currently a treasurer of Milton. And yeah, I've been a school business manager for 25 years. So yeah, I have some background. You've asked some very good pertinent questions over the past year. So I think you'd be a real valuable asset to the finance committee. So I'd like you to be on there. I'm fine. I'm very much. If it would help, I think I am fine. Okay. Thank you, John. Sarah, that is, we're now done with item number five. Right. Number six. Number six is setting the meeting schedule, which was in the packet. I have a motion if you'd like me to read it. Motion to set the meeting schedule as presented for the executive board and the board of commissioners and further to authorize the chair of the CSWD board of commissioners and consultation with the executive director to cancel board of commissioner and executive board meetings when it is deemed unnecessary or imprudent to hold a meeting. So move. Move back that motion. This John give her. I had a lot of people making the motion. I don't know, Amy, if you've got the recording of who that might be that. Thank you, John. And who was the second. Thank you, Leslie. The schedule is presented in the in the meeting packet. I don't know if there are any questions or observations. But this is that pretty much the same sort of schedule that we followed in the past. Just wondering is July deliberately a holiday month. It's traditionally been one of the months that we do take off, either it's usually the July or August. And it has tended to be more often than not July. I'm wondering. Any other questions on this motion to set the calendar as presented in the board packet. There being none all those in favor of adopting this calendar please signify by saying I or raising your hand. Any opposed. Any abstentions. The calendar is adopted. Item number seven is to set the interest rate for late payment. Sarah, I'm going to ask you to talk to this, please. So this is the interest rate that we would set to our member towns if we were to issue an assessment to the towns and they were laid in pain that assessment. This amount has not changed in many, many, many years, nor has it been needed because we have not made any assessments to a member towns. But it's something that we are required to set by our charter. I do have a motion that can be called please. Motion to set the interest rate for late payment at 1% per month, 1% per annum for member towns if assessments are established. So moved. Thank you Leslie a second. Second Burlington. Thank you Lee. So any discussion on this motion. There being none all those in favor signify by saying I or raising your hand. Okay. So we have a motion that is proposed. Any abstentions. The interest rate is set. Item number eight is the continuation of the fidelity bond for officers. So we have a motion to set the interest rate for the charter that we have essentially officer and director's insurance for the executives and for the executive director for the officers and executive director. Could you read the motion. Yes, motion to continue the fidelity bond of $500,000 per incident for commissioners of the Chittenden solid waste district, the director of finance and the executive director. So move Jericho. Second. It's been moved and seconded is there any discussion on this motion. Yeah, I'd like to this is john Gifford. I'd like to ask why we do this as a board motion. If it's written into the charter. Wouldn't it automatically happen. It may be confirmed each year. And, you know, it may even be a mature null if you are familiar it may be a requirement of our auditors that the board formally adopts and recognizes and confirms that the bond is in place. I don't think the amount of money is identified in the charter. Yeah. Okay, that makes sense then. Okay. Any other comments or discussion on the motion. Okay, all then all those in favor of continuing the fidelity bond of $500,000 per inch incident for the commissioners of the Chittenden solid waste district director of finance and the executive director please signify by saying I or by raising your hand. Any opposed. Any abstentions. Motion carries. Now on to item number nine the approval of check signing privileges. And this one is pretty straightforward. So, and we need to, we needed to have this in place during pandemic to ensure that we were able to continue to process checks. So this is strictly to have the officers on our bank accounts, who also have the authority to basically to spend money on behalf of the district so it is to again authorize and Amy as the director of administration we've traditionally other roles within the district to have check signing authority, as is the treasurer and the, the chair. Thank you could you read the motion. Motion to authorize the chair of the board of commissioners, the executive director, the director of administration, and the treasurer to sign checks and electronic transfers throughout the upcoming year, and further, any check or electronic transfer greater than $25,000 shall need to signatures. Move that second. Thank you. Thank you it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion or question on this motion. I would just like to say that is treasurer I've never been asked to sign a check. This is pretty much a pro forma procedural motion. This is John Gifford. Sarah, when the one a set of board orders comes up, and it's that we're talking about individual checks inside the set of board orders right. No. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or discussion. All those then in favor of authorizing the chair of the board of commissioners executive director of the director of administration and the treasurer to sign checks and electronic button transfers through the upcoming year. I decided that any check electronic transfer greater than 25,000 shall need to signatures all those in favor signify by saying I or raising your hand. Any opposed. Any abstentions. Then. Jericho. Thank you Leslie. The motion carries. Andrew's motion. And the Secretary of the Office of Business to be conducted at this organizational meeting so entertain a motion to adjourn. Moves up or Bunnington. Second. Jericho. All those in favor of adjourning please signify by saying I or raising your hand. I trust there is no one voting, no. We're abstaining. the regular solid chitin and solid waste district meeting for June 23rd, 2021. I guess we'll roll right into this. It looks like a long, potentially a long agenda and it's not summer evening, at least it is in this office. So we'll move right ahead. I believe a quorum is present. So I will call this meeting to order. The first item is the agenda. Are there any changes, corrections, clarifications on the agenda? Oh, I have two clarifications and corrections. On item number five, the board action requested should read approve project launch. It's missing the word launch. And on number six, I believe that there actually is no board action needed. Is that correct? OK, so that is just a discussion only item, item number six. Thank you. All the board members are clear on the changes to those two agenda items. They're both very important to understand. Any other changes to the agenda as presented? There being none, then the agenda is accepted as clarified by Sarah. Item number two, the public comment period. Are there any members of the public present in the meeting that would like to address items that are not going to come up in tonight's agenda? Well, I'm not seeing any hands raised or anything in the chat. OK, hearing no interest from the public on commenting on tonight's meeting, we'll move on to the consent agenda. All these items are in have been in the board packet. Are there any items that a board member would like to remove from the consent agenda? There being none, the consent agenda is approved as presented to the board. Moving on to item number four, conflict of interest policy revisions. Sarah, I'll turn this over to you. And I have enabled Thomas Maloney, District Attorney also to be able to comment on this. So several we've actually had conflict of interest policy for quite some time. It was revised several years ago as well. And just about a year or so ago, the state legislature required all boards and commissions to have a conflict of interest policy. So there's been a lot of a lot of organizations and boards looking at the policies of their policies if they haven't didn't have one and then looking at them to refine them. So that's that's what we're doing here tonight. We have identified some potential gaps. We also wanted to kind of remove and the his slash her and make the pronouns neutral. We're doing that throughout our policies as well. So through the year, you'll be seeing some of those revisions coming across your your desks, your virtual desks to modernize that language. So what we're and again, Thomas, please do jump in here. What we're talking about here is further clarifying what can be considered conflict of interest and then allowing for the chair, advice chair and the executive director to pre identify materials that may be considered confidential or should otherwise be exempt. And if there is a conflict that we people known as authorized persons of the chair, the vice chair and the executive director feel would be a conflict to have the ability to not distribute those confidential materials to a member that would likely have a conflict of interest. So there's it was clear in the policy where a member would need to self identify having a potential conflict of interest would recuse themselves from the vote, from the discussion. But was not clear was the authority or the ability to with full potentially and sensitive documents from a member who may have a conflict, conflict, whether it's self identified or identified by these authorized persons. Thomas, I know if you want to clarify anything else with the changes that are being recommended. Certainly, just as as a by way of background for the commissioners state law, you know, several several years ago adopted policies or state law was changed to provide that municipalities do have the power to address conflicts of interest as an ethical ethical matter. And then recently, the Vermont legislature changed the law to actually effective as of July 1, 2019, to require that every municipality or every town, city and village within the state would was required to vote and adopt a conflict of interest policy, unless by their legislative body. They had previously enacted and adopted a conflict policy and conflict policies required that identify those officers, you know, in this case, the board of commissioners and officers as well as staff members as well who's covered by that prohibition, the method to to, you know, for people to identify what the conflict is and a definition of conflict is being one as either a direct or pecuniary interest of the official or their spouse, a household member, a business associate, an employer or employee that has an interest in that the outcome of a cause proceeding and application or any other matter pending before the public body. And so, you know, that that I think just shows that the state legislature was was really encouraging municipalities to to take steps to provide for conflicts so that, you know, we all recognize that public officials have their constitutional duty and responsibility to serve the interest in their capacity as a public official. So that I think is what, you know, was was making edits and improvements and updates to to address conflicts, you know, primarily for committee members as well as the board of commissioners. Thank you for that background, Sarah. Do you have anything else to add at the moment? I'm not the moment. I'm very interested in and see that from the board. Yeah, I will say that every member community that is a member of the district does have a conflict of interest policies. Many are very similar. Some some are, you know, have different focus. But you all as appointed officials on behalf of your member municipality, if you do have a conflict of interest policy that that is applicable applicable to to you. So I think it's appropriate before we open this up for questioning by the by the board that we actually have a motion to put this on on the on the floor of the table for discussion. Would anybody care to make that motion or do you have language, Sarah, to to move this forward? That is a great question. I forgot to write a motion for you. So Paul, do you generally would entertain discussion after a motion to adopt the amendment? Is that how you would like to proceed? That's what I'd like to do. I think I can come up with wording is entertain a motion to adopt the changes to the first amendment of the conflict of interest and ethics policy of the CSWD as presented in the June 23rd, 2021 board packet. That would be my language for the motion and entertain somebody to make that motion. So if I may interject apologies, it's it's this is the amendment. I think the changes that are highlighted were changes to an earlier draft of the amendment. So so if the motion would be to adopt the amendments to the conflict of interest policy for for the Chittenden Solid Waste District. Thank you. Question. This is John. But we have to have more than one reading about the policy before it's adopted. I would have to defer to a parliamentarian at this point. No. OK. No. So to be clear, the proposed motion is to adopt this proposed amendment to the conflict of interest policy. I think we already did that. Ron moved it. Ron did move it. I did. Ron can't move it as the alternate because Brennan is in attendance. Then I'll move it. This was John. Thank you, John. Do we have a second? Second, Winooski. Thank you. Now we'll open this up for questions and discussions from the board. I have a question for Thomas as a point of clarification. So piggybacking on your indication that all member municipalities have their own conflict of interest. Does the CSWD conflict of interest hold in place or have jurisdiction over the member municipalities conflict of interest? I think you I think both apply that as as with with yourself as the commissioner representing the city of Winooski, you you have those policies to which you you need to conform your behavior in your capacity as an appointed official on behalf of the city of Winooski. Similarly, as you're addressing and working on Chittenden Solid Waste District matters as a commissioner, you need to abide by the conflict policy that that CSWD has adopted. So