 Board 1.2, first order of business is to approve the agenda on very changes. And Mark, do I please add local licenses for Blushill Country Club in Fairfield and in Sweets? Yep. I'll try to knock those off as they come in. I would like to make an amendment to the agenda if we can include a discussion of the select board, the town manager, hiring new affidavits. Yep. Put that under select board, I don't see it. Yep. Move to approve the agenda as amended. Second. Negative second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Next, we'll send to agenda items, minutes from January 17th meeting, and liquor licenses for some part are now approved to Blushill Country Club in Fairfield and in Sweets. I make a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented. Very second. Second. Move to second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. On to public, this is an opportunity for the public to speak on anything that's not currently on the agenda. See we have some escape parts, does that somehow be discussed further down? The recreation CIP or the budgets. Okay. Both of them together. I just noticed that we have some escape parts over here. Anyone else from the public that wishes to speak at this time will also have an opportunity during the meeting to hopefully speak on any topic that we're currently speaking to. Moving on, we're going to move to manager's items. Is there a contract for transportation liaison? Yeah, I didn't think about this earlier, but this is really to try to keep the auditors happy when they come here every year from now, not through 2021. So we have an employment agreement with Bob Farr. The last one we entered into with her expired on December 31st. We put that one in place in December of 2020. It started on January 1st and went to December 31st, 2021. Just as we had to do a couple of years ago, she has been working a little bit, even though she's officially retired or technically retired, I guess you could say. She had agreed to come back. She did have a little bit of combined time off that we owed her. And I said, well, would be helpful if we could pay that out next year as opposed to in 2021. And then there's about 25 hours of work that I anticipate that she's going to have to do. We're still getting information from the trans about the Bain Street project that we had a bill that came last week that had to be posted back to 2021. And Bob is working with Bill Woodruff to just make sure all the closeout happens properly. And then there is one last grant that when all of the final information comes in, she'll have to put together the reimbursement request, which is about $175,000. I'll make sure it gets done. So my recommendation is to approve this contract. There is a provision in here under letter B that it kind of lays out that there's about 85 hours worth of work that I expect has to be paid for or a time it has to be paid for. It does allow me, my discretion, the manager at the manager's discretion to extend this but not beyond a total of 125 hours for that whole year. So it's a $5,000 or so that it's already included in the budget a little higher than that. Any questions? Yeah, so are you anticipating she could put in as many as how many hours? 125 for a whole year at the most. I think it's going to be about 85, but it gives me the discretion to, instead of coming back here if there's something that we need. Don't you say 125 would work out to be $5,000 or less? No, if it's 105, it's about $5,000. That's for about the 85. So it would be a maximum of 93.75, okay. 93.75. No, no, no, no, $9,000. $9,000, Chris. 125 hours total for the year. My math earlier today must have been off and I multiply it 75 times 125 and not the 90.75 or something like that. No. That's right. What's 85 times 70? 63.75. Okay, so that's what I think it's going to be and that's what's in the budget. Basically between 6, no more than basically 95.75. So you need a motion to enter into the contract or fire? Yeah, retroact with the January 1st. Anyone want to make that question? Second? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Ice center. Who seconds that? I'm sorry. I don't see him here right now. They're actually here. We're moving fast. Actually, someone come up to the table. Yeah, you can come on up to the table and we'll get them back. Anyone here? So just, I sent out to the entire board the other day some information, some financial information from the ice center. It's a balance sheet sitting from an expense reports that start in the 2015-16, I think, 16 and 17 here and go through this information right through December of 2021. Mark and Chris and I met with Bob Perrette, Mike Thompson and John Siegel on Thursday or Friday afternoon last week just to go through this for the two of them. I did propose back in December that I thought that pounds should appropriate $100,000 for the ice center to allow it to recapitalize its reserve funds, if you will. I explained at the time that they've been open and in business since 2003. I think that they've done a really fine job of building first and then operating and maintaining a community ice center for the benefit of this community. They were able to pay all their bills, all their expenses, pay down their debt from about $1.6 million. I think they started off that including the original that they had to cover pledges. They've paid that down to about $850,000 or something like that now. They've done all of this while being able to build up about a $300,000 or so reserve fund. They, like many businesses and residents, were hit prior to my hospital storm. I made in 2011. They were out of business for about two months or six weeks, something like that. That was a cakewalk compared to the last 22 months of the pandemic, which just as we're sitting here with masks, keeps going on and on. So they're here tonight. We'll talk about the budget in a little bit right now just to show numbers. The $100,000 is in the budget. Mark and Chris talked the other day and suggested that rather than just have me say the town should give them $100,000, maybe they should explain whether they really wanted it or not and if so, why and how they might use it. Mark and Chris also expressed their opinion that it would be better if it was a special article as opposed to just a line item. We'll get to the warning at the end of this meeting. This request is put into the budget or if it's put in this special article, the budget that I sent to you this week over the weekend assumes that it gets approved. With that, I'll let you ask them questions or let them make a small short presentation. You can start. I think one of the most important things that the other board members know because I don't know if it came out in the information that Bill sent was the infrastructure improvement cost that he's been working on. So I think that's something that I learned in that meeting. Chris and I were talking a week and I remember one of those polls were. So I think that would be helpful as well. You reminded us a lot of people on Zoom because the camera and the speaker or the microphone is in that owl. So kind of look at that and project as best as possible through your map. Well, first of all, I watched the... Thank you for having me. We watched the meeting two weeks ago, January 10th and you guys are discussing all this. And there was some confusion or whatever or discussion about, you know, are we on the ropes or are we about to go out of business? Is this 100,000 going to keep us in business? What happens when that's gone? So what we're basically here to tell you is that, as Bill just said, we've had a number of capital expenses recently. We're still going through it. We were in a process of replacing a lot of condenser cooling tower. We had to rebuild our heating and packaging unit. We've got some work work about to undertake. Compressor 1, which is one of our refrigeration contraptions. So basically, this kind of...it's been a fast drain. We haven't done too badly in this thing. There's a lot of clients that have got PPP and something else and other couple things. And E-Bud had raised some of our fees and interest payments and whatnot and deferred payments for a while. So it brought costs down a little over the last two years. So we're getting back. It's not the same. I mean, we're not having full expenses because of what E-Bud's been doing for us. And we're just now getting back to the kind of cash flow that we're into the full schedule and all that. The year ago, we couldn't use locker rooms and there was time between games, the way everything went down. You remember it was kind of chaotic back then. So basically, we're in pretty good shape considering the last two years. I mean, hopefully this is going to be older at some point than the pandemic I'm talking about. But basically, I mean, I can answer specific questions. Mike is our treasurer and he's pretty knowledgeable about all the stuff and all of our financial reports. So I guess the rest of you are just asking us questions. We need to build the operative community to get us 100,000 out of the upper funds. You think you can use it, right? You think you can use it? Yeah, we have a list of other items besides what we've already incurred. We have other deferred items that we could owe that are deferred for a reason. We just don't want to commit all the money that we have to fixing stuff. And you did kind of burn through a significant portion of the reserve that you built up over the first 15 or 16... We burned through it. We got an extra loan from the SBA that's helped us replace it, but that's more debt. So we'd love to be able to pay that back rather than, you know, we can pay it back in 30 years, but we're not looking to have more debt. We're looking to operate it as Billy pointed out, paying down debt over the next 20 years and not operating it more. What was the cost of the evaporator again, sir? Well, it's impressive. It hasn't been installed yet, but the components cost $60,000. We have taken for that. Do you have? Yes. The two big boxes that are the components that have been delivered, they're sitting out behind the rink if you learn them by they made a notice of them. We still have to do the installation. That's going to happen in April. Fortunately, we got a grant from Efficiency Group of mine to cover $37,500 of the process of the project to do this. And that will cover the installation. So we paid to buy the equipment and we have a grant. We have to pay for it, but then the grant will reimburse us. It's not... And there's other costs than taking the ice out and then putting the ice back in, which is roughly 20, I think we estimated. 20,000. With a lot of size time. So it'll be about $35,000, $40,000. So you're in cash position at the end of 2021. It represents the $60,000 of equipment cost, but not the $20,000 of lost revenue ice. It's about the... The $37,500 is about what it's going to cost us in terms of paying J. Hogan to do the installation plus lost revenue. Can you commit a fire with her? You know, we replaced the desiccant wheel. We had some problems with that back in September, October, whatever that was. That was about $15,000. We put the desiccant wheel in it and we did some of the building. Some of you did that work in the cash position at the end of 2021 as well. Yeah. That was impressive number one. In addition to that, we have two premises that need replacement. One of them over the snack bar has been replaced. The other one over the locker room says not yet. I believe one over the snack bar was like 8,000 and then the next one's going to be bigger so we'll be around about 10,000 or 12,000. So that hasn't been done yet? No. And the compressor hasn't been done yet? The compressor... Do you know the cost of that? No. In fact, we don't know what we're going to find. They're going to have to open kind of a lecture about this stuff. They're going to take this thing apart. I said, how much is this going to be? What are you doing? We don't know what we're doing. We have to open it up and see what it means. Right. So we're running on one compressor right now. So everybody, keep your fingers crossed and let me know what you think of the second compressor. So as I've gone through the numbers, what I can go back to is the 2019 number. It seems like 2019, where all the notes that say last full year, three pandemic, are your cash positions prior to the pandemic. And I just want confirmation that your cash position at the end of your full pre-pandemic fiscal year is 184 plus this cash lower at the 137. Is that your total cash position at the end of your last full year pre-pandemic? End of 19 more? Yeah, it's June 30th, 19, right? Yeah, right. So the 184 and the 137? No, 184 and 137. Is that your total cash position? Okay. I just want the board to understand clearly that so typically when they were healthy was 321,000 in cash with all the SBA debt. Right. So then if you go to where they were at the end of fiscal year 2021, which luckily the taxpayers were paid out of this, their cash position is three, two, but you've got to take out 150 of SBA. So they were sitting on 232. So it's a difference of 800,000 from where they were healthy and where they... Was the evaporate? Was the investor bought before the end of... Yeah. Before June 30th? No, but are you looking at... The $60,000 that you stated that you paid already, was that paid prior to... $18,750 was paid prior to June 30th. What does it... Mark, are you looking at December 20th? December 