you're in and I think it's that a commissioner can certainly abide by both because the issue is you will either have a pecuniary interest in the outcome or your household member or direct family member may have an interest. And so you'd need to recuse yourself and not participate of whether, you know, under a Winooski conflict policy or under a district policy. It's one of of good public service identifying whether a conflict exists, informing the other members of the governing body and then not participating in it. And in both cases, your the the municipality that have adopted conflict policies and the district's policy all recognize that you don't lose your first amendment, right? You can still participate as in, you know, in a discussion on an item as, you know, you can remove your cloak or your hat as a commissioner and as the general member of the public might speak on a topic, you can voice an opinion. You just can't participate in the deliberations and the decision-making of that process. So, you know, if there's a something that generally affects every member of the public, you know, and if you're a Winooski resident, for example, and people are discussing changing the tax rate, you know, yes, you might have a conflict because you own property and your taxes may go up in the city, but you don't lose the right to voice that opinion. It really has to be that direct, you know, pecuniary interest that's separate and distinct from a general member of the public. So in some, I think board members can abide by both their municipality that has appointed them as well as the district's policy. Thank you, Thomas. I have a question on this. With reading, is this something that that we foresee that the executive director and the chair will discuss prior to meetings? I'm just thinking, in my case, I can foresee some conflicts of interest arising and I talked about this with the select board as well as with Caitlin, who's the alternate for Wilson. I just want to make sure that, I mean, obviously I'll do my best to look at the minutes and identify conflicts of interest, but I want to make sure that Wilson does have representation in different conversations for four times when I have to accuse myself. On a second note, since Thomas is here, I would be curious how the recusal process works fully just for my understanding well, since he's here on this call. Happy to respond. So if a particular board member identifies that the conflict of interest exists or even if there's an appearance of a conflict and they wish to recuse themselves, their alternate commissioner can participate assuming that they don't have that conflict. So in your case, the town of Williston would be represented by the alternate if you needed to recuse yourself. The existing original policy is one gets identified and it can be discussed with the board and if that have a conflict is found and there's a recusal, then generally the person needs to not participate in the deliberations of that matter. But again, their alternate could. Oftentimes what will happen to Kelton is when the packet is sent out, you look on the agenda and a lot of times members will see that there's going to be a conflict. So they'll know ahead of time and because we aimed to send the packets out five to seven business days ahead of the meeting, hopefully that isn't enough time to reach out to the alternate where there is one and not all of communities have alternates but where you do to be able to connect with your alternate and make sure that they will be available to attend that meeting or at least to attend for that piece. All alternates get the packet materials same as primary commissioners. So they will have the material ahead of time. I think also what could foresee happening. So what I do as a matter of practice is I keep a running list of items that I'm anticipating will be brought to the board and I keep that list one to two months out. So if I know that there's a new contract coming up and one of the commissioners has an interest for their cousin has put in a bid and we'll look at it. I'll know and I'll be able to make sure that chair is aware and that we can reach out to the commissioners to say, hey, just as a heads up this is going to be on the agenda. So be on a lookout for it to determine whether or not there would be a conflict. I think what may be a little bit different here is with including materials that may be exempt from public session. So that's really the difference I think not as much the general cleaning up of the policy but the addition of that new component. Thank you. And I guess I'm just looking for a little more clarification. Is this something, obviously I'm gonna do my best to make sure that I identify items. Is this something that if you identify something you will and again, not a hundred percent of the time it's not gonna be perfect but I could be reached out to an advanced if possible. Be like, hey, I anticipate this is something you might have a conflict of interest on. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Thank you. And that's where we're looking at it being kind of three people taking that tummy test I guess if you say this feels like it would be a conflict because of these items or these conditions and reforms and then either the chair or I would reach out to the member and say, this is going to be on a future agenda. It appears that there could be a conflict. Do you agree? And then that would give you the opportunity as any of the members to think about it, ask questions and then have the opportunity for an advance to know that a recuser will be most likely appropriate. Awesome. Thank you very much. And I want to express appreciation for your forthrightness and identifying your understanding that there could potentially be instances where your position as being employed by Cassella and also being on the board of commissioners. It's very helpful to hear you say that and appreciate it very much. Yes, Alan? Yeah, this Alan. I think the opposite is true Kelton. Also, if you read through the program and maybe Sarah or Paul hasn't picked up on it but you see something that you feel you can give either Sarah or Paul a call and discuss with them the issue. Absolutely, good point, big Alan. Yeah, thank you. No, and I will definitely do my best avoiding anything like that. And I think kind of what Thomas says long, if it's anything that individually affects Cassella or that individually rather than for the benefit of the entire waste district and all the residents, I think that's really kind of what I'm looking for is my witness test for looking through the items. Any other questions or comments or discussion? Yes, Ron, I see you're raising your hand. Yeah, I have a matter of curiosity I suppose. I'm aware that Bryn, who is a commissioner for Winooski is also a counselor on the Winooski City Council. And I wonder, I suppose, if there's ever a chance of a conflict because of what she might be doing on council, voting on something perhaps that's at odds with the Chittenden Solid Waste District. And in such a case, I suppose that would mean I might have the opportunity to step forward. This question, I think was recently researched on another potential situation. I don't know, Sarah, you could comment on that. Yeah, you had it exactly right. And Thomas did look into this for us because there was the potential, or there was the question asked, where there's an alternate who is serving on a select board. And the question arose around the budget with that person who is the alternate to the CSWD Board of Commissioners and serving on the select board be able to vote on the CSWD budget. Thomas, if you recall, you did advise that there is nothing in Vermont State law that prohibits people serving on both boards, there would be nothing that would prohibit the select board member from voting on an item before them that has to do with the Board of Commissioners with the district. So you didn't see a conflict there and if there's anything else you want to add regarding that. And again, I think too lots of best judgment, right? And it would be a good point to make. Judgment, right? And it would be up to a great as a city councilor to be able to again recognize or foresee a conflict and then reach out to you, Ron, to say on this item, nope, you're gonna have to step in. But Thomas, if you could kind of talk a little more about that example that I supported to you back in April. Yeah, I think that each member community appoints their representative to represent their community's voice as part of the district, your regional entity. And so, while as a commissioner, you're looking out for the best interests of CSWD as part of your duty and responsibilities to the solid waste district. You also are representing your community and have a voice, whether it's concerning a drop-off center or whether it's concerning other matters. It's when it arises that it's above and beyond the representation of your town or city where it's more direct for a benefit to you. And in that case, that's where recusal is called for. And the community then has its alternate that then takes their place when the commissioner is unable because of a conflict policy to participate. But the mere fact that a select board member or a public works director may be on the board, that in and of itself is not the type of direct conflict. However, if there's a negotiations of a direct contract in which they're involved, then that could rise to a conflict. And that's when the alternate, then we need to take their place on that matter. And Ron, any time that the lead commissioner is not present, the alternate has the voting authority in their place. Okay, Kim. Just to mention, I think I spent six years as a select board member at Essexon was on the board and there never was a time that anything came into conflict that I felt. So it would be very, very rare, I think. But thanks for the question, Ron. Yes. Other questions, concerns or comments about this policy or this amendment to the conflict of interest policy? I believe then we're ready to vote on this. I just lost the wording of the motion. I have, I don't know if Amy and Dama, what I've written down was motion to adopt the amendments to the conflict of interest and efforts policy as presented in the packet. Thank you very much. It was moved by John, seconded by Grant. It's been moved and seconded. I think we're ready to vote on it. All those in favor signify by saying aye or raising your hand. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? The amendment is passed. We're ready now to move on to item five, the materials recovery facility new build project, the MRF project. Cheryl, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. Josh, were you going to share your screen or did you want me to share? If I can share, let me check. And if I can, then I will, because I've got it right here. And money. I'm gonna add Jen Holiday to give a mix as well. So again, as we mentioned at the top of the meeting, this is excellent. This is to seek an authorization to launch the project. So this is not, we're not asking you to approve any contracts. There's nothing will be signed here this evening. This is kind of a culmination of three and a half years of more of work by both the board and staff to bring us to this point. So it's pretty exciting. So Josh, next slide please. So here's what we are bringing to you tonight. Again, the authorization to launch the project will review the past discussion and presentations that we've made and to the board and participated in. Why are we here? Why do we need a modern MRF? Spoiler alert, ours is not modern in the least. What will potentially a new MRF look like? What would it entail? And the work that staff and I've done to date some of the financial modeling that we're looking at and bonding and financing options. And then finally closing out with the board authorization. Next. So then again, specifically I am asking tonight for the board to authorize the launching of this new MRF project, the capital project. And the reason I'm asking for 32 authorization to launch this is that it is a very large project with many points in between over the next 18 months where many decisions will be made along the way. And really the first decision that needs to be made is yes, we want to build a new MRF. No, we do not want to build a new MRF. So I'm seeing authorization to launch the yes, we want to build a new MRF project. Should that authorization be granted? Then the establishment of an ad hoc committee board and staff to develop a project-based approach. So specific to the new MRF project and the bond vote for public outreach and communication regarding this project in both. Next please, Josh. So as I mentioned, this has been a point of conversation for quite some time. So back in 2018 for the members who are on the board, then you'll recall 2018 was the year of retreats and the MRF was one of them. And the first question that we asked at that retreat at all of the retreats was, do we want to still be in the MRF business? That was the key question. And actually it says under November key question retreating into more. So we start talking to you about again, the state of the MRF and why we're even looking at any more limitations in the opportunities, limitations. Josh will get into more detail in a few moments. And the opportunities were, in my mind, again, I came to CSWD with nearly 10 years of experience in managing a very large MRF in Rhode Island. And I knew that we were missing out and that we've done a great job for the 30 years of revoked MRF and operated MRF. And yet we can do a lot more. So there's much more opportunities. And those opportunities, even as the markets have been very volatile, that opportunity never went away. So we'll talk a little bit about that too. And at that board retreat in 2018, the attendees at that retreat, which was an official meeting over the board, did say, yes, we do want to continue to be in the MRF business. It's important for CSWD to have that presence in Vermont and certainly for the benefit of Triton County. So then we went into a lot of conversation and meetings about where should a new MRF be? And one of the questions was, should we retrofit the existing current facility? And again, Josh is going to go into some detail about why we landed on that answer being no. But that was one of the factors. Along with the retreat, we had to answer the question, well, what does