31st, 2020. Are you looking at December? Okay. If you're looking at December, there's $42,000. $42,000 that's been paid. Out of that, about fiscal year. The first payment was a deposit so that they could order it. And then we paid the remainder up to about $60,000 on delivery. So I mean, I think it's... So the board understands, too, we are talking about a merger with EPUT, your debt of $530,000 since currently EPUT's loan program that's potentially the count you're going to be taking over. To this point, EPUT has not told you what a start date they're requesting for any kind of payment. I think right now, though, it's May. The first payment would be due in July. They turn it on in interest strategy first and turn it on in July. But as I said before, there's talk that, you know, making that permanently suspended as a 20-year deferred loan like they've done with the senior center and some of their other assets. What was that loan they paid? The EPUT. $25,000? $26,000? $28,000. Almost $20,000. Right. Questions from the board? Yeah, I have a question. One, I'm looking at your position before and during COVID. I think you guys have done quite a good job, you know, considering what we've all been through. Maybe I want to go through a little bit seeing what you're hopefully we're all going to get, as you said. Hopefully we'll all get through this pandemic. You know, you want to get through. Do you have any plans to say this year, this summer, we're out of the pandemic? I know it's hard to plan for this year, but do you have like a five-year going forward plan? I know it's very hard. I've worked with a lot of organizations who've done hockey rinks and just on hockey income and ice shows and stuff. It's hard to make them go. Do you have any more special plans for the next five years if you would like to see happen with the ice rink other than the normal? The normal is no small thing to hope for. You know, you've seen numbers the last clean year, which was 2018-19, we had $466,000 in expenses of $477,000 in revenue. This is all, we have never, in the 18 years as of December 15th that we've been in business, we have never had people ask for contributions to fund operations. Everything we've done is paid off to us. It's all come from ice rentals, snack bars, ice rentals, shopping, stuff that happens in there. I don't know what these guys are thinking about. I'm just going to let you talk about the dry land. We need to go ahead. So to answer your question, we're always thinking about, how else can we do down here? So we have a young staff that has lots of great fresh ideas, different perspectives. One of the ideas is they have the bumper cars that you've seen on ice. I'm going to go look at it and you can see the status. So we're always looking at other ways how other ways we can generate revenue there. And I think, as I mentioned to Mark and Chris, as a 501C3 we're limited on, we cannot run programs based on our IRS determination. So we're somewhat limited on, you know, so the best way to make money on that ice rate is to do that. That's really about full speed. As a 501 though, you also can donate from the tax deductible from other organizations or not. So, with a new tax law 80% of the people cannot itemize. And other than the $600 for the two COVID years, 80% of the people cannot take a tax deduction. But for that reason... For a business level, could it? It could be a business level, but individuals can. Up to that level. So that's changed the whole dynamic of fundraising for nonprofits. So our struggle has always been April to August and trying to rent ice without big capital investment. There's a lot of good ideas out there. A lot of ideas that cost a lot of money up front and then, okay, is it going to work? Do you put the money in and then the people show up again in the summer and want to go skating? I don't know. So we're trying to drop camps as well. Summer camps. I guess I'm confused with the comment that as I'm quite familiar with 501c3's why can't you rent programs? That's what most 501c3's do. Well, I don't know that. All I know is we were told in corporateness that we weren't supposed to compete with the 501c3's. So if we're running programs and there's people that want to rent the ice to run their programs, you're supposed to rent the ice. If it's consistent with your mission and you could again have a pretty broad definition of what missions are, your mission is to be good programs of the way it may survive. We run two hockey games at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We had Willisman and we had nobody. So we said, well, we'll operate. So now we were on those two games. What we tried to do was encourage other people to grab on to the programs, right? Because if we're running them, that means we need to hire somebody to run them. We can collect the money from everybody. Now, if there's a Thursday night group, we go with one person. He pays the bill. We don't go to 45 people and collect $20 from everybody. We collect the money. And we make more than the actual rate and that all gets generated from it. But the rate doesn't run that fast. The best thing that could happen, the thing that we would wish for, which is the most unlikely, is that we'll get another summer user, customer, that we had in La Jolla, who did the skull. I think I told you guys about this. We made $75,000 profit both of those years. You probably see it. And it was amazing. I thought, wow, we'd use this skull. We're doing, you know, we want to have the money to finish the hezzanine. And, you know, always... Well, our pick, our costs are fixed. So anything that comes in in the summer. You know, ice is already there. Most of the labor is there. Utilities are running. So anything is incremental at that point. Nobody wants the same ice pack. And nobody wants the ice pack. And it's available other than that. So everybody wants weekend nights and weekends and whatever. During the day. And over the summer. More specifically, similar to Mike's question, but I'm curious, I don't know that we all are not, but I don't know a lot about how your board runs. So I apologize if it's redundant, but whether your board or if you have an executive committee can do any strategic planning specifically, and if that's something that's on the radar because thinking about what Mike's talking about and looking further into programs and fundraising, I think in terms of the comfort level moving forward, it'd be great to know that that's, you know, on the radar and happening. I know it's been a survival mode a lot so far, but I'd love to hear about any strategic planning you thought about and so short term, we're, you know, a budget that we're working on and working towards as well and that certainly is very similar from year to year and then it's then just starting to think of what's going to change in the next year or the next few years. We don't go out in five years or anything like that, but we do have a budget that we work on in the next few years. Part of the reason we can't go too far is because our revenue comes from, mostly from pro hockey programs. It's programs like Arwood High School and Uthake, Essex Uthake, but it's also it's paid to play private youth programs and there's a lot of competition for these guys, that's with Naha and who still is talking about what's going to get the times they want you know, the ice time and planning one rink off another while we get this over here what can you give us and we're trying to compete for there and you know, it's all we can do to book ice usually by six months in advance like right now Tim, our manager is probably looking at ice for spring and summer. Tim, you listening? So the ice time is broke for the winter we don't have to go shop around to fill that time. The schedule is full so it's the the lean months that we have to try to fill that. I'd say our missing piece from a strategic standpoint one of them would be finishing, if you haven't been in the rink there's a mezzanine above a snack one and we don't have to bandwidth but it takes fundraising. There's no ROI on that, it's a nice to have everybody would love to have a mezzanine we're not going to rent more ice but it would finish the rink we might, you know, we talk about it could be a fitness room, exercise room we might take a little money off of that not going to pay it back but it would still be nice to have but we could talk about it and probably right before the pandemic we started to think a little bit more seriously about it but even then with no pandemic we probably didn't have the bandwidth as a part-time board to figure it out. I was thinking you raised the issue the other day even if you had it I think you're subject to the American with Disabilities Act and you've got to elevate those two years I was talking about we made big money because of not we thought well maybe now's the time to finish this mezzanine because we're old and go what's to do it now, this is what we may not and Engelberg gave us an estimate to do this is just to close it and make it usable and not elevator elevator, two sets of stairs a wall of glass looking onto the ring and we had to put, there's places where there's four missing up there so we had to force a more concrete floor and whatever, 250,000 and that was seven, eight years ago probably 750,000 so I mean, is it something we'd like yeah, is it something we can put a lot of energy in to try and do it I don't think the community wants us that's not going to be why we're asking for money so going back to your comment watching the previous meeting and talking about the current situation of the direness of the ice rate you had said in our meeting that your, the majority of your revenues come from the second half of your fiscal year which is so your first half fiscal year according to this, you get 2,000 in revenue in 2019 you did 401 which is 222 more than half of where you were in 2015 so you're actually doing pretty good from a revenue standpoint so, that's great right, well, first or first but like, you are you are more than half of where you were in your last fiscal year so that to me says either you've raised which is on your item done and it sounds like your look through April what you typically would expect so it sounds like revenue so revenues it sounds like those are getting back to where you want to be so the conversation to me then goes to balance sheet that SBA loan your request to not want to take on additional debt which you might not actually have to you haven't spent it yet it's sitting there money market or whatever else but you're not in the cap position right now you wouldn't pay it down knowing we're only dealing with you and there are expenses I'm sure up to expenses but certainly payroll and utilities are driving and to clarify our busy season is actually right in the middle of our fiscal year because we go July 1st to June 30th so the year we use re-ups in the middle of our slowest season but Mark's right is good but our expenses are up and it's a cash accounting so the numbers coming out of the winter those months look better because people are paying for high spending and I think you have the bottom line it's the same I think we have the our bottom line is within $10,000 so you think in terms of where you are living in this year expenses aren't going to well exceeded you'll probably be okay it's just where you literally are from a balancing standpoint they're going to exceed it because we do have labor and utilities labor is up last year it was $14,500 this year it's $18,000 our propane cost was $1.08 a gallon this year it's $1.58 we use about 25,000 gallons a year we have a million ideas about propane cost staffing is up because we've got all these people that we hired we don't want to lose them we had to have them during the pandemic it was really bad because there was a lot of busy work but now everything's down so you can do the temperatures for that kind of thing do you have any thought on where expenses are going to land compared to like at 2019 do you have a number? I think probably a range you know 30 to 40 percent higher than our normal that's the more of you talking payroll not obviously the more of you stuff like that payroll is up so I need to know a couple things here real quick what's the payment and interest on the community national bank loan? payment? payment you owe $343 $3,400 I think it's $32.96 it's just great it's 6.25 percent the 90 percent loan guarantee from my cards okay what's the interest on the e-files so I spoke to Mark here a little bit about some thoughts that I had and I may have mentioned it to me that we had but I think there's $100,000 if we were to decide to give it to you what would be the best use and I just you just mentioned a few minutes ago about basically I won't say forgiving but postponing the payments definitely which is basically the same thing I don't know that I don't know how much interest I would have in that but I'm wondering and I'll throw this out there at 6.25 percent $32.96 I don't know how much is in that revolving loan fund if you took the $100,000 you paid down the $343 to $243 and then if there was enough money in the e-file account to buy that money out from the bank you would eliminate that $32.96 and that's all stuff that is being I'm trying to tell you that's all stuff that's been talked about and considered and it may that may be able to happen down the road you know initially about a year and a half ago or I can't remember maybe it was just a year ago in December they had paid the e-file loan down to $350,000 or something like that e-file lent them another $200,000 to buy down that loan from community and national they already did it and e-file at the time I talked about could e-file loan a little bit more the problem is is that e-file only has so much in its availability to lend out and it was like now we're not sure we want to lend $800,000 of our loan fund to one organization so I think for now my hope would be that they're in a much better position to figure out how best to use $100,000 I'm hopeful that in time maybe sometime this year it will be a town loan fund as opposed to an e-file loan fund we've already talked about that a little bit e-file commissioners are excited about that and maybe there's an opportunity later in the year to do exactly what you're doing they're already I know in conversations with banks about trying to finance that and get a lower rate maybe in the 4% range somewhere so I think all that stuff is reasonable Chris but I really don't think it's it's hard to tell you that you shouldn't care about it because obviously it's kind of money that I'm proposing that we're talking about here but I don't think it's best you have to use it this way no I was just looking for options and through discussion which puts them in a better situation so that they can operate successfully moving forward and still meet all their commitments through amortized periods of time how much have I worked in the last three years to try to do exactly that right those things Chris are all those are reasonable questions and they're all things that have been explored and looked at and done and we've done on the table because that makes it sound like it's impending that all things that we talked about and I think this pandemic has really just scrambled everything to the point where you know there were things we were thinking about things we thought might happen and then all of a sudden it's like now for the last two years we've been living month to month just trying to get through and finally this winter I've got a steady cash revenue stream going on which is great but we've also got like I mentioned there's like half a dozen capital projects that we haven't just completed or about to undertake and that's why this hundred thousand to me I'd love to pay down that that would be our first choice if this stuff hadn't come up we'd just be on the cooling tower we're about to take apart one of the compressors and a few other things and you know so we're trying to be conservative we're not reckless with this I think and I think if the pandemic was over today we still got these extra costs but we've had these problems before we figure out a way that we have to raise prices or whatever it'll take us six months and figure that out but we've got this whole that if we can come out a little bit we've just got a hold from the last twenty-two months that we'd love to be able to not have an extra hundred to do I think that the challenge Chris and paying down debt is clearly a great thing to do and there's some savings but you're talking about still the total debt is still the revolving right so even if you pay down debt and then bought out the the community national debt and had them owe only the revolving loan fund even at two percent it's a huge savings but it's not going to be a huge savings that is going to be available there's still going to have you know what they're going to have to make and these capital expenses they're going to have to draw down their reserve funds and have nothing in the bank for the next emergency so I think all of the things about debt are on the table they're working with that trying to restructure as best as possible but I think that the money will help them do the things that they need to do and give them a little bit of breathing I'm going to go to Tom Tom, go ahead when Steve Woodard started raising money it was based on perceived need and families are cooking ice time at like five in the morning in Northfield and Stowe and for a community it cost money to resources in the community whether it's fireworks or a parade of facilities and the pool over the years there's been substantial money and substantial money for the pool but it's considered valuable for town residents so I just like to say I support the ice and then they would come back next year and then the other year they would come on in the morning there's going to be a stronger argument and I want to do something for them and I would like to see the town okay, thanks Tom thank you so as I had the discussion with Mark my biggest concern is you know we you know I don't even like looking at it like this we have this powerful money that's a whole other conversation all this money that's being thrown around but we have it the fact is we have it the way we are talking about pretending this to the voters was use $100,000 of article funds so it is part of the conversation no and I understand so what I what my concern is and I express this to Mark is we're in a position now where that money releasing that money to you doesn't really impact it impact us because it's money that we didn't have to do not to say that we don't have plenty of other places to use it but we have to get rid of that money by when 2026 so let's say we don't appropriate any money for the air center right now 2026 comes and goes you guys are in a much different position where it's either get it or die at that point because you didn't get it now and we're not in a position after 2026 where we just maybe don't have it together so there's a concern there for me you know get it to them now put it in a position where they can make really good use of that make them strong for the ensuing years without damaging us too much and hope hope that it'll keep you above water for a long time yeah it certainly makes us feel a little bit less stressed knowing that there's another 100,000 we're not going to figure it out I mean obviously like any business and I know for our last conversation that you know your costs are going up you're going to have to try to figure that out through revenues whether it's ringing rates or trying to find new sources that shouldn't be a must obviously looking at your debt and how that is paid and over you know it does come down to cash for a certain extent right so you know by reducing rates and putting the costs on certain debts for just really good for you as well I definitely I still support that you know we choose to move forward on this but it should be a special article to give the voters an option to vote it separately from the main budget I do agree I think that it's a resource that should be protected and this argument is you know money that we weren't expecting to have and there are a lot of ways that we could spend it you know the more we talk through this the more you know I think it is the right thing to do you know I struggle with you know $100,000 but after doing the math that your $89,000 your cash position was in 2019 it basically gets your capital reserve on the back where it is you know the SBA loan that came out was you know a lot of businesses were using that for capital improvement and once the payments not even up for a couple of years and that came in like three or some dollars a month you probably can figure that out by the time the payments start so you might not want to pay that down even though maybe you could if you can get this through um yeah I mean it's kind of where you are on that with that I mean I'm sure you all know right now I haven't decided what's on the fifth act but you know it's great to have the opportunity for your business there's a lot of businesses that aren't going to be able to have any new funding coming from something like this that they're going to use that for their capital improvement projects because their cash got drained with love so um you know that program actually probably will work for many businesses including the order if you choose to use it and not pay it down I mean we've got I mentioned earlier to Bill there that you know one of the couple of thoughts there about something the rest of this money time goes on and I don't know when it's appropriate to have that conversation but just mentioning of it there I said you know our swimming pool can we utilize some of that money to do because our swimming pool is a dire need for some serious work you know there's other roads infrastructure that we certainly have room for some of that money as well but uh okay um Bill I mean do we need to just do a straw full on the board on where we are on this and then do we need to make a motion in this moment or no I mean it's in the warning already that you're going to talk about later as a special article um and if you know I don't think you have to do anything right now we'll discuss it as we go through the budget and at the at the special article but it is basically the board is going to potentially vote this into the special article it's up to the town to say whether or not that piece of funds is appropriate and I would clearly explain that it's coming from the ARPA funds the warning is truly such yeah so I mean there might be from you know work task finding out that we put it on to the special articles is making sure that the communities are aware of what that article means and why you know it's important that you receive this fund you know there's probably some it's a lot more transparent we feel the special article and just put it in you know I said I don't think people go with the fine comb there's a very selective people who go through the budget with the fine comb special articles that they know they have to vote yeah or vote nay nay so I think it's good and transparent and I think to be quite honest I think you'll get a lot of support within the community and we're not going to have a meeting where we can discuss it and we'll do that a lot before we'll talk about the informational meeting we might actually give us a date just to have people do feel about it yeah alright great thank you thank you very much happy to come back yeah much of a former member of the square of ARPA thank you for attending thank you thanks Bob thanks Mike thanks John recreation CIT yeah so we didn't talk about the rec CIT we're going to have to kind of go through all of it together here but the rec CIT there's a couple people in the room that are probably interested in that and I struggled to try to figure out a way to put money in the rec CIT and have it again be transparent and understandable and ultimately what I did if you look at fund 75 you've got a packet there you know a few pages in so if you look at fund 75 there's $41,840 of money proposed for spending the recreation building recreation building needs a little bit of work so the folks that are in the room and some of the people on Zoom are here probably interested in the money for the proposal for master planning at the Hope Baby Field Hope Baby Park to deal with the conflicts and trying to kind of figure out the disc golf course and how that can be continued as a shared use area inventorying the assets at the field determining where conflicts are and then and they had a proposal that Frank Spaulding the chairperson of the rec committee worked on with the rec committee that was about $35,000 and then there was folks who were interested in the skate park down potentially at the ice center and there's another handout that I put at the table that I the select board got that in the packet over the weekend where they have a timeline and then they've got some overviews of what the potential for that site could look like trying to incorporate a concrete skateboard park into the facilities down there including the ice center the current soccer fields the club park, the pump park all of the things that are down there I've included that as a special article right now in the regular general budget and that's also written into the into the warning and it can be changed if you want but Mark made the point last week that it's we kind of have this history of appropriating money from the operating funds into the into the CIPs so I felt well having a special article fund the CIP directly would be a little bit difficult so I've got special articles that will get to master planning for Hope Davy park and the ice center $50,000 there so the rec CIP itself just deals with ADA accessibility to the pool building and the rec building that's about $10,000 stating a one of the pavilions and then doing about $2,000 of work on the eaves of the rec building itself the field improvements $18,000 which is really paving the second half of the parking lot we paved half of it last year for a little short of $15,000 $18,000 this is what I put in there for this year and then the pool improvement is a lift to make the pool accessible to people in wheelchairs it's a mechanical lift as opposed to a powered lift it would have to be cranked by one of the staff people but it would allow somebody who has a wheelchair to be picked up and then lowered into the water which is something that has been talked about for a couple of years and then the tennis court improvement $3,000 to put out some windscreens so the rec CIP itself is pretty straightforward it's just dealing with those things that cost about $40,000 I do have $95,000 coming from the general fund into this CIP just for the purpose of getting the fund balance out of the rec CIP out of the red and you know it will