doing nothing mean? So doing nothing, again, meant a lot of investment in the current MRF and we would never be able to grow it. We would never be able to adapt to the changing packaging stream that we were seeing. And that changes in the packaging, particularly the containers has been tsunami-like over the past seven or eight years and it is only getting more intense. So you really have to be flexible and there's simply no way we can do that in the current setup. So we went through quite a long time of citing conversations. The board tasked us with looking across the county, not only focusing on Welliston alone, but we looked across the county and eventually ending up back at Welliston. It really does suit our needs, the location on Redwood Road. We had numerous conversations with the town of Welliston, with the former town manager, the current town manager, the select board, gave several presentations and walked them through our criteria and why we landed back in Welliston. And again, early as last February, pre-pandemic, another update and a refresher. The intent had been to bring this decision to you a year ago. As we know, other issues took precedence. So we weren't able to get that to you last year. And in some respects, it's probably a good thing because a lot has changed in just this past year that makes moving forward in my professional opinion, the right decision. Next, finish Ash. So that was a timeline of board conversations, a timeline of staff activity. We have spent a lot of time, again, three plus years researching best practices, researching equipment, visiting facilities that had a similar material mixed to ours, in a process similar recyclable. So we do similar tonnages. So we didn't wanna look at something that was super large. We wouldn't have made much sense for us to compare ourselves. For example, to the Rhode Island Murph who manages 130,000 tons of recycling a year, we were looking at facilities that were in that 35 to 65,000 ton range as a kind of sister situation. So we went to, again, saw 16 plus facilities and really were able to see things in action. And there's not one single singular facility that is the model. They each had bits and pieces of things that we think would work best here in CSWD. So over 2019, 2020, we see some of the on-the-ground preparation that we did to ensure that the location on Redburn Road would be suitable. And the conceptual design that you see on the screen now, the pink areas are wetlands. So this is just kind of one iteration of a possible location and where we might be able to situate the Murph. There are, I believe, three other possibilities. There may be more as we get into really getting down to conceptual design. It would bring traffic, again, down Redburn Road, off Redburn Road just past the Google Foundation entry's entrance. So there's already traffic going down to that entrance and they peel off to the left. Just past that entrance is where trucks would peel off to the right into the Murph. So they would keep the truck traffic down at that end of Redburn Road. And you'll see that the cost estimate in 2018 was around $15 million. It is higher than that now. And that is, again, three years later, but really it is in response to the incredible surge in the cost of steel. And that is the movable object in the building estimate is that cost of steel. So we have a guest guest. We'll know more in several months when we go out to bed if the hand is approved. And we'll talk a little more later on about the sources of potential sources of funding. Excellent, please, Josh. So a little bit, maybe you go backing up, but for folks who may be tuning in to watch tonight about Murph 101, I should assume that we know the acronyms, but Murph does them for either materials recovery facility, that's the phrase that we use, or you may see materials recycling facility. And really it's just an aggregator and then a sorter of materials. So it's very specific as to what Murphs can do and really should do. We're talking about very few materials that we actually want to put through Murph because they're designed to do a particular job and do that well. And again, you'll see some of the different pieces of equipment that are used to sort these materials. We are talking about blue bin materials, so 2D, we're talking about flat paper and cardboard, 3D containers, glass. And the Murphs are designed to manage materials according to, again, shape, weight, density, rigidity. There are definitely things you don't want in there. We don't want anything that wraps. That is, no, no, nothing hazardous. Again, very, kind of really a small universe of what is acceptable at a Murph. However, the volume of that, again, does keep there. We are talking about, again, continuing with what's called a single stream, facility versus a dual stream. As you may recall, years ago, we used to have a green bin and a blue bin. Now we have just the one blue bin. That changed to single stream recycling. All the materials mixed into one container, one bin. It was really a boom for both haulers to reduce their costs in hauling. They no longer had to have split body trucks. They could use a single chamber truck to collect the materials that was much faster. And it was easier for consumers to understand. They didn't have to worry about which bin something went into. It was just one to manage. Next slide, please, Josh. And continuing on to the modern day Murph. What we're looking at is, again, I'm expanding our capacity to 50 to 60,000 tons per year. So with that size of a facility, we're looking at meeting approximately, you know, really no less than five acres. Nine is great. We have plenty of space along Redburn Road. Square footage is upwards of 75,000 square feet. And again, that's where we have some levers we can pull depending on, again, if the price of steel continues to go through the roof, we can ratchet that back down a little bit. Really no less than 62,000 square feet. Currently we have significantly less than that at our existing Murph. It's about 32 to 35,000 square feet. And we are woefully undersized. Again, Josh will give it a little more detail there as to why that is. Key for all Murphs is having plenty of tip for square footage, which is that's where the trucks can literally tip out the materials onto a floor where then a loader pushes them into a pre-sorting area where everything that is really got in the mistakenly, whether it's something that wraps or otherwise it's not seebo is pulled out. And then it goes on from there. And so you want a good, good size tip for anyone, lots and lots of bill storage. So at either end of the process is where we are sorely lacking. Right now, we are occasionally forced to store some of our finished product outdoors. And that is just simply not a best industry practice. We have no choice because we are so limited on bill storage. We also currently do not have technology. We have a nearly 30 year old magnet. The magnets do lose their potency over time and we have people power. Modern Murphs rely on technology. And Josh is going to walk you through some of the cutting edge technology and even not even really cutting edge. Any current is not a cutting edge technology but it is standard in all Murphs. And we don't have one. And that is a piece of equipment that essentially temporarily makes aluminum cans magnetized so that they can be directed to a different bunker. We're picking everything by hand and it is not effective efficient at all. And we're looking at robotics. That is the cutting edge in the technology. We've seen some in action and just even in the past two years that has leapfrogged in the ability and their accuracy and in the affordability. And then optical sorters are the lifelike of any new modern Murph. It's essentially a light box and materials flow underneath the light box and they are programmed to read the type of plastic that is flowing under. And if it is identified as the one that that box wants to pick then a puff of air will shoot that item as it has passed through over a baffle onto, into a bunker. And they are accurate to within 95 to 98 percent. Really amazing. And they are standard when we need them. Next Josh please. So to kind of give you, I'm going to do two more slides and I'm going to kick it over to Josh, Jen and Josh. Just to, you know, what are we talking about what's in the mix, right? So we want to make sure that we are sorting for what we have and we are very, very heavy mix of fiber products, paper and cardboard. And that is what many Murphs are doing now. They are adding optical sorting on the paper lines to be able to clean up that stream and to be able to sort for the office white paper, the sort of office white. Because that is where there's a lot of value. There's not much value in newsprint. There's not a lot of newsprint out there. There's not much value in junk mail. So you want to pull out of that stream the material that has the most value, cardboard and office white. And that is really done. Cardboard is easy. Office white is helped by optical sorting. And again, the optical sorting would be in place for the containers. Josh, the next slide, please. Sarah, just one moment. Well, if you could just go through those acronyms. I'm sorry, thank you very much. Thank you. So PGA processed glass aggregate. MSW is mutual solid waste, so that's our residue. That is the material that consumers will put into the bin either just completely by mistake. They meant to toss it in the trash, but it kicked back and tossed into the recycling. Or is a wish cycling? They are hoping that it may be recycled, but it's not part of the program. So that is really the material that is truly just the trash. And then paper and cardboard. Thank you, Brandon. You did copy our acronyms. So as far as where our revenue falls, where are we gaining our revenue? You can see that, again, just 50%, a little lower, 50% of the revenue is coming from the cardboard and the paper streams. So 57% in combined from fiscal 17 to now is that stream. And those two materials make up nearly 73% of what we process. So we really need to make hay over containers, even though there's not as much in the mix percentage-wise. They can represent a significant component of our revenue. And we want to be able to extract as much of the value out of that stream and make sure that the bails that we're sending to market, that there's only PET in the PET bale. There's only plastic bottles. So there's only aluminum cans and aluminum can bale. So our contamination isn't necessarily something that was mistakenly thrown in and got into the plastic bottle bale. It's having too much aluminum in the plastic bottle. There's not much plastic in the aluminum bale. Optical sorters, any currents, stronger magnets help to create that bale purity. Excellent. I also wanted to jump on this real quick, Sarah. This slide jumped off the page at me when I put it together is that one of the things a new mirf allows is flexibility. When you look at that paper number, that 6% of our revenue on sold commodities is coming from paper. That's because we had a significant recycling crisis. China stopped taking material. Domestic markets had to develop. And so really what got hit the hardest was the paper product market. In FY18, paper made up 24% of our revenue. And in FY17, it made up 36%. So in reality, when we're talking about needing flexibility to pivot or needing the ability to clean things differently, this really shows that significantly that it hit us hard in our revenue and our ability to market. If we were to have an optical sorters say, for instance, on a paper line, that we could look for the best market that we can get the most value out of our product. And we're doing the best we can now. And like Sarah said, we're doing a great job. But this really jumped off the page that that shifted in the last four years. And that's a significant shift that everybody saw across the board. Just thank you. I think you're up next. Yeah. So this is what a mirf should look like, or what you want it to look like. You want material, if you're looking at the left picture, to flow in long lines so that if you've got people picking things you don't want or that you do want, they can get to them. In this particular instance, this is people picking out the things we don't want, the MSW, the hoses, the fence posts, the tennis shoes, things that people thought somebody might want to wear again and don't understand how a recycling center works. So that's extremely important is those long, straight lines. The picture on the right also shows, when you have your screens, those are fiber screens that you see there. You want them accessible on one plane. And when I say one plane, you can see there's the floor and then there's stairs coming up so that maintenance-wise, you can get to them. If you need to see something in there, you can see it. When you start to run out of room, that's when you start stacking things on top of themselves. And that's when maintenance becomes a significant shift issue. So this is the footprint that we want to model. And this is what we saw when we went to our 16 facilities. The newer MRFs all look like this. As Sarah had mentioned, the top left corner, you want a very large tip floor. Our tip floor has about a day and a half if we're lucky storage. And really what that means is that if something breaks, you need to still take recycling before you can tell people it's got to go somewhere else. So that's why you want a large tip floor. If you look at the picture on the top left also, on the bottom corner of that top left picture, that is a source-separated receiving area. And so what that means is if somebody shows up with only cardboard or only aluminum, you don't have to mix it in with everything else. You can actually just keep it in one spot and then send it directly to a baler, which cuts out a lot of maintenance requirements, a lot of labor requirements. You don't have to process it. We don't have that in our current MRF, but that's what a lot of new MRFs are doing. Again, on the top right, that's what the source-separated zone would look like. That's a really big recycling center out of Cincinnati. So that's why that source-separated zone's so large. But again, if you look at the bottom picture, everything's on one plane. A typical MRF needs about 34 feet of clearance. And you lift all the materials, about 16, or all the processing, about 16 feet off the ground. That way you can get to the bottom of it if you need to change motors out, but also leave space for stuff to drop as it gets sorted into a container. And then that goes to a conveyor that goes to a baler. So it's a pretty slick way that it's been developed over the years, and it maximizes all the efficiencies. So, armor. So Josh, Lee has a question in the chat regarding cardboard. So how often does the current MRF receive cardboard only, but really it does the current MRF receive cardboard only? It's minimal. So certain offices have accounts with us, like an office depot, for instance. And they bring us cardboard only, I would say three to 5% of our cardboard comes in as cardboard only, it's very minimal. And the problem is, which you can't see here, I'll show you with our tip floor. Our tip floor is small. So when you bring it in, it requires us to kind of stop traffic, secure a spot where it won't get commingled with the other stuff that's coming in. And then it has to sit there until the entire day's over. And then it gets pushed to the cardboard section. So we do receive it currently, but it's not a fit, there's no real efficient way to do it. So that's one thing this new facility would fix. And any other questions come out there, give me a yell. So our current MRF, we're currently on three acres, plus or minus, in Williston off of an industrial lab. We are contained, there is a business to our left on this picture, there's a road to our right. The bottom is the transfer station owned by Cassella and the top is a ravine. So we can't expand, we can't get any bigger, we, even if we wanted to, and you need room in your yard for truck traffic, both for commodities or for material to come in and commodities to go out. Our entire footprint, including office spaces, 36,500 you would take square feet. Our tip floor, operating floor and bail storage is about 33,000, that's too small. But like I said, the tip floor is too small because we can't take, we can't, if we go down, we're stuck with having to hustle to make sure we're running three things through. And conversely on the bail storage side of things, if there's a snowstorm, if transportation becomes difficult to get up to us, if the month's commodity market hits the ground and we wanna hold for maybe a month, if we can, we can't do that currently. And as Sarah had mentioned, I think the last large hurricane in Florida pulled a lot of transportation and relief support there, which meant that we had to stack our containers outside of our facility until we could get a truck to come take it to the market. So that's another reason why you want a lot of bail storage space. Not to beat up a dead horse, but also largely bail storage space will allow us to take materials that we could probably bring to market at a break even, but we just don't have the space to take it because it doesn't come in at a high volume. So like rigid plastics, for instance, if we could have more space, we could take it more often and then wait till we had a load that could go to market. Right now, our rigid plastics go once every two years just cause we don't have a big stream of it coming through. So it just allows more flexibility. So here's our tip floor. You can see the bails that are sitting in the bottom corner. Those look like bails of mixed paper. They're there because we ran out of room on our bail storage. That tip floor right there, again, has about a day and a half of storage. We are operating our current nerf at maximum capacity. We are running at about 24 tons an hour. It was designed for 20. We don't have any room for expansion. And the building itself was erected in 1993. We did have an add-on for this particular, when we went from single stream to dual stream for this tip floor, but it's over 20 years old. Again, restrictions and limitations. Let me just do one thing. Sorry, the, okay, there we go. Commodity storage. So when you actually take your containers, say your aluminum, the places where we put the aluminum are really small. So that means that we're forced to stop bailing one thing and bail another thing that we ran out of space to put it. For instance, PET, we had to add an extra cage just because more people are drinking water. There's more PET coming in. So that's a significant limiting factor as far as an operational efficiency goes. We only have one baler before we replaced it. When the old baler went down, the heartbeat of the Murph stopped. So all Murphs that we've seen, or at least I'd say the both of them have two balers for that particular reason, is that you live and die by what you can get through your baler. Our existing Murph also, if we were to add technology, Sarah talked about an eddy current, we would actually have to hang it off the raptors. So it would be, it would cost as much in construction as it would for the actual piece of equipment, if not more. Inefficient sorting, we're double processing. So again, we take all of our fibers out first, we then pick all of our containers. The containers we missed actually get spilled into a bunker and returned back to the tip floor. So you can watch aluminum or even like HDPE natural, both of which are, you know, $1,500 to $1,800 per ton and respectively get missed and not by any fault of anybody who's picking it and sent back to the tip floor to be reprocessed, which is a significant inefficiency. And then bail quality, this really comes down to because we're picking things by hand, certain things get put into places they shouldn't be. So for instance, HDPE natural, which is the clear jugs, that's worth roughly at this point, which is at all time high, $1,900 a ton. If that winds up in a PET or an aluminum bin, that's considered residual, it's considered garbage. So we're losing out on that. And that's what's happening with not having optical swords, the required technology that everybody else has to make sure that the right material is going to the right place. And kind of to back that up, Jen Holiday and staff and myself, we did a tubs and lids bail sort. And again, this is a snapshot in time. You know, we took two mails and we painstakingly opened them up and ripped through them. But what we found was that, you know, we're 11% with PET and 24% was HDPE. Tubs and lids goes for about $200 a ton. As I said, PET is up in the 700s and HDPE can go as high as 1900. So, you know, those are opportunities that we're missing out on just from a revenue standpoint and an operational standpoint. Jen, jump in at this point if you wanted to mention anything more, because I know we were standing next to each other when we did this. Just to clarify, Josh, that, or for the board that tubs and lids should only be number three through sevens. And the ones and twos are the items that don't belong in there and that we're losing revenue just to clarify that. Thanks. Thank you. So again, tons of opportunities. The Murph is, I've got a lot of opportunities. I get to put them right back. So some of the takeaways, a lot of the facilities we looked at had technology and what I'm going to hopefully this runs. And if anybody has ear buds in, turn it down a little bit because this has the potential to be loud if it runs. I just want to give everybody a heads up on that. But here is what a clean paper stream looks like. Okay, so it's not super loud, that's good. But you can see there's not a ton of garbage in there. Not a ton of, you know, four packs for soda bottles or soda cans and there's not a lot of plastic bags because that was hit with an optical sorter and that's going to give us the highest value we can possibly get for one of the larger amounts of material that we receive and market at our facility. This is what an optical sorter looks like is it's got little nozzles that shoots airs for on materials that it recognizes. And that's pretty common. And I'd say the bulk of the Murphs across the globe at this point. So technology is extremely important and it allows us to get the purity and the quality that we need to be really competitive in the market. Another thing that's kind of a, the takeaway with the new Murph is historically people built Murphs to kind of their capacity that they needed. So 20 tons an hour is kind of one of the, you know the tons per hour that you run through your processing facility. And then you would just add on, you just push it harder. And that was a pretty standard practice from, you know the mid 90s all the way up to about 2018 to be exact because that's when China stopped picking things that weren't sorted very well because they were being pushed through. Nowadays, when you size your facility you size it to the tonnage rate that you want. And you don't want to push that so that the processing actually works the way it was initially designed which requires larger footprints. Again, which is why our existing facility we can't expand our footprint in any way. And again, here's the top left is what we are currently using. And those are those, this is a newspaper screen this is a star screen. And we've got them stacked on each other but that's what it looks like, you know and here's, sorry. And then the bottom right, a lot of technology has come out where the bottom right is actually an example of rapless shafts where the shafts that run the stars are the diameters large enough that plastics don't wrap around them. So in the top left example, we have to send we have to send people on ship breaks to cut out the plastic multiple times the ships. Also a lot of Murph manufacturers are playing with star screens or disk types to see kind of to optimize how we can separate our fibers from our container. And then this is a ballistic separator. That's how a ballistic separator moves. And what it does is it's kind of, we use it as a polishing screen and we've got one that was installed in 2014 which was our last Murph update. And at the point where if we go forward and build a new Murph that technology will have been 10 years old. One of the other things I'm showing in the bottom left is just our cardboard screens. They've got different size disks and different type of disks now from our last upgrade as well. So technology is advancing quickly. Again, that's what a ballistic looks like when it's things kind of bounce and float. And I'm gonna hand it off to Jen Holiday for education and why it's extremely important. Hey, Josh, a quick question. Yeah. Can you go back to your slide where you showed kind of the footprint of the Murph? Do we have a view of what can sell as Murph, how that would compare to our Murph in terms of all these similar statistics and also materials processed in and out? As far as the Rutland Murph, is that what you're asking? Correct. Yeah, we don't have those off hand. Yeah, the Rutland Murph does have a larger tip floor. They process, the Murph processes fewer materials through. They process around 40 to 42,000 tons a year, but their tip floor is significantly larger. They are investing in some glass cleanup materials. Well, I'm not sure, Jen, if you remember or Josh, if you remember, I don't think that they're putting an optical sorter's there. They are doing some other upgrades. I know that again, I think the footprint of that Murph is just a little bit bigger than this one, but not by much. And John posted a question in the chat as well, two questions. So seeing moving stuff like that with people interacting makes me think of workers' comp issues, how would the new system be safer? And second, what future of the existing facility? So, yes, John, you're exactly right. The current process of hand sorting all of the materials in a very closed situation. So what we didn't show you is of the container line. It's a very, very small room. It is one, there's one conveyor belt that goes through along once, not through the middle of the room. There are chutes for the bunkers on the opposite side of the conveyor line. And then there's just a walkway where the workers stand. And you can barely walk past them. So it's probably, Josh, what would you say? Is it 12 feet wide even? I would say eight beyond with you. I would say eight and they've got maybe three feet of walking space beyond the conveyor and they're standing shoulder to shoulder. They're standing shoulder to shoulder and they are, like each person is trained to spot a particular type of material and it's repetitive action, constant repetitive action. If you have vertigo, you do not want to work in a merge. It's, you're standing kind of stooped over. It's a very, obviously labor intensive the way we do it, but it's a very stressful and strenuous job. It's dusty and loud. And so, yes, there are, I don't have, we don't have numbers of workers calm injuries related to the merge we could get them. We do know that the workforce that Kasella has there and again, Kasella operates the Murph on our behalf through an operating agreement. They do retain a good number of the workers. So it's steady work. Recycling doesn't stop, it keeps on coming in, but it's very, very difficult. It's very hard work. So the new system, what the technology does is it, it does, so what we do is we'll come to the tip floor, it will be conveyed to what's called a pre-sort area who will have people there again, much longer wire belts, longer belts. And they're specifically looking for items that should not be in the blue bin. So again, as Josh mentioned, those tanglers, hoses, many propane tanks that you use at your camp, bowling balls, dead animals, pulling those things off the line and only leaving the other items. Those items then go through the system to be sorted mechanically. So the paper and the cardboard gets sorted mechanically. The containers will go under these optical sorters will be sorted mechanically. Then the jobs for people become quality control, quality assurance. So they are looking for materials that the machines have missed. So it becomes a much less labor intensive unless much a stressful job, it becomes a much better job, a safer job. So that is a primary benefit of the technology, not just a better bail quality, but a much safer and a better job for employees. So the second question, the future of the existing facility, that is actually not part of this presentation. That will be a conversation for the board that we'll wanna have because I think there are many options for that facility, but we don't just wanna have that conversation now, but we will be having that over the next coming months, then should the board authorize the launch of this project. Thank