end up fund 75 would end up with about $5,000 fund balance and the consolidated balance of all the CIPs together you'll see there is about $6,600 to me as I told you before I don't think it's all that necessary to do that we've got a lot of cash but some people like to see all the funds with a positive balance if we can we can't get all of the CIP funds to a positive level because a couple of them are you know a couple hundred thousand dollars in the hole but it's been that way and improving over time so I think the rec CIP is as I said to reiterate straightforward I don't think that's the issue that people are here to talk about tonight I think there are people who are just here hoping that they'll be money in the budget somewhere to fund this master plan as I indicated to you in the memo that I sent out the other day and the memo that I sent out last week you know there's still a little bit of back and forth amongst people on the rec committee about this money I think it would be helpful to get some master planning done for these parks but it's $50,000 and it's a little bit nebulous right now what you're going to get for that and I told Frank Spalding I don't know if Frank is here or not at the meeting I told Frank and I told Nick that if the $50,000 is funded we're going to have to tighten up this the scope that they kind of put together and you know get some real deliverables and right now I'm not in a position to say what's going to be delivered or not so there are a few people here in the building tonight that have an interest in the master planning at the ice center site I'm not too concerned that that property is not owned by the town right now I believe the select board of chief like commissioners have indicated a willingness to have that property transferred to the town one way or the other my hope is that it will happen through a merger of the two entities where the town simply takes all the assets and property of the fund and it becomes town property but for some reason that falls through both boards have already indicated a willingness to have transfer a title to those properties and we kind of put that on hold with a lawyer doing that because it doesn't seem if we can have it happen without spending additional money for lawyers beyond what we need for a merger that would be the better way to have it happen so my name is Bell McDougall and I'm from Warbeard Center I think I know everybody too much Mike and I are here representing the Warbeard Skate Park project I'm also here representing the River Road Park Alliance which is a group of stakeholders of folks who have current projects down at the 40 acre parcel by the ice center who have come together and tried to support the town to work towards updating the master plan and we all want to be at the table when that is designed and done and participate in that support regress committee and other people in that process and basically just want to speak to support bills vision and recommendation to include this funding for the master plan work we feel like now is a good time we have a lot of people lined up who are interested in and we have momentum and a lot of people with skills who can contribute and I don't know I was a little confused about the funding for the master planning I thought Steve Lott's speech was going to contribute some numbers about what he thought it might cost to do some master plan updating at the river road park so I don't know yeah we haven't had very significant conversations about that the hope was and I talked with Frank Spalding and I talked with Vic and I talked with Steve briefly that if they think they're $35,000 is something that would get us something to help David that we would put the project out to bid when we kind of solidify what we're really asking for as far as deliverables are concerned and we think that for $50,000 we can do a reasonably good job I mean the master plan it's not like nothing exists for the for the ICENT but there's already an existing Act 250 permit that has already been reviewed we're going to have to move kind of some of the pieces around one of the critical elements from my perspective and it doesn't cost anything to do with our master planning is it would be wonderful if we could come up with the funding to move that road you know go through where it's narrow as it passes where Fastrash is what a lot of people call his operation it's probably not Fastrash anymore but where the road narrows through but then when it breaks out once you get past where the water parking lot is and pass the culvert that gets you across up into the Grand Desert you know the road now goes right down through the middle of the property and if it could be relocated over closer to the railroad track you'd pick up a whole bunch of room and moving that on a plan it's not hard to do it's just you know once the plan is put in place then you've got to come up with the funding to do what needs to be done I understand that piece of the process but when we met did we decide that the existing Act 250 permit has the road in the position that it's in so we're not out of compliance in the Act 250 plan as it exists now but as we go through updating the master plan we can start working on that now even though we know that we might not move that road because it's going to be expensive so we just want to approve the work towards you know getting going on updating the master plan tonight and that's $50,000 it's in the budget to do that not the whole but 35 of that is going to help Davey right yeah okay so you said you don't know that's the best I know about no I know but I'm just saying that leaves $15,000 that we might contribute to updating the master plan I'm hoping that in other words it's economies of scale right if you go to a consultant and you say we've got these two things I think my hope is that it's cheaper to do both of them so maybe it doesn't cost $35,000 to do Pope Davey if you put it out as a consolidated project I think we can get a reasonable amount of planning done for that amount of money for both locations so we're going to talk about meeting so there is grant sourcing floor master planning so especially if you know someone is going into it from the town if there's match requirements that we have you whatever that funding gap is could possibly fill them that's great and I see what you're saying about consolidating and I think that's fine I just didn't want to get bogged down on the road because I don't want people to worry that we're trying to pay for that right now yeah and I just want voters to understand that it's moving forward with the next generation of recreation to fix up these parks and make them better for everybody as far as the process goes is it sounding like almost a direct committee would head up the master plan redoing whether it's an old baby or the ice center area or is it really a steep low stage thing that group yeah it's my expectation is that there will be a little bit of input from the direct committee as we try to more solidify a scope of work to identify the deliverables what we're looking for and consultant to do and then once that happens then it's going to be municipal staff that will work with the consultants so Steve would be very engaged, Nick Nadeau the direct director would be very engaged and of course it would get reported on back to the direct committee and to the select board but ultimately if it's approved by the voters then it's up to staff and and just to kind of allay people's fears asked about potential grant funding if the money is approved in this year's budget we can we we can move the proposed expenditure into any fund that we want once it's appropriated and you know my hope is that we would see something actually accomplished this year but if we ended up deciding that we needed to apply for additional grant funding the money could be it wouldn't be lost if the whole thing or any of it wasn't done this year if it gets approved as well we could move it into a project based budget and that appropriation would be there and we wouldn't have to come back next year to forget another appropriation that's what I'm trying to let you know I think just the next step down the line is getting the sort of the MOU if you will to use that property maybe before some of these things are fully cooked like the master plan being completely done I mean is there any way to get that agreement so that we can start fundraising yeah I don't know unfortunately that's the challenge because E-Flight owns the property right now and while they've expressed a desire and a willingness to move it I don't think they're going to enter into an MOU with anybody for any other appropriation thing so I'm hopeful that hopefully after town meeting if certain things pass in this budget talking to the select board I don't think it's impossible to have a merger vote happen as early as maybe the November election and I'd like to see work towards that but it's not my call maybe the E-Flight people will agree to an MOU maybe the E-Flight commissioners will come to the select board after town meeting when we have a new select board because there's a couple of these folks who aren't running maybe they can work something out together to move forward with an MOU but I'm not in a position to say that's a slam dunk that's what I would have suggested was a conversation between the board if MOUs seem to be proven at the time the first thing to do to kind of solidify things that if one of the select board agreed to the E-Flight on an MOU with the intention that everything switches over it just calls a deed you know so my question briefly if you don't mind this master planning are you suggesting that can you tell me a little bit about what you think the master planning would include are you talking about the design of how this is laid out or where things are going to go I mean that's there somebody from their organization put that together it's nothing that propounded you know does it have all the needs that we'd like to see as a community there there's certain things the material storage area that the town uses is basically here now and it has to be moved in order to they've got I guess two phases of potential I mean the there's a lot of assumptions in that drawing that nobody here has agreed to there could be a lot of moving parts here one of them being looking at the road system that might not be such a bad place for it at the end of the day moving it at where it exists where it exists depending on who gets hired to design this thing they might look at that and say that's not bad right where it is or I'm sure they'll look at moving it but I'm just curious to know what that was all about so between the 50,000 that's been put in there and possible other revenue sources through grants or whatnot 50,000 might not know where they are will we have you here have we had any kind of conversation with the skatepark on a more global other than talking about some issues we had and then conversation about another version of the skatepark happening we had hoped to tell you guys about the project and we pulled together that presentation so that we could tell you about the work that we have done up to this day and that was the location that's on that presentation was recommended by Steve Laws Beach because there aren't any other feasible or in our search there weren't any other good sites downtown which is where we wanted it that site has a lot of advantages in that it's that parcel right there is out of the floodplain so that was a benefit the lighting and the parking and the other recreational assets and projects that are happening there with the perihill biking and the ice center and capitol soccer and as you know capitol soccer has a plan and they're shovel ready to try to put in another field but none of us can start working on the projects down there until we update the master plan and get it approved through act 250 and so tonight we were just here to support Bill's idea to put a little bit of money in the budget if it's approved so that we can create a process to redesign and start moving forward with with some of that the ideas that are out there so we have a lot of people who are very excited to participate in the process and engage the community and but to do it we have to get going on the master plan and if it takes a year and a half for eFUD and Bill's vision and the town's vision to come together and merge those eFUD assets and liabilities then that's great we support that vision we just don't want to have a year and a half go by and feel like we haven't accomplished anything to get going on some of the master plan planning that we hope we can accomplish how much and thank you for this this is actually more detailed than I think and we talk a lot about the strength of our recreation program and how that program can grow without too much of a burden on taxpayers how much just because this presentation talks a lot about I know that there will be conversation about just the right location through the master plan about how the preliminary budget has to met I think the other thing that we talk a lot about is what's our long term cost how much is that being discussed I think that's really important for us to understand and we get behind programs and support them whether we're moving forward or adjusting the budget understanding that's really important for us no doubt I mean we've heard that the first time I talked to Chris about a year and a half ago up at