you, John, good questions. Just for point of clarification tonight, I think sometimes physically a football field is 48,000 square feet, where I think currently at about two thirds of a football field on the current mirth and the recommendation of 60 to 70,000 square feet would be a one and a half football field. So just makes it more concrete for some of us commissioners. No, exactly. Very good point. And one of our graphs shows that we have 7% MSW, which is an important number because that's great. That's up there in the best in the country, but education, education, education, if we can get that number lower, those are things that just shouldn't be there to begin with, which I'm teaming that up. I have a question there in that MSW. What, so talking about eddy currents and stuff and pulling off junk mail and stuff like that, that you're saying has no value, do you foresee pulling more stuff out and having that MSW number going up from 7% or are you going to just, just from my understanding, are you going to do multiple like a junk mail bail or just kind of seeing, I imagine you probably will pull out more trash if you're sorting it better. So I'm curious about that. I can jump on that one. So currently not to get too acronyming, but the traditional paper lines in which we are focusing a lot on paper is it's almost 40% of our marketable material. There was traditionally number eight news. Newspapers have kind of died, so that's not really a category anymore. They're sorted off as waste, which is shredded paper. We do get that and we do bail that and sell that and that has a good commodity value. There's mixed paper, which is the lower quality paper, which is not much. It's break even if not a little bit better. And then there's what's called SRP, sorted residential paper, which I'm sure you've heard of, and that has a higher quality. That carries right now between $45 and $75 a time, which is really important. So the idea would be to get the most value out of our valuable tons and then still be able to sell kind of a lower grade material, because there still is a market for the lower grade material, but it would be to really kind of maximize the ability to get the most value out of that paper line, if that makes sense. It wouldn't be to create, it would just be to get the right stuff in the right place. Yeah. And I know just sometimes it's hard to move some of the lower quality stuff unless you also are moving higher quality stuff or the mid quality stuff. Roger, just curious. So do you think, I guess, back to other question, do you think that MSW will go up from 7% with a new Murph? I personally don't, you know, another, and the reason is that the low quality stuff is low quality because it's not very readily, it's just not a pulpable material, but when you send the low quality stuff, if you've got plastics and things in there, a lot of mills don't want it or just won't take it. So the idea would be to kind of make those plastics be where the plastics are supposed to be, you know, the HD zones and the PET zones. So that's really important. We've gone down to Putney, which has a big sand view paper mill and that's one of the things they said to us is that, you know, they don't have a problem with low quality, it's just the non-paper amount really gives them a hard time. So I think, I don't think our residual would go up, be totally honest with you. I think we would be getting the right things in the right place. And, but another thing that drives the residual is PGA clean up. And so this new Murph, we will be focusing on process class aggregate cleanup as well. That's a whole other discussion about a UVM study, but that, if you set your clean up on that, you could potentially lose a lot of glass into your dumpsters. And that's really what we saw is at our own Murph, when we put our new system in, that was a driving factor of our MSW and just dialing that in. And that happened over about a two or so month period around 2015 that we actually had to really say, oh, holy smokes, you know, we're not pushing glass off. So again, that's probably way more detailed than you wanted, but long story short, no, I don't see us, you know, going above that. And actually with a better education center, I see us really trying to dig into that even better. I just want to jump in here and point out it's almost 10 minutes to eight who are still got a long ways in this presentation. I think there's a great questions that we really need to understand a lot about this. But I'd ask, if you have, what we're being asked to do is to decide whether or not to launch this project, we're not deciding to do the project. So questions that come up, if it can keep in focus to helping you make a decision whether or not we should be proceeding for the next step. Thank you. But these are great questions that hopefully someday will be asked and answered. All right, so I'll jump in here with the education piece. I just have two quick slides here. As you all know, we believe education is an essential pillar of what CSWD does and the board has been very supportive of that. We appreciate that. We have a multi-pronged approach. You can see here where our outreach team provides education and assistance to residents, businesses and schools. Next slide, Josh. Then we have our marketing and communications team which is responsible for many things. But among those things, they develop and produce these type of educational tools that our outreach team and facilities distribute. Another tool that the outreach team uses for educating our constituents are tours of our facilities. Merck tours have been a long-standing popular way to show our community that recycling works, how it works and the importance of putting only the acceptable materials in the blue bin to reduce contamination. That has been a real eye-opener for many, many, many Merck tour participants. And in 2019, we conducted 75 Merck tours just to give you an idea of how popular these tours are. And we intend to continue to use this tool moving into a future Merck. However, unlike the current Merck that we have, we're actually thinking about education and designing the new facility with these tours and education in mind. So we can provide the public access to this public facility in a safe and clean environment which is not what, I won't say we don't have a safe environment because we strive very hard in our current Merck to provide safe tours. And we wouldn't give them if they were not, it is certainly not clean and it is not a quality experience that it could be. So the preliminary design includes catwalks throughout the processing area for tours as well as an education room on the second floor with viewing into the processing area. And this would be a welcome improvement in how we're providing tours today at our Merck. So that's the plan so far. And I think it'll be a huge improvement. So next slide. So work to date, we've conducted on, once we identified the property that we would like to construct, we performed a wetland study. Some of those wetlands are class two, some of them are class threes. Class threes you can impact without question. Class twos you definitely want to stay away from. We've also been working on archeology, rare and endangered species study and we've been engaged with Williston's Conservation Commission just for siding purposes. We're also bringing a waterline which is actually connected to our composting project. Our phase three is what we're calling it but that waterline will have a team that will feed a recycling center which would be welcome to have municipal water down the site just for fire suppression and also for the office and the education zone that Jim was talking about. In our site civil assessment, I'm trying to show you in the top right that picture that we had originally showed you that's one conceptual plan but the idea was to have the full square footage footprint of about 60,000 square feet. Our tip floor is about 12,500 square feet which is about four times larger than what we have currently. Our processing floor is 35,000 square feet and our bail storage is about 12,000 square feet again which is about three to four times larger than what we have now. The office building would have an education center on top of it and we're looking to process about 25 tons per hour which is based on our current 48,000 to 50,000 annual tons we receive at the MRF. That estimate is between 18 and 25 million. A real general breakdown is about eight million to build the site, all the site work and erecting the building about 12 million for equipment. Then if we want to go with a green infrastructure, solar kind of a heating and cooling envelope and reducing as much as we can as far as our impact goes, we're estimating two and a half million and another thing that's really advanced which kind of Sarah had said, maybe it was better that we had to wait a year because robotics are really taking a jump and what robotics would do would be replacing those positions at the QA, QC point. Robotics can't replace an optical solder in my opinion at this point but they could replace some quality control spots. So if we were to look at that as well, about two and a half million dollars would be enough to fit our side of the robotics. We're kind of on the fence on that. I think we need to do a little more research but that's kind of a general very high level breakdown where that cost estimate would be broken up. So when we talk about our assumptions, what we're talking about is we estimate, we have about 35,000 annual tons that's on a yearly basis that are available to us in Chittenden County. If we include Chittenden County and Northern Vermont, we assume that we have currently 50,000 annual tons. If we were to build the assumption would be that we would probably have to bond. We would assume a 25 year bond at 2% interest. We would want to process glass, paper and cardboard containers. That's aluminum and all the plastic containers that we can market. And what we're gonna assume is that the ACR floor would be $45 a ton and the ceiling would be $120 a ton. Josh, what's the ACR? And what the ACR is the average commodity revenue and what that means is you saw that we have a bunch of material that comes in and a bunch of material goes out and we get paid for those materials that go out the ones that we market. The ACR is the tons that we send out the door that we get paid for. So it's the price that we receive in revenue divided by the tons. So it's just an average amount of what all those marketable materials are worth. A great ACR is above 100 and extremely poor ACR is below 50. If that makes sense. If the markets are good, it's above 100. If they're not good at all, they're below 50. What's our current ACR? Our current ACR is between 95 and 103 right now. It's going up and down. And that's because containers, specifically some of the plastics are at all-time highs. And our paper markets are starting to recover, which is great to see because that's really, when the paper markets recover, that's really good for us because the bulk of our materials you have to pay for a cardboard. So kind of just a model and there's a lot of numbers on this thing here for you guys. But what we did was, we just kind of look at the viability of a Merck under two scenarios. Scenario one is if we only saw 35,000 tons and really what that means is if we only served Chittenden County and we wanted to see the viability under three ACR scenarios, $45, which is the numbers on the left, $80, which are the numbers in the middle and $120, which are the numbers on the right. And so what we did is we looked at ACR inbound tons, what we estimate we would be able to market, which would be marketable outbound tons, where our tipping fee is, our assumed operating costs. And then if we went to bond, what the bond cost would be so that we could do kind of a P and L for lack of a very rudimentary one. But we have our revenues coming in that would be based on our tip fee and our ACR. And then we'd have our costs based on the cost of the process, the cost to operate, which is insurance, payment in lieu of taxes, some basic maintenance requirements, our capital costs, which is an assumed capital cost now under our current capital budget. You would assume if you built a new Murph, that might go down, which it probably it will, but that's kind of under our current rate. And then we assume the bond payment. And so the net is what you would see if we under these scenarios, and these are very broad and we will ask a consultant moving forward to dig into our assumptions and really to kind of get a real world value out of it from our region and from a national perspective. But what this tells us is that in an extremely poor market with the ACR bad, that 35,000 tons is not great for us. In a moderate ACR at $8 ton, we are viable in an extremely good market that we're also viable. What this doesn't take into account is that we can change our tip fee. So we can raise or lower the tip fee. We like to stay in market and our current tip fee is in regional local market. But shouldn't, isn't the idea that there'll be efficiencies in the new Murph, which should bring down your operating costs? That's what we kind of want the consultant for. This is taking into account everything that we can see that we know is required to run the facility or that we would want to build. Also, if you notice, I've got the capital costs that we would have to bond for 18 million. With 35,000 tons, we would assume that we would want a 20 ton per hour facility and a smaller footprint. But yes, Leslie, that's, we kind of, I'm outwardly saying this is kind of a 50,000 foot view with the best information that we have from what we've seen, but we would want to verify this. This is just kind of giving you a litmus test. How would the new bottle bill and possible other bottle bills that are going into effect affect this financial model? Because obviously looking 38% of revenues containers of 5% is still can. So if we're losing that percent of the revenue, will that, I mean, I'm just curious how that'll affect the model. Yeah, it's not a one to one. When we looked at, and Jen, please jump in, you did most of the research on this. When we took a look at, well, backing up, we don't receive any bottle bill material now. So we're as far as from the redemption system, all of the containers that would possibly be bottle bill material, there's not a significant amount of those containers that we would actually lose out of our system. Jen, do you recall the potential impact? It was fairly low to us. Yeah, so I am just recalling from memory, I'm not looking at anything at the moment. So I believe we would lose approximately 11% of our containers, PET containers. So when I did the financial mark analysis of what the current volumes are and what the tip fee under the current ACR is, we were looking at having to raise the tip fee, probably three or $4 to cover that loss. And again, the percentages we showed you earlier on revenue in that pie chart, that was through a catastrophic recycling crisis. So that's why those shifted. Our historic numbers were between 20 and 30% of our revenue came from our paper, our fiber line, which then again would reduce the percentage amount of the containers. So we relied heavily on containers through the recycling crisis because they also went through the roof. The pricing on containers went really high. So that also I think would need to be fleshed out when we engage with the consult moving forward. And again, to keep in mind for the material mix, when we're talking about PET that it only represents about 3% of our overall materials that we put through the system. What would also be good for us is removing some of the glass from the system. So we would see some benefit from not having to manage as much glass. If for example, at some point, if the legislators decide they do want to add wine bottles to the redemption system, wonderful. So as far as the additional PET, as Jen said, there would be some reduction, but in the overall grand scheme of what is processed and what that represents as far as revenue, it's not a very large hit. Josh, this slide shows a pro forma scenarios based upon different ACRs, but all under the assumption that we've invested in numerous, are we doing any comparisons of the baseline? In other words, the pro forma of where we are today versus where we would be. Was that this? Yeah, Jen. Go ahead, Josh. Just to say, Jen, we're going in and out a little bit. I think we got the question though. Go ahead, Josh. Right, so yeah, this doesn't take into account the baseline. And again, I think this was the intent of this was to kind of show just the temperature of a bond and how it would affect our bottom line. I'm sorry, it's not. Can I make a suggestion from the way I'm understanding it is as someone who does a lot, a lot, a lot of capital investment modeling, this is a very rough, crude, high level estimate to flesh out the impact of different variables. The controlling variables here are the ACR and the scale of the MRF. If I know if you go to the next slide, you'll see the same kind of display for a larger MRF. And I don't think at this point, this is just a real crude, rough, high level ballpark. Is this even feasible kind of exercise? It is not an analysis. And I think the board has to understand has to view this from that perspective because right now the question before us is should we even launch this project? And that's my understanding of where we're at with this. Yeah, Leslie, I wanna just jump in here and try to frame it, but to my mind, we really have two questions in this presentation. One, is a new MRF justified, yes or no, based on all of the issues and variables for the items that Josh has presented? And the second question is, do these financials based on very broad assumptions give the board confidence that we're ready to start moving on with the planning process? Yes or no? My sense is that the new MRF is justified, but I would throw it out to the whole board. Do we have a confidence that these numbers, are they so scary that we say, no, this isn't the way we have to go or we think that we have confidence this is possible, this is doable, but we certainly need to hone these numbers a lot more. Correct, correct. And the analysis was, if we ran at 35,000 tons over the variable ACRs, if the net was negative on all of them, that would be a significant indicator that our broads brush said, oh gosh, this is not, this isn't great. That's kind of the intent of this instead, to say, at a reduced, at Chittenden County only tons under a terrible ACR, it's not favorable to move forward. But again, this doesn't take into account that we can raise the tippy. So there's some things in there that it's under kind of current scenarios. But yes, Paul, you framed that very well. So I just, I want to caution that's not to get too, as Leslie said, don't get too caught up in the specifics of these numbers. We have to trust that you're giving us a realistic, your best estimate for broad scope here, to give the board confidence, whether or not to authorize you to move forward. That's what I think we're talking about here. And when we move forward to the 50,000 ton, what this really gleaned is that more tons is better and a more favorable ACR is better, I guess is what I'm trying to say, and it makes it more affordable. I'm sorry, I want to come back to this issue, because what I'm saying is that there's a fourth, we're not evaluating these numbers off of a baseline, which is the current scenario. And these are all of an analysis based upon different ACRs, assuming we invested in a MRF. But if we have a fourth pro forma on here, a fourth column of showing us, or a second set of numbers to match each one of these for ACRs and revenues, would they be, are we gonna see a $1 million improvement in the overall district financials or a $4 million erosion? And I guess I'm a little bit concerned that we're being asked to make a decision on whether or not we should launch the project. And all we're doing is looking at what different scenarios are for the MRF on assuming different volumes and pricing estimates on ACRs. Tim, I have a very different perspective than you seem to have on what the purpose of this information is and what we're expected to make of it. Right now, a pro forma revenue and expenditure would have to deal with the limitations in the current MRF and the current operating costs. And this is attempting to do a high level check if it were a verification as to whether a project of this sort might be feasible without going into the details and without any, the question that you raise is completely legitimate, would this put us in the hole or would this add to our financial strength? But that question cannot be answered without much more detailed modeling which this initial cut is not designed to do. I think we can't put a lot of weight on these numbers right now because this is a huge broad brush, high level, well, it's not a guesstimate at best. I guess my point is for every investment analysis always considers a baseline which is do nothing. This is not an investment analysis. This is not an investment analysis. It's too incomplete. It's too restrictive. What I believe the staff are asking us is should we go forward to the next step to do an investment analysis or should we just can the whole idea? That's my understanding of what's on the agenda in terms of board decision tonight. Do I have that wrong? No, you have that right there as far as what we're asking. I think, Tim, we have had conversations regarding, and you're right, there should always be a either status quo or a do nothing option that we look at. And we have had those conversations as a board regarding well, what does it mean for us to do nothing? And doing nothing doesn't come at zero cost. I think everyone can understand that. There would need to be some significant capital investments in the existing facility, simply to keep it at the current processing capacity. There would be no way for us to be able to, to, for example, we could remove the guts of that building, put in shiny new equipment. However, we would never be able to put in, as Josh mentioned earlier, an efficient and effective system with optical sorting that is, again, current technology is the standard technology. We could get a new magnet in for sure. There would not be the ability to have that length, that run of conveyors that is needed for the optics, the any current separator, as he said, would have to be hung from the rafters. So there are significant limitations to having this current facility be any more flexible for the needs of the future, the future packaging and marketing needs of the future. So when we're looking at the do nothing, we could model the current state, but doing nothing really is not going to advance our program whatsoever. And then the numbers will prove that out. But again, we, yes, and we've had that conversation. We've discussed all of the limitations and we could show you again, the current state, Josh could probably speak to the current state on the top of his head. And, you know, a consultant will certainly have that as we did when we had, we did this for the compost project, right, for the compost facility. We had that current state status quo, what happens if we do nothing? You know, and again, moving this program forward, doing nothing is going in the wrong direction in my opinion. And I would also point out that two years ago, the cost estimate, very rough cost estimate was $15 million. Now we're looking at $18 to $25 million. I hate to say, you know, the longer you wait, the more it's gonna cost, that forces us into perhaps rushing a decision. But I think the reality is the costs are only going in one direction. And ultimately, someday we're going to have to do something. Question is, is this the right plan at the right time? Or do we have a competence to authorize the general manager to move forward with developing those plans? Can I just make a quick comment? Yeah. I do want to reflect on all of the retreats that many of these board members participated in in 2018 and 2019 and the discussion through all those meetings was supportive of moving forward with exploration of this. So I want to do highlight that there has been some extensive conversation and we're not committing to the specifics tonight as have been reiterated. We're just authorizing the executive director and the team to move forward with those explorations so that we can get further answers. I'd like if I may to make one other point following up on Paul Roos's comment. And that is that the costs of maintaining the existing Murph are going to go up just as the estimate of the cost of building a new Murph are going up. And as a 20 year old mechanical operation continues to deteriorate the hidden cost in terms of health and safety, in terms of deteriorating output because the machinery is deteriorating so there's a threat to your revenue from the existing. There's no such thing as do nothing because do nothing means deteriorate. So I really feel that we need to use the right language in describing what our options are and the options are give the staff the go ahead to refine this further or don't give them that and have them come to us with big bills just to keep the clunker going. Those are the options before us tonight as I see it. And at which point there will be higher expenses and potentially more lost revenue as the materials that come into the facility evolve and are harder to separate and sort to the specifications that the end-use customer wants. Or the labor market says they don't wanna do it anymore. That's another significant concern with our existing setup. We are now at 815, we haven't yet gone through the remaining elements of this presentation which is to talk a little bit about how we might find the money or how to pay for this. And we have yet to even have a motion to put this up to the board for consideration. A couple of people have had a long say and there are some other thoughts out there. And as somebody that's tried to sell bond issues before Josh's comments about we can just raise the tip fee which is the tax on the individuals in Chittenden County isn't a good answer if you're trying to sell a bond because it's gonna cost somebody some more money. I also know what we've done with respect to costs that we've gotten at the merge for products and those things can go south again. And we have been involved in two projects that have cost the district a lot of money and we end up trying to fund it out of other funds. And that's both the project that's over where the paint recycling is and in compost. And we know what we've had to do with both those projects over the years. And I know that we talked about moving forward with our own MRF and doing other things but we were talking about a different price and construction costs at a different level. And I don't know if there's another option out there that is to see if this might be managed and run by somebody else as opposed to the district running it. But I just am very concerned by the numbers that I see here and they're very high level numbers to look at but I'm a little bit concerned with what I see today. Well, I'm getting to the question of how this might be financed. So we have been talking a lot about a bond and I talked to our select boards about this option and their main question was, are you going to charge an assessment to a member towns? And again, that is not the intention. The intention as you mentioned, Alan, is to be able to fund and finance the operations and the bond debt repayment out of the fees that we charge. However, we are shaking other trees. We have submitted the initial paperwork through Senator Leahy's office for an earmark. Those are not ever guaranteed. We haven't had earmarks around for 10 or 12 years so it's been quite some time. But because the current facility essentially functions as a regional facility, we think it has just as good a shot at being funded as any other regional facility in the state given the importance of the infrastructure that the MRF represents to the Soloway system in Vermont. There is also the option of funding through the closed-loop fund. They are very interested in funding projects and funding MRFs that include robotics and they provide $5 million maximum 0% interest to municipalities. There is a shorter repayment timeline for that but it is again, zero interest. The current interest rate for the municipal bond is about 2%. So again, given the timeline of when we might be looking at the bond, that interest rate will most likely be different. They do have a couple of different options for repayment, 20 years, 25 years. We would take a look at that most likely and stretch it out to 25 years to ensure that we will be able to cover that bond debt. And as you mentioned, it does require voter approval so it's not automatic. However, there's tremendous support from our constituents for our programs. You know, Jen talked about the MRF tours. It's consistently not only an extremely popular field trip but we have a lot of adult groups who want to see how things work and how they're done and really are truly amazed by what we're able to do with the facility we have. And everyone, you know, the adults who comment back on it on the tours remark that, you know, they feel different as from a lay person's perspective that we need a new facility. Again, we know that the nitty gritty it's easy to say, yeah, you need a new building. But I think that we would certainly be able to continue to make the case to our constituents that this is an investment in not only Chippin County's future but in Vermont's future in order to be able to continue to help the citizens of Chippin County be able to meet the state mandates for recycling. And we've been doing this very well for a very long time. So I'm confident that there's a good amount of support there. Leslie, any question? Well, I think the other thing to bear in mind with so much movement going on hopefully at the federal level for infrastructure projects that you can put together a financing plan that draws from multiple sources. So you don't have to assume that 100% of the capital costs is financed by a municipal bond. You can find, there will be other sources, you know the machinery may be under one program and the site preparation may be under another program. So when you're thinking about how you're going how you're going to finance the project you have to look at an array of options just as you look at an array of options in terms of design. So I think this is a little early in the process to try to make assumptions about what your financing costs are gonna be. True, and we only showed you in the overview the one option, right, the bond but you're absolutely right. And that's why we reached out to these three multiple these three sources to say, you know how can we piece things together to keep the potential bond if that's kind of the leftover as low as possible? That is always the goal is to make sure that any potential impact to our taxpayers is a low impact, if there's any impact at all. And, you know, members who have been on the board for a while do will remember that when we first built the existing facility the board did choose to subsidize this MRF for a number of years and it was not an unusual thing because it was again, fit with the policy of the mission and the values of the district to provide a local option. You know, if there was not a MRF in Chittenden County for some reason, all of the recycling would have to be shipped either to Rutland if they could accept it or out of state. And that increases the costs across the board tremendously. So having a MRF in the population center of the state truly does benefit not just Chittenden County but all of Northern Vermont. So, Belize, your point is absolutely correct and that is what we're doing is looking at these multiple sources, multiple resources. We have, these are the three that have risen to the top but there are other grants that we've looked at. There's no money in the state. We have looked at other federal sources whether it's through the Department of Energy, through the EPA, through rural grants or agriculture but we'll continue to do that and to try to piece together some different sources. So again, to keep that potential impact of a bond low. John? You're on mute John. For the prior slide, what was the assumption on the amount that would be bonded? It was a hundred percent. Million dollar bond. 35,000 times it's the 18 million dollar and on the 50,000 it's 20 million. Where I was going, am I unmuted now? Yes. Okay, good. What I was saying is with the emphasis in Washington about the infrastructure and we're looking at a project is absolutely applicable to what that law is supposed to be about. I would suggest we go to our congressman and push. We have a shovel ready project. And when Obama did this eight years ago or whenever it was 10 years ago, I was a school business manager and we had shovel ready projects and we were able to get money for it. We could do the same thing with this. This is a Congress is pushing through this infrastructure bill. The second thing I wanted to say is, you said in the chat box that we're doing 47,000 tons a year now. Why are we even thinking about 35,000 tons? I'm wondering why wouldn't we make this big enough and Milton did this years ago where we oversized our sewage facility and now Colchester wants to pump their sewage up here. And we're selling sewage, what do you call it? Capacity. I could see us being the Murph for Northern Vermont and make it big. It's the Congress has got the money. Make it, let's not look at the even 35. That doesn't even make sense to me. So the reason- 50 is minimal. Yeah, the reason that we had, we modeled both sizes is there have been some input at previous board meetings to look at that and to say, well, what would, what would if we had to or needed to or wanted to just make this facility for Chittenden County? Is it doable? There's been some pushback over the years for essentially functioning as a regional facility without the acknowledgement by the state that we are truly a regional facility. Chittenden County has always been the one that has stepped up to do these larger facilities because we knew that we could do it. And it has proven to be a benefit to other counties, other districts around the state. So there was a request by the board or at least in conversation at the board level to say, well, what would it look like if we only were responsive for just what Chittenden County produces? So that's why there's 35,000. But Johnny, you're right. When we run the numbers for more than that, for 50 to, and I don't know that we'd stretch it up as high as 60,000, Josh, but we're very comfortable around 50. Then yes, the numbers make much more sense. The operating cost is lower and obviously the revenue from the sale of the materials is higher. So that was why we show 35,000. It was just to be able to again, inform that question that we've been asked a few years back. And the last thing I'll say, it's quarter, it's 830. Thank you. I would like there to be a motion to put this on the table. And then if board members can concisely if they're so inclined to state why they are in favor or why they are against, then we can drive this to a vote and then move on with the meeting. I move that the board authorize the executive director to launch the New Murph Capital Project. John, get from the second that. Thank you. It's been moved and seconded that the board would authorize the executive director to launch the New Murph Capital Project. Now's the time I hope for any board members to speak particularly about their concerns about moving forward. Well, I'd like to speak in favor of the motion. And I'd like to point out that I think I understand correctly that we are simply authorizing the next phase which is an investigation phase. We are not committing to actual build of the project. We're only looking at how to do it, why to do it, how much it might cost. And we need to do things that get our ducks all lined up into an appropriate row. Some of what we've talked about tonight I think are a little beyond that at the present time. We need to just kind of start from ground zero and say what happens if our present MRF suddenly collapses that we're not able to do anything at all with it, let alone try and upgrade it or keep it running. That certainly would impact our revenue stream in a huge, huge way. I have here in Winooski had a deep involvement with the replacement project of the Myers Memorial Pool and we had a pool that literally collapsed on us. It was completely defunct. We had to replace it or not. And that was where our discussions had to begin. We had to decide what we wanted, how big should it be before we could even begin to talk about what kind of cost we were gonna endure and what kind of cost we should try to curtail. So I think we need to just get on with this and launch the project so that we can get on to the next phase. Thank you. Thank you, Ron. Other comments? Paul? Paul, say it. Yeah, I just, you know, I fully support moving forward. One thing that probably a lot of commissioners have heard before, but I believe it's important that we continue to own a Murph in that I believe it helps us ensure there's a competitive landscape in Vermont for this type of, you know, facility. So I think it's an important thing for us to invest in. And over time, I think it will absolutely be very much worthwhile. Thanks, Paul. Other comments? Kilton? From talking with Eric, the town managers and the select board, Wilson's definitely in favor of going forward and looking at the project and what will come forward. One thing that, or a few things I wanna just clarify because I'm confused about looking at this schedule here, what's been talked about. I'd definitely love to see just more analysis rather than just looking straight at the numeric of what that baseline is. I know the town of Welleson and really, I think a big piece is finding ways that doesn't affect the tip rate because I think that piece would be a hard thing to sell to the slide board. Increasing, something that might increase the rate and then also decentralized decentralized people from recycling because it would push the cost of recycling even closer to the cost of trash. So anything that de-centivizes people financially from recycling isn't something that I know I wouldn't go to them and support that. So I mean, that's just my, I would love that the scope of the consultant's report could include that and maybe even RFP that looks at other potentials like that letter we all received. Thank you, Colton. I wanna ask a clarifying question to Sarah. Is money in the next year's or this upcoming year's budget for the consultant? Yes, it is. Thank you. Other questions and comments? Hearing none, then I'll put it back. I'm sorry. Well, I've been doing a question. The assumption was that we're gonna bond for the full amount and I'm just, you know, our current cash balance is about 11 million and I'm wondering why we're not looking at alternatives to draw down to the significant resources that we have on. Well, again, that is certainly one of the decisions that the board will want to make and to look at. And it gets to Leslie's comment about the combination of ways to find something like this. And yes, you know, we'll wanna take a look at, again, double cash, cash on hand, capital needs not related to the MRF to make sure that those are all satisfied for the long term. But this is a really important question, Tim, that the finance committee also needs to dive into sooner rather than later and kind of start that conversation about reserves having an adequate appropriate amount of cash on hand and what those reserves are used for. So this is a perfect scenario for that conversation. And we have a very well constituted financial committee with you on there, Tim, asking some good, hard questions. Again, any other questions or comments before we vote on this motion? Can you go back to the schedule, Sarah? It says on the second bullet retained consultant to develop full design and construction plans and cost analysis. And then in the fourth bullet, it says July to December, develop conceptual and preliminary design plans. Right, Josh, can you explain, I think the first bullet is slightly different or should be different than the second one. Can you explain that a bit more? Yeah, that really the first one, the July 21, the bullet you mentioned the second one down should be to develop a cost analysis. But this doesn't kind of, the other thing along the way, the board would be making decisions on these costs analysis. And the idea is if we kept moving forward, we would retain that same consultant that would help us develop, what a construction and design, well, what design plans would look like in the construction plans. So the idea is it's a it's a, it's a mercy specific consultant. I guess it's what I was trying to say there. As somebody who can take us the whole way. I think Alan, the bullets need to be reversed. Yeah. Well, typically when you hire a consultant to do some of these things, many of these things have to occur simultaneously. It's just a matter of course, they look at things and develop different paths all at the same time. So that I don't see it as a problem. We? At what point in this timeline between, well, now that you're flipping everything around, I guess between or before permitting, do you go come back to the board for a no go or no go on the project after you have all the financials and everything? I don't. You'd have that opportunity at the conceptual and preliminary design. The consultant's going to bring that to the board and the board will be able to discuss and thumbs up or thumbs down at that point for sure. Josh, is that your? Yeah, that's my idea would be if we can engage a consultant with launching this project, we engage a consultant, they start working on the financials and we've got, we've done a lot of legwork on high end conceptuals to bring that to them so that they can refine their cost analysis. I would, and don't quote me on this, but I would love to have something to the board by January coming up. You know, again, that's six months. This is an extremely truncated schedule, but something with more refined figures, something you can sink your teeth into and kind of parse through with the corresponding conceptual design. And that would be kind of step one to kind of go or move forward. And then that would take us, because at that point, we would also have to start looking at retaining, you know, at least sending out an RFP for equipment as well, because we need to know, you know, at some point, if we can go sooner or later, what equipment provider we'd be looking at, which also would help further refine the cost analysis. I'd like to suggest that there may be a little cart before the horse here, because the board is gonna have to make a decision about the financing structure before you can go out and make a contract to buy equipment. I think we may need to review this and refine it a little better than what we're looking at because we should have a notional time because the consultant is gonna have to have a deadline to say, we wanna bring this to our board by, you know, mid-November, whatever, you know, that has to be part of this timeline. And I think this timeline needs a little better work. But that should not interrupt the vote that we have to take right now. Okay, we're still on asking. Any further questions on this motion? Hearing none. Only question. Who called the question? Nolte. Nolte, do we have a second to call the question? I believe a calling the question requires a second. Bryn Wienewski. Thank you. It's non-debatable. All those in favor of calling the question, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed to calling the question say no. The ayes have it. We're now back to the main motion, which is whether or not to authorize the executive director to launch a new Murph Capital Project. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye or raising your hand. Aye. Aye. Those opposed, say nay or raise your hand. Any abstentions? The motion carries. Sarah, you had a second action requested to establish an ad hoc committee comprised of board and staff to develop project-based public outreach and communication. Right, I think that may be to use Leslie's phrase, carpet for the horse. So there's some time built into the schedule for that so we can put that one off. Okay, so now we'll move on to the compensation study presentation. And that would be. Item number six. Yep, thank you. Amy, if you could read that off please. Yes, thank you. I do have Dan Lyons from Gallagher Flynn who's presenting tonight. And I did just talk with him if the board would prefer to delay this, we can certainly do that. And he would come back at another time or we can go through it fairly quickly. We're not asking for a motion tonight. So we're happy to present and just to do it and go through it. I just wanted to- Well, I appreciate the offer. And as your new board chair, my sense is that at almost 845 it is getting late and the compensation is an extremely important matter. And we understand that the board is not being asked to take any action tonight. And that in fact the current compensation plans are in effect and will remain in effect per the approved 2022 budget. So there's, I believe nothing urgent or pressing about this compensation study. On the other hand, we're not supposed to have a July meeting. So this would come up in the August meeting. That's correct. And if the memo had pointed out the next steps would be that we would like to receive comment from the board. So we certainly can do that between now and when the presentation just some of the information that you have. I'm happy to answer questions. Our next step is to bring this to the finance committee and we are scheduled meeting of the finance committee in July. The finance committee had concern with our current pay grade and step schedule which provides a COLA and a potential for a step increase. And so they've been waiting to sort of to see this report and look into it further. So the idea was that we would go to the finance committee with further review and then back to the board with proposals. We may change that and just go back to the board for the initial presentation and then come back again. But happy to do that in August. And if the board chooses to do that tonight. Again, I'm new to this. I would certainly want to hear from any other commissioners make a convincing case that now is the time to get into this versus being comfortable with waiting until August to dive into this. Any comments from my fellow commissioners? This is John Gifford. I suggest that we have the finance committee take a look at it. Let's volunteer and some work for us, but and then come back to the board as the finance committee to say, this is what this looks like and what we might should do with it. Thank you, John. So I'll rule as chair that we will defer discussion of this item until the August board meeting. And we'll move on to the next. I do want to just thank the consultant for hanging on for a couple hours tonight. And your appreciation and much appreciation be flexible to comment a later date as well. Thank you. It's no problem at all. I would agree. This is a really important topic and it requires, I think, you know, a lot of thoughtfulness. So I'm happy to accommodate as best I can. Thank you very much, Dan, really appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure, everybody. We will see you later in the summer. All right. Take care, everybody. Hello. Item number seven is the community cleanup fund. Yes, and I've added Michelle Morris to the group to just again give a brief overview. What you have in your packet is what each community member has in their fund right now. There was a desire to have a conversation about the fund and its uses. We will be providing on a much more regular basis the updates as far as how much is remaining in everyone's fund. We will be providing examples of what the funds are being used for to spark ideas in fellow community members. But there was a question that I think then you wanted to discuss regarding, you know, what to do with funds that are kind of perpetually left unused. So I don't know if you want to kind of dive into some of that now or again, if it's a late hour and we need more pushing out. Can I offer an opportunity to just be more directive? Yes, please, Brian. Paul, you feel comfortable with that. So I think the interest is less about what to do with funds that have been allocated to towns that aren't being used. The question is more when towns are at their ceiling and the additional allocation would not take place because they are at the ceiling right now. Those funds are not put into community grants that like container grants or anything else like that, that communities can access. And the question is whether or not we want the funds to sit in reserves or go to the general fund or to be allocated to those existing grant programs to increase funding available there for annual projects. Thank you for the clarification. Yes, so the question is because we always budget for the full disbursement amount each year, inevitably that does not get fully dispersed. So we basically fill up to the cap each year so that everyone is pulling at their max or they are getting as much as they can in that one year. But we haven't, I don't know, whenever we've ever fully dispersed all of the available community cleanup funds. So that was part of the question is that say in any given year, 19,000 or so is available when they only disperse 10,000. Well, that balance is kind of left hanging and just gets reabsorbed back into the general fund budget. So that's the question, right? Is that the amount that is already budgeted doesn't get dispersed? Can that go somewhere else? Can that be used in some of the way as we're indicated? How much money are we talking about? Michelle, do you have a sense or Noah, do you have a sense for what might be left on the table for the current fiscal year? If we look at fiscal year 21, for example, we have a maximum amount of 19,000 that we would potentially allocate out to the various towns and we awarded about 11,000 of that. So there would have been 8,000 remaining in the current fiscal year that could have potentially gone to some other funds. John? Yeah, what can the town of Milton do with $7,500? What am I allowed to do with that money? Oh, we are happy to talk to you about that. Recently, four, a couple of years ago, expanded the parameters of what the fund could be used for. So I always suggest reaching out to Michelle and someone in her team to talk about the different options. It used to be very restricted and it is much more wide open now. Michelle, if you could give a couple of examples of what the towns are using their funds for? I'm happy to do that. So it has been extremely, as Sarah said, varied. Just in the last couple of weeks, we have funded the cleanup of an encampment, a homeless encampment in Burlington. And Lee can speak to that. I also just put through approval for funding of purchase of food scrap drop-off buckets purchased by St. George for distribution to members of their community in an event that they were gonna sponsor. We have used community members in Jericho and elsewhere, just recently actually in Winooski this year, used community cleanup funds to pay for the 50% match balance required of our incentive grant program. So we have an incentive waste reduction incentive grant program where we'll pay up to 50% of the cost for purchase of recycling trash compost containers. For instance, presiding at a community park. And communities can use your cleanup funds to pay that 50% matching portion. So it's completely funded by CSWD. Those are a few wide examples. We also have projects, I think, that haven't been pursued as much, but I'm happy to help people talk through more creative examples, if you need that. I'll go under Hill's office in the morning. Under Hill had a very successful tire roundup last spring and it did a lot of good for good will for CSWD. People absolutely loved it. I guess I could frame this in a way. The question again, if the board has decided to allocate $19,000 per year for community support and finds that it has $8,000 left unspent, would we want to say there must be some other work community program that we could spend that money on, or are we just gonna keep it? On a personal level, if I decided I was gonna spend $500 a year on charity, and I only spent 400, do I spend 100 on charity for myself, or do I continue to be a good citizen and fund some other program that is worthy? Just a way to frame, I think the question is bring that has outlined it. And I like that idea personally, that we allocate the money to some other community, worthy community activity. So just to clarify, my recommendation is to make that available to, so the remaining 8,000 that could have been allocated, that wasn't. In fact, dispersing that amongst the existing grant programs, so not awarding that to a specific community, but making it available through the existing grants and incentive programs to all communities that would apply. Thanks for the clarification. Ultimately, I guess, are we gonna need some motion on this? To make a decision on what to do? Paul, I think if there is interesting pursuing something that I'd like the staff to get together and bring the proposal to the board for consideration at a future meeting. Sounds like a good path forward. Item number 8, executive section, is there anything? I just have one more question on that. I had my hand raised, didn't know if I should just speak up. Okay, so that's a cumulative amount of leftover from all communities. At what point throughout the year, do we make that decision that, okay, we're gonna take that lump of money and throw it into some grants, because I waited until today to submit, because Michelle can tell you a lot. I mean, it was probably close to $6,000 worth of invoices, everything from roadside trash to homeless encampment cleanups, and stuff like that. So at what point in the year would you think, a month before the end, two months before the end of the fiscal year? You know, I don't. And that's why I wanna come back with the proposal, because I want to have a conversation about some of the different ways that we could approach that, because the goal is obviously for everyone to use their allotment throughout the year. So a lot of it, I think that we need to do, as a staff team is to remind everyone that it's there and to be using it in the fall and not waiting until we remind you of an April saying, oh, from the way and then it is a mad dash at the end. Because it's a process for me to get the checks that have been reconciled, and then saving my invoices and matching them all up and getting them all together to send in. Right, exactly. It's definitely a process. Noah? We do know at the beginning of every fiscal year, what total will be allocated out. So we've asked everyone to make sure that they've submitted their receipts by Friday so that we can reconcile our books. And at the beginning of the fiscal year, I'll know how much money of that 19,000 is going to go out to the town. So we'll know what is remaining at that point. But I don't know, again, as Sarah mentioned, what we would do with that money and how we would make that work among potentially other grants or programs. Yeah, so that's my understanding is that basically by July one, the beginning of the new fiscal year, CSWD knows whether or not they're gonna allocate $1,000 or the allotted amount to raise up to the ceiling or not. And so basically whatever the remainder is after that allotment would then potentially, depending on what the board decides, be reallocated to the existing incentive and grants programs. Because right now, if Burlington uses your, parses down your balance throughout the year, you don't get that $1,000 at another point in the year. You only have a chance right at the beginning of the year at the end of June, moving in July to get that allotment. So that's why we have a remainder. That's why we have that balance and allowing that to be that full, whatever is not allocated by CSWD to the towns because they've reached their cap, that that would go to the incentive. So really we should know July 1st. August 1st. You know, if, you know, again, we close our books July 31, before the previous year. So in the off chance that receives trickle in, we don't encourage that. We want you to get them in before the close of the fiscal year, but the reality would be, we wouldn't have more certainty by August 1st. Sure. The intent being the previous fiscal year. Correct. So we know how much to add to bump up. I think this needs to be written out, right? So in a plan. So that'll be my recommendation that we bring this back to you as a written document as a plan with some suggestions for where any of the excess may go and then have a conversation about whether or not that's something that that the board wants to do. Thank you, Sarah. That sounds like a good plan. Moving on item eight, executive session. Is there any reason to have an executive session tonight? There's not. Item nine. Any other business to come before the board tonight? Hearing none. Is there a motion to adjourn? It sure is. Thank you, John. We have a second. A second is not required on a motion to adjourn. Okay, thank you. Please. All those in favor say aye, please. Aye. Aye. You opposed. Anyone opposed? All right. Thank you. See you in August. Bye. Thank you. Good job, Paul. Thank you. Bye.