the Hope Day Escape Park which really has kind of you know it's about 10 years old 10 and a half years old and on its last legs but great nonetheless but Chris's first comment was you've got to have a long term sustainable maintenance plan we want to see it we want to see how much it's going to cost regardless of you know you guys raising the money which is fantastic you've got to have that plan and the other issues that came up are security that is foremost in our thoughts too we want to make sure that the model is a success and it's going to take a lot of work I mean but it's going to take a lot of work together and we have to work with the recreation committee we have to we want to work with experts in art design and we want to have a model that probably is quite integrated with the town's recreation department and there's a lot of work to do so we're not ready to answer all of those questions yet but I can tell you there's a lot of interest and a lot of work amongst the people who are working on this to make it a success so we need to gather the people that are in support of this we have the support of the recreation committee in concept and they think it's a good idea they're behind it I feel like Bill and Steve and Nick Nitto are also in support of the project but we need to get the data so that we can work with you to approve it at some point as well and we're not there yet I have a couple of questions just looking at the map and just kind of thinking at box I know earlier they mentioned about possibly relocating the road up more toward the railroad tracks which would be kind of sort of right where the existing skate park is and also the pump track the pump track the pump track is there a possibility I know there's nothing and again I'm not totally on the little familiar with the area but the area on the of the clump of trees the triangle kind of trying almost across from where the parking area to the mountain like area is is that a feasible spot at all I think right here I think that clump of trees is in the flood plain that side of the road so it's not as optimal but that's also a historic home site and so Steve could speak to that that has some issues there that are resolved so it's not really a good usable area and I think this all really begs the master plan that's got out and we shouldn't try to figure this out and the one the main reason for I think trying to move the road is that capital soccer would like another full sized soccer field that's really no place to do that except kind of right in the middle yeah but the yeah the feasibility of moving the road is so expensive that it may be that we have to get creative about whether we want to do that or not but that's all part of it the other more nuts and bolts kind of issue on here it mentioned two phases of cost of about $550,000 I assume you're just talking about the work that's going you know in this game park area yeah well we hope that we can contribute to optimizing signage improve security lighting security cameras and maybe sidewalks but we don't have the number of the data on that expense yet but that's something like some sort of a sort of something mentioned about something based upon other parts yeah what's the hope rate now in terms of fundraising just what we have here are you hoping that you're able to fundraise the majority of this cost and then the town takes over and it's kind of ongoing annual costs yeah I think the kind of preliminary model is that we would fundraise the all of phase one expenses up to $350,000 and um that phase two would have to come later based on the success of phase one um the sustainability model would be um hopefully the park would actually create revenue for the town whereby we could run successful skate camps throughout the summer and generate some revenue for a water barrier recreation but also for other groups who want to come and it's a very popular thing, summer camp up at the Adon park at the Manchester park again they generate upwards of $15,000 to $20,000 a year in their parks skate parks um so that's a good thing and so maintenance wise after talking to parks of similar size and construction they say you should budget $5,000 to $10,000 a year um it doesn't happen right away but over the 30 40 years of the park's existence you're going to have stuff that happens and um that's what we're thinking towards so um we can also run tournament of you know skate um competition and raise some funds too so that we can generate some revenue have any of the other competing skate parks mentioned anything about this I know skateboarding apparently I know if I was that age at that point I'd probably be a skateboarder but it's not the safest thing in the world you know what liability issues and I think based on our experience at the other park we haven't had significant injuries that have required even an ambulance in the last 11 years that I know of but you're getting more people coming from other places there will be injuries but I think that the skate parks under the town's liability for parks and recreation so there's going to be some impact but we don't know when skate parks were first coming into bold there was a big concern part of our insurance pool and then as time went by the risk was nowhere near as high as the field was anyway we've spent a lot of time talking about this aspect of the $50,000 um I don't know if the board wants to I don't have a lot of information but I can say much about Hope Davey I know Mark and Danny were at a meeting a couple weeks ago that was really boring talking about an agreement between the user group and the town which is still kind of you know fits and starts we've got some drafts at some point that may come to the board but the desire for some planning at Hope Davey in the field is also included in that $50,000 proposal too well I'm going to express one concern that's always been part of my philosophy I guess you know I'm looking at this park I think it's great there certainly wasn't anything like this sort when I was a kid that's why we roam the woods backwoods every day for something to do so that's all what it really was we did by an occasion come to Waterbury Bill Swindon and we thought that was the greatest thing in the world but ultimately it's the long term funding as I have expressed to you um prior when we talked at the center you know we're looking at the ice center a lot of different organizations here with different recreational programs and sounds like most of these are private individual organizations group organizations that are kind of taking on their own little thing but at the end of the day you know like I mentioned to the guys that were here about the ice center volunteerism is fading in a lot of cases many different types of organizations and a lot of times when things like this are created it seems like by default the town ends up having to take them over for whatever number of different reasons either they don't have to volunteer them anymore or they don't have the funding anymore and I'm just wondering I mean I think that's the model is to avoid you know what's happening potentially at the ice center being more dependent on the town's health and I think our vision is that it is the town asset to begin with that we want to work on a model where it belongs to the town and the town is responsible for the skate park eventually but tonight we're not really wanting to talk about that because we're not ready we just want to make sure that you know that we're in support of adding the $50,000 you know to start working on this and work on the master plan so there are a lot of out buying questions and we do want to address them and we do want to be totally engaged with the town and the select board and all the community to make sure that people support the skate park but we're not there yet and so if we can start working to update that master plan then we can keep taking baby steps towards this and without going into too much detail I think the thing just like you're talking about that it was you came in the pool and water-based skate parks are becoming used just like pools and I think a concrete skate park is less maintenance lasts a significant long year there's the upfront expense is one of the most difficult to achieve which obviously your focus is going to be on fundraising so that barrier of entry you don't have these crazy cooling costs of ice rink and compressor everything that like you look at their budget and even just the number of people that it takes to run this is significantly different and I put it under the cool it's like a cool but it's way less than a cool but I hear you and then and I know you hear Austin I unfortunately believe in the board but I think my comment is just going to be realistic and upfront it's possible the ongoing possibility like this would be and that will go a long way forward to forth absolutely I don't see why it's only $50,000 to get rid of around that $50,000 master plan conversation going back to now leaving the skate park conversation and back to the rest of me that we attended and just talking you know I don't know and Nick you're on the call right $35,000 master planning at Hope Davey versus paying somebody to identify where the where the basically like disc golf courses is kind of pushed their way into certain things like wetland you don't think that we could take on some of that challenge ourselves and then make sure that there's also a walking path that allows users it seems like the two uses that really wanted are people who want to walk and people that want to play disc golf do we need to spend $35,000 or someone to tell us projects that are similar so that doesn't include the design of a walking path or anything you might remember about that it talks about the literables but it's basically I can't tell you what exactly that group is going to be able to do $35,000 from past projects you know they would ideally be able to identify right users and conflicts you don't think we already know but we have a consultant so the first thing they would all do is they would identify and come up with a report that says these are the uses they want to do but we don't end up with even a design to move forward and then we have to spend more money to hire an engineer to then lay out this seems like can we go right to step two which is hire somebody that can identify wetlands well you just give it to me easy and after resource they'll come up and delineate wetland areas and you probably could get a lot of use but who would you like to do that for for the most part the wetlands are on maps already and part of the problem is that the existing disc golf course is built across wetlands and I think there's some issues there and I have mixed feelings about it on the one hand it's maybe open pandora's box a little bit if you have somebody come in and you do a whole study about it but you know somebody right in the night can figure out how to resolve the conflicts that are made I'm just trying to figure out a way that we can ultimately get to a point that we can design something and I think you need some information first but you know I'm not a planer, I'm not a parks designer this is not my strong suit Frank Spalding works in facilities for the state parks he's on the rec committee he kind of came up with this proposal so I'm just trying to get it in front of the board and and that's why when I talked to Nick and Frank I said I said it at the beginning of this meeting this is a little bit nebulous and we're going to have to tighten this up if we're going to actually go out there and ask somebody to provide a report or a map or whatever it is we're going to ask for so the $35,000 you know in some senses it's like okay we don't need to spend it but then I'm not sure if we're throwing good money at a problem that's can't be solved given what the conflicts are or maybe we get something good at it but I think if we're going to do anything with planning we need to have the money you don't have to spend the money until we know what we're going to do but having the money in the budget is what I'm trying to facilitate at this point so Mark's question it doesn't we might be able to and Nick correct me maybe find ways around all of this money going to just an assessment maybe some of it can go to actual design or planning right is that what you're kind of asking Mark we know that the two uses that we're trying to protect are walking and disc golf can we just hire a civil engineer or whatever entity that is to design spend the money designing where it needs to be and then challenge disc golfers to modify the course accordingly and then figure out how to build in the trial network and then if we solve the problem to me that's like can I finish what I was going to say hold on Nick can you hold on a second there's a pretty good possibility that people from the agency and natural resources would come up there they would delineate the wetland areas for you for free they also would probably give you a pretty good idea of what you could and couldn't do in those areas and that may go to that may put you in a better position it's part of what you're talking about right now as to what the golf course is allowed to do and what the walking paths are allowed to do and that can give you a better sense on the direction that you got ahead and then maybe get somebody on board to design around what you've been told by the agency and the natural resources that would be my first you know and that hasn't been done we haven't had somebody from there at the park right not not mine then because for instance my fields at my house are mostly wetlands but I'm allowed to cut them all and try not to run with as far as my roadway for a road driveway across the wetlands or something like that it's conditional use permit that's an extreme compared to what you guys are doing with just walking paths and stuff like that but it would give you a pretty good idea of what you would be allowed to do maybe a lot of this expense wouldn't have to be incurred I guess one of my point questions we're going to do Nick, then Tom and then Mike Nick, go ahead so in the case of the skate park you know that has that's a new asset that's something that I see honestly that money is better as far as the analysis part that parcel is less defined as the look baby that's going to be based on wetlands analysis maybe we're talking about altering it but if there's already a disc golf course there's already walking path which I'd love to see grow more I think that can happen without math or plans the ice center that's a new asset that's definitely deserving of funds and what Bill said earlier I think just combining the two adds kind of a cost saving opportunity where maybe we could click antics one of those for baby things part of it and they focus a little more on the desire of the ice center Tom I just want to say that in terms of engineering we can do engineering planning until you know what soil you're working on if you're dealing with five year old ANR maps they're constantly updated and they're updated by ANR people that are on the ground assessing what's there so I don't know how many of you have looked at the most recent maps but there are a number a large portion, not a large portion but a proportion of the multi-use area is class 2 wetlands that involve class 2 wetland regulations including buffer zones and they have to do with burn pools and it's all clear to see you just go on the mapping site of ANR and you can understand all of this and then all of the restrictions in terms of what you can and can't do with the soil say irrigation digging which has already been done and other things there are a whole set of rules of what you can and can do by what a class 2 wetland is so I thought part of the plan was to have a good understanding of the composition of the area and use that as a basis of understanding informing someone who is trying to do a master plan and an engineering plan so it sounds like Nick seemed to support that conversation that maybe that's where that direction is going because to me what I've heard was that it was going to be $35,000 and it sounds like maybe we were just going to find out that the two uses are going to be disc golf and walking and we haven't done it we didn't get anywhere so that's good and I think tonight all we just need to say is that all we want is to put $50,000 to the budget to continue the work and hopefully Davey and that includes $15,000 approximately budgeted for the River Road master plan work to continue towards the ultimate goal that Skate Park folks are hoping for but also helps as we potentially take that asset of that whole part into our possession and I agree with that except I would just say it's $50,000 to be spread across both parks getting what we don't say $35,000 and $15,000 okay and where exactly is that $50,000 in this budget? it's in the general budget right now it's in the special articles so it's not in the CIP? no it's not in the CIP if the article passes then probably we'll ultimately get it in the CIP so it won't be lost like I said before for whatever reason if we can't get it spent this year then we'll still have the appropriation one question about being in a special article that people are voting on on how meeting day is would it be helpful if the River Road Park Alliance wrote a letter in the Waterbury Record just saying we hope you will support this because of I mean it brings attention to it does it help to do that? yeah sure thanks so much appreciate it now Bill I noticed in that article that we don't mention that that could potentially be easily classified as because the use of the use of ARCO funds for the ICE Center did you have to determine if that was actually a fair use of ARCO funds or are we using that as the lost revenue of $100,000? it's included in the lost revenue so should we also consider putting that in article 8? well we can we can get there so from a voter's perspective and really it's true that we can pull these lost revenue funds in to support some of this and it feels less impactful I think right so anyway do you want me to just start hitting the highlights of how the budget is built right now? so on the fund 76 we already talked about that as the municipal building operating fund but I took to heart what Chris said last week and I said well maybe there is a way that we can put money aside for buildings and the way to do that is to remain fund 74 just the fire station's CIP where we would be parking money to help future you know, not agents but when you have to spend money to start replacing roofs and things like that the capital fund so I just changed the line I had $20,000 in the new equipment fund and I said the hope is that we won't actually buy the equipment it's just to help build the fund balance there I put the $20,000 now on a line that says transfer to reserve fund that would go into fund 74 which would be the fire station and municipal building reserve fund and we can try to build that up so can I actually have a quick question because I got some notes here so does that mean that we would be are we going to still leave that line of new equipment there or is that going away? the line is still there but it's not going to have any money I meant from here on out the line will be there because there could be new equipment that you need to this building at some point so then the way that the next thing to do is just look at the CIP budgets and what I've done here is tried to get ultimately the fund 70 through 75 to have an aggregate positive balance at the end of the year because Mark asked a question about that last week and you've seen that people felt better if it was in the positive I took the pilot money out of the CIP as a direct revenue so if you look at fund 70 you'll see there's a transfer from the highway fund that's $405,000 in 2022 as opposed to 308 80 and that is apparently the pilot differences you know it's up by $100,000 and it's just to we've increased the highway department transfer into the CIPs so there's no more pilot money going directly into the CIPs that'll all just go in the general fund and then it will get transferred over in the line items that say you know two capital funds from the various budgets that have that fund 71 $200,000 for the grant for the main street for the downtown program we talked about that last week I did have a meeting with Bill Woodruff and Karen Nevin and happily we think that the sidewalks that we are proposing to do on Randall Street we had $113,000 I think it was last week on the sidewalk line I've dropped that to $20,000 and the sidewalks for Randall Street and then we need to connect Park Road from Main Street to Randall Street to make the Randall Street sidewalks eligible and that sidewalk needs to be done so of that $240,000 there's money for sidewalks there there's money for new lights at the Weston Park to make them match the Main Street lighting and you know those lights those lights need to be changed out anyway because if you look out it's not in particular well so that was a little bit of a boost to be able to shift that money to the downtown program the enhancement grant we've already been awarded that grant it's about $175,000 and it will fund the $30,000 of Main Street ineligible items that were not eligible for the 2% funding that we got we had to pay for some of those things on our own some of that had to do with you know the interpretive wayfinding sites, the kiosks trash receptacles and some benches so we're going to pay for all that money all those projects in 2022 $140,000 but we'll have grant money coming in as well so that is kind of a wash I did provide your packet tonight there's well that's the next one so we talked about the $62,000 for the culvert that's on the last show just beyond the trail the building improvements at the highway garage we talked about that last week and that reservoir road $200,000 for that so that's not any different than what we looked at last week except that we've got a benefit from that main street that downtown program fund 72 that's the highway vehicles I did put a little never-only packet tonight it was right in front of the CIT where I got some information from Bill Woodruff about the 10 ton roller and the Harley brake and that's what they would be used for right now I've got them in the budget still there was some question last week as to whether they would stay if they come out then the transfer from the from the highway fund into the CIPs would go down a little bit and the request for ARPA funding I would lower that as opposed to taxes to the town's benefit although I did propose in these budgets that we would use you know quite a bit of ARPA funding that would still have $646,000 remaining if we're going to reduce any of the transfers I guess I would I would reduce the use of ARPA money and leave the taxes as they are as I indicated I got the tax rate down to it's between 52 and 53 cents with a one and a half percent increase in the grand list I'm hoping that estimate is low so I think that there's a good likelihood we would be able to have a certainly no higher than a 53 cent tax rate so savings, anything that you pull out of the budget my recommendation would be to reduce the two ARPA lines as opposed to reducing the taxes because I think you can save that ARPA money and Chris already talked about some potential uses down the road I think it's easier to use that if you have it than not so does anybody have any comments about the roller or the harley rake yeah, I mean thinking about the two items if I were to use between the two I would probably have the harley rake than the roller the town typically because of the size machine that the town has we replace certain size culverts which typically you've got a trend that's you know this wide most generally for 18 inch culverts or 2 foot culverts you don't get real big wide sloths having a roller there is whenever we replace culverts we have a jumping jack it's important to it's about the only things that will fit in trenches like that that will do a good job then to pack around the culverts so it doesn't settle won't have them a lot afterwards rollers are really insignificant when it comes to doing the proper jobs or those types of things and to think that you're going to use this roller to roll complete gradient roads I think would be you know a pretty big ask wouldn't be much less of that thing in a couple of years and when we get into anything other than standard size culverts we usually hire them we can't handle those types of things anyway so it's not for culverts I heard explanation there that's Woody's explanation for it I have a roller myself I use it to roll driveways once in a while that's about all I use it for so I think most of the time that thing would just set to be honest with you I don't know my opinion we really need that I would concede on the Harley brake though I think the Harley and they pointed out using that in places you know even on portions of Ringo except in the greater up there it's tough I think the Harley brake I agree makes some sense makes some sense can you remind me of a cause I don't have a 68 or 50 it's all in that package I didn't know that I got that $13,000 to $15,000 on the Harley I just had to text my friend there the other night when we were talking about that he texted me back there he said he was paying $13,000 for his it's months out getting one but here we are in the middle of winter what's your opinion? right and if if it's $13,000 I'd still budget $15,000 I don't know I kind of agree with Chris I think the Harley brake is a good investment I question the 10 ton roller is a nice thing do we need it and are we going to need it a lot I question that I know we like to use Donald's roller I probably liked it as a result but I think it's going to have limited use at a pretty expensive price yeah I'll take Chris first you know you know that world better than I it sounds like it sounds like they're not pressing hard for that roller and it's a must I don't think it's a must yeah I'm going to agree with that and if it's a must taking it's a good cheat year and was there ever a conversation I asked you last week but I don't know if you managed to ask Bill that where would they store it he thought that they'd be able to find room but you know it's so I'm hearing a consensus that we take the $68,000 out and take it from our box and my recommendation is that I would reduce then I'll kind of go through all the moving products on the budget but I would reduce the amount of powerful money that we're using in order to eliminate this there's plenty of needs for the opera when we get into the budgets we're going to re-discuss the idea we can't I mean it's not the budget is the budget in the ultimate into the operating budgets where the taxes are raised if you have issues with the CIP we can come back to it alright so I've removed the Harley rake from the vehicle CIP the fire vehicle CIP it's just wanting going in there's no expense except there so $119,410 going into the fire vehicle CIP and then $86,600 going into that fire stations and municipal center we came from that I talked about a little bit ago and we can I think that amount should go that's just so everybody's on the same page for the fire department the proposal is $206,010 going into the two CIPs so we could split it the 206 is a little bit higher than last year and we've already decided that we should try to do that so I think that's the number that should be transferred if anybody wants to quiggle and say well we should put more in the vehicle and less in the fire stations we can do that but I think that I thought Chris's idea was to get somebody into that reserve fund for the buildings as quickly as we could so yeah that would do that now and then I would adjust it down maybe in a future year so no I'm tickled right to death so what it amounts to is $118,000 what's going to be in that fund yeah because there's about $12,000 we're talking about $106,000 go to the next page so which number? $124,000 so I was going to ask you that last page that you looked at stuff at the top because the fund balance it didn't no build on an expense column here fund 74 I put a note here should there be two more aligned items here and the municipal building municipal building operating improvement and library improvement in here we just put it in the municipal and I will add a line that says municipal building improvement but it's the whole building well I didn't know if you wanted to keep library the library the municipal building funds the building together I don't think we should look through that so I will add a line item to include municipal expenses in here but they're not proposed for this year right? and then we talked about fund 75 a little bit ago again almost $42,000 of spending I think those are all good expenses if we had to take something away I guess I would say I would take the parking lot away and live another year with that bad payment on part of it but I think we can do all of that and I think it makes sense to do and that $95,000 is coming into the RECCIP as I said just gets the whole CIP including the RECCIP above water if you will so any big concerns with the $42,000 almost should I think of that? so with consolidated CIP budget are you there's no concern that the area over as budgeted would only be $6600 would that be funded or not? well it's just because in addition to Apple we've got a couple million dollars in the bank we have pretty hefty fund balances in the other funds and if we plow it all into the CIPs then in future years you might have to raise the taxes more I think that I always look at our assets holistically we've got cash assets and if something happened even in the fund that we didn't have money in I would use those cash assets to meet that need before I would go out and borrow money or raise the taxes significantly so I think it's fine I trust you there it just feels a little scary sometimes I know these are supposed to be capital improvement or CIPs supposed to be like putting money aside over the years to pay for things and when it comes out normally it's basically net even it scares me a little bit so I want to piggyback you just to get help and I'm sorry if you want to do that you could do it with ARPA money if you wanted to and move more of it into the CIP you said kind of park it there that in a sense eats up some of your ARPA money but it saves it for capital expenses which is really what it should be spent for or I would say if it were me I wouldn't be afraid to make the tax rate $0.54 instead of $0.52 put another $140,000 over there you asked me to try to get a $0.52 $0.53 tax rate so that's what I've done but $0.53 might do that anyways because if grand less grows more if you round it up the way the budget works out right now it's like $0.52 $0.6 I think and you know you could round that down or up it's $0.52 $0.6 is what everything so if you if the time comes if you set a $0.53 tax rate and that grand less has grown more then you've got a little bit of money and you'd have to remember next year to because that's going to be a fund balance and general fund you'll have to remember next year to move it over so if you wanted to you could move some more money into the CIP and flex the tax a little bit and when the time comes we can do that and I'll still be here in July when we're setting the tax rate so I can remember all this remember all this at that time so remember one penny on the grand list it's pushing $80,000 now $76 or something like that so you could get if you wanted this CIP funds to be $80,000 instead of $6,000 to the good you could put that tax rate off to $0.53 and I would have the money in this budget if you wanted to do that I would add to say $80,000 to the transfers get it in the CIP but I still think you can have a $0.53 tax rate and do that my biggest concern was that after or before the arbor money is gone should we create a positive fund balance in the CIPs and once before so that it does kind of feel strange to zero that the CIPs out essentially this year but you were saying separate from our but there's also just cash balance significant just feels odd that there's zero in those funds out exactly a couple of people that do dive into these numbers are we going to hear concerns because we haven't done those transfers and it looks like we're leaving the CIPs for a drive but people probably also will be able to look at the balance sheet and say we're up there we've tried to refrain from touching our assets our surplus revenues invested funds whatever we usually try to agree from surplus in our CIPs in anticipation of truck replacements and stuff like that let's maybe go through the rest of the budget this might form this and you might decide what you want to do it so let's just move so in terms of the spending on fund 75 that $41 $84 is okay right everybody's good with that moving on to the the general operating budget at that little table at the top what I'm showing you there is that would have to raise this budget requires raising $75,000 more in taxes this year than it did last year now we've already just taken $68,000 out for that rollback and my recommendation is that I would reduce the opera transfers in the Highland Fund and leave the taxes as it is so anyway $75,000 more which is not quite a penny on the tax rate I've only I've estimated a one and a half percent increase in the grand list and if all that comes true there could be between 52 and 53 cents depending on which way you round and if you round up a half a cent you gain about $36,000 $38,000 if you round down obviously you give that back there's nothing really different in the governmental revenues there at the top of the page the village administrative service fee I propose the five percent increase there but pilot is the big deal here all of the pilot money that we're anticipating is showing up there now at Mark's suggestion last week I think that was a good suggestion so $350,000 which is another fund last year we got $330,000 in the general fund and we went to the payment fund so it's a level fund maybe we'll get a little bit more I hope we get level funding everything else that we talked about last week the service fees that's all pretty standard based on what we talked about last week the recreation fees, the planning how Clark speaks real quick villa on that pilot payment do you remember what 2020 was do you have any concern that all of a sudden we'd be surprised that a shortfall of $100,000 there how does that work in terms of we are probably one of the huge unique towns that have a payment that's this high for pilots so how do we find comfort in budgeting with that well because two years the payments come in November so in 2020 we received over $300,000 I don't have 2020 here with me but we received over $300,000 even though we were by the time the payment came we're already six months into the pandemic last year right in the middle of the worst prior to the pandemic when I know that restaurants and other places a lot of people must have been buying through Amazon and things online but I'm also hopeful Mark that in addition to us not figuring out necessarily how we can spend all the money that we have the states in the position right now where they're saying jeez how the heck are we going to spend all this money so I'm pretty confident that we're going to get it yeah I would back that comment as well I think that number is probably going to be right on the line if you look down here now on the second page or as we get toward the bottom of the revenues I've removed completely the money coming from the tax stabilization fund so not only did I remove $50,000 that was supposed to be moved in the 2021 budget I built this budget without a transfer in 2022 either so if you put $50,000 in there I had $52,500 there last week I think if you put that in that's about five eighths of a cent on the tax rate or it's $52,000 that you can come out of that opera and leave it at the bank so if you wanted to put more money in the CIPs it's a real easy way right here you could say let's put $35,000 let's put $50,000 whatever you could repopulate that line if you will and have some money available be there I've got the opera money for the e-fund and then build the $120,000 that was going into this fund here that assumes the $100,000 special item passes before we get too far on that I don't answer that idea I don't know if the other two board members have to come over and bring the CIP and then we'll see where we land at the end of the year and maybe it doesn't have to come over from tax stabilization that's fine so you want to have a group and you want to input $50,000 and then add some money to the tax stabilization and then we can see where we get out of the year $50,000 but again knowing the board knows that revenues in the process of where how the budget end up could be the same as 2021 where all the time that transfer just doesn't happen alright the other thing that I tried to point out in the memo that I wrote is that there are a number of things in the spending side of the budget that are kind of one time expenses so this first regular pay line $327,000 it's $20,000 less than it was last year but that's because Barb essentially has retired and we lost revenue there we were getting some of her expenses were being paid with revenue from the state so we lost the revenue but we also lost the expense but there is $8,000 so on that is for Barb that we just signed a contract for you just agreed to the contract for there's a couple months of overlap between me and the new municipal manager in that line item so that overlap will go away in the future year the computer services line item that same thing goes for things like health insurance as well in that line and all of the payroll expenses social security retirement all kind of carrying that overlap the professional services other line there's $10,000 in that line that I just plugged in there for recruiting a new manager I don't know how you're going to do that Bridal world went out and the headhunting firm and I think they spent $15,000 trying to find a new town manager I recommend to you that maybe you go through BLCT there'll probably be a charge for it I would hope that maybe it wouldn't have to be that high but that line item is higher than it would normally be down two thirds of the way down there's an $80,000 transfer to the reappraisal fund I was talking to Dan Sweep last week we're likely going to be at below 85% common level of appraisal probably after this year we're dropping kind of precipitously at that level the state requires you to move forward on an reappraisal it's a process according to Dan this year probably in 2024 you could actually get a reappraisal fund because there are not many reappraisal firms or appraisal firms out there that do this kind of work so you kind of got to get why the state gives us about $21,000 a year that we put into a reappraisal fund and we used to take a little bit of money out of that reappraisal fund every year like $6,000 or $8,000 to support what we were doing but a couple of years ago we stopped doing that because we knew that eventually we'd have to pay for an appraisal so right now there's $105,000 in the reappraisal fund we're going to get $21,000 this year next year so that will get up to about $150,000 I've got an $80,000 transfer going into the reappraisal fund from the in essence ARPA money right now if you cut that in other words you don't have to get it I think the reappraisal is going to cost somewhere $250,000 in all range according to what Dan and I talked about so we're not going to do a reappraisal this year so if you worst case scenario I wouldn't fund less than $25,000 if you did $25,000 this year next year and the year after or $26,000 for three years in a row that would be about the plan that we move over in that time frame so you can reduce this I would put something on that line but it doesn't have to be me that's not the question was will we hire a private firm to do this or if Dan would work with them but I don't think Dan has been with or the experience to do a full I mean he does a really good job doing what he's doing for us and it's well worth the money that we're paying him he works 28 hours a week he also works for Duxbury doing the same he kind of does it with Tom Vickery but he doesn't have the experience that Tom Vickery had so I'm pretty certain that we're the company because Tom used to do ours Tom did ours he did three in my time here he did two of them by himself and then there was one that he helped a company do I know there were submissions in Burlington with that array of frazel company they hired so obviously it's important to figure out one that understand our region something happened there I don't know exactly what Duxbury used to do still I think the problem there was the changing demographics in the market I think you saw a lot of people's frazel rates would go away I don't know it's exactly so anyway there's $80,000 there right now it doesn't have to be that high we can come back to it if you want but that's a one time deal you need to lower the higher I'm trying to I didn't want to touch that so what I'm trying to say if you leave the 80 there and you do that all this year then that next year could be zero so that's another one of these one time expenses if you will and then down at the bottom you've got the $600,000 for each bike this I have not made that a special article my recommendation is just to leave it in the budget if you can talk about it if you want to make it a special article you can but I didn't take that a quick question on that are you assuming that that's just going to be for the main water line itself that's not hooked up to everybody's trailer are they going to have to pay allocation fees but they're already customers of water system so it will be to build a new water system in that local home park and everybody will be connected there's a water main that goes up meal and flats that the e-fund owns it goes into the trailer park it goes over to the old well house and we are e-fund does not own the distribution system in that park they're already customers it's just you put the new lines in and you connect those sort of lines I didn't know if we if that included new connections from the main line that we would put in the trailer we were just going to use more than likely most of them would probably be used more than likely and as I said before you know there's a possibility construction costs are going higher and higher there's a possibility it doesn't maybe it doesn't cost $600,000 if you're you know optimistic about it but e-fund has other customers up in the laundry center there's a line a one inch line that goes from Howard Avenue with ID computers you know building that's going to happen there so I would just give them the $600,000 and then if if they can do more than just that little home park and put it towards upgrading the roof hundred line all well and good I wouldn't fuss about it public safety that's pretty straightforward oh WASI you can see there they're asking for $54,000 up from $397 their expenses are going up it's not like you asked a couple weeks ago aren't they getting some additional money from other COVID sources I think that they are but the reality and Chris kind of talked about it on a different issue the volunteerism they're just having to they're having to pay almost everybody there's just no they just don't have you know every coffee you want to tell them when you go you know so they have up this and I wanted to point that out they haven't we could nickel and dime this a little bit and tell them that and I communicated with Mark Pochway up there and I said you know you didn't give us any credit for the income services so they they've increased the per capita fee and they're giving us the same credit as they gave us before and frankly their credit should go up I would be inclined to let this happen and then press them on my credit next year because I take a little bit of responsibility for that because they did send a letter back in October about what they were doing and I didn't leave it closely enough until just a couple weeks ago and if I had responded immediately maybe we would have been able to save 10 grand but I did and I put them on notice that we're going to revisit that in time for next year so I just wanted to be more to let you know that if it had to we could probably make that go down but they've already adopted their budget and I think it's possible to go and dime our first responders well I also wonder you know, ultimately if we just neutralize part of their ask and their exact position where they haven't asked for more because they've just targeted it on around like you know, exactly so, alright fire department there's no big changes there the apple line went up a little bit and it's 880,700 now tax stabilization but they didn't want to do more the planning budget just to balance out a little bit of what I said on the general government budget the planning budget is a little understated because there's still going to be three months or so that we don't have the zoning administrators so the pay the zoning administrators line for this year if it was annualized it would be about $50,000 and the health insurance would be a little higher and the social security would be a little bit higher so that just to be clear on that and then the special articles and as we talked about they've got that $50,000 for the master planning so they're $100,000 in a special article as you requested can we go back to the planning department this is a search for the zoning administrators I know that I've had a couple members of the planning commission reach out to me when we were having a conversation with the person from Richmond and the conversation around compensation and that person wanting basically the max side of the compensation but someone had mentioned that that person which I know someone mentioned maybe they had taken another job already somewhere else but someone had mentioned that maybe that person was skilled enough to potentially step into Steve's role I know that we've been having this conversation surrounding should we be trying to find a replacement for Steve yet and you know it seems like one of the housing authority wasn't really someone that would be able to step into Steve's role but maybe be able to step into his own admin role should we be budgeting basically a second Steve in this and starting that search now for Steve's replacement I wouldn't I would leave the range that we have for the pay is such that we could do that and the guy from Richmond came in and he wanted the top of the range and I can't I think $29 or something like that he wanted the top of the range and I pushed back a little bit maybe I shouldn't have I'm not personally I'm not sure that if it had been my ability to hire that guy based on the way that interview went I'm not sure I would have offered him the job just didn't vibe wasn't really wasn't really good but Mark I think I would leave this the way it is we've got the range and if somebody applies and wants the top of the range and we think that they have those skills we're going to be short a couple thousand dollars I wouldn't adjust the budget I'd like to echo that not in any change but I also got just some concerns emails and phone calls and worrying about obviously we're all concerned about playing the position but maybe just being a little more open to entertaining it even to get somebody in front of the select board knowing that maybe it's not the right person but just like moving it along but further being a little more open minded through the process just to not close doors early on we might regret it yeah only if I'm not saying that but only maybe in a scenario that the candidate has the potential to step into Steve's role to the unique scenario where we know the manager involved that position that's leaving on a time period that it would maybe make sense to pay a little bit more who could step into Steve's role as long as the person is willing to play second fiddle for a while they're supposed to second fiddle I was concerned that this guy wanted the planning to drop but anyway I hear you and the problem Danny if the town does move towards a charter you can solve this I think part of the issue is just the awkwardness of the process that you have to go through to hire a zoning administrator they're saying a charter would eliminate the lengthy process if you had a charter you could just say the zoning administrator is one of the players the town manager points the zoning administrator just like I know it's multiple years I know we've brought this up a number of times but is it time to just put it in the budget and make sure that we move towards charter like a budget for is charter cost I'm assuming charter cost I don't think it has to cost I don't think it has to cost a ton of money I wouldn't put anybody in the budget for it I think you can absorb it this budget I mean it's I'd like to be fine with my budgeting and I really I try to I think a lot of my colleagues round things off to tens of thousands of dollars and I try to round them to $15 take your weight over theirs but I think that we have capacity you know I don't the charter process that I envision would be that we get through town meetings see what happens with the budgets and after that if it's something that the new select board and the EFUD board really want to pursue I think they both can advertise for people to serve on a charter committee if you will and then typically you review other charters I mean you don't have to go out and create this from whole cloth there's plenty of other good charters out there that you can get a lot of good ideas from and at the end when the EFUD went through their process to dissolve and everything else I mean I don't think they spent one in $5,000 still right now I'm oblivious to what charters are even about it's a pretty simple process we don't have the time to put it but I don't think you need to put money in the budget okay Bill before we move on to your point about getting that right person I think we have the latitude to make a difference if we have to with an income I just didn't know if you want to just take that line up now it's similar to where we know with bills replaced when we're budgeting in a certain amount of overlap budget I know Steve's not going to tell all through the next budget basically but you might need to if the break cannot come along I think we've got a flexibility we've got the range so I think we can do that if we need to I think Alyssa wants to say something Alyssa thank you just because I'm here I was listening anyway I just have to shamelessly on behalf of the planning mission say from the planning mission's perspective the charter as Bill just described would be huge just to say we just finished meeting at night and we're going to schedule a very meeting for February because we're losing essentially one of the two meetings that we would have to discuss the bylaw to hopefully do interviews so again no pods of any of the other things around budgeting and output versus but just to say you know of my time on the planning mission which is going to be maybe nine months we've lost three meetings to interviews and clearly no one wants to be in the situation and there's many factors beyond any of our control but again selfishly perspective as we go on to our fourth meeting of doing interviews to be able to cut us out of an interview I should have for positions we can't hire for what we're recommending to you when they're negotiating with Bill so just to say that's a strong opinion so since I was here just had to shamelessly add thank you now thank you very much that's a good point Mike just a technical issue on the special articles might we not have one of the master planning ice center line all that master planning maybe slash design because I'm sort of like where Mark's conversation and Chris's conversation before sometimes I think we could be in paralysis and planning you know I know Steve probably wouldn't want to hear that but well we I think you know where I'm going it's like we could use that money if we say it's not it may be design work as well as just a master plan I can change that the the rubber is going to beat the road and how the special article is right that's where we should concentrate on that so anyway that takes us through the general operating budget and again I've got the $150,000 there of special articles for those two big ones and the other special articles are the $56,898 that we had last year we had one organization drop out $1,000 was budgeted for one and we can spend it and then friends in the library risked more picking it up so anyway in the highway fund there's really nothing different in the highway fund that we talked about last week given that we're not going to do the 10-ton roller that transfer in our funds could go down but it sounds like we're trying to get more money over there so I think what I think we're going to have to come back next week I was wondering if maybe we could have that next week but I think just given moving parts I need to get everything solidified so you absolutely understand what this is and I can't do it tonight so the aqua transfer in to the highway department can be a little bit lower the fact that we're not going to do that lower the transfer out to the to the capital funds maybe we'll leave that at a 10 figuring but I've got to work in that $50,000 for the tax stabilization fund the money for the highway and the buildings is contained in that that should be $70,000 it's right on that it's right on that I've worked around so just to be clear on that that fund 74 I recommend that we make that the fire station's municipal building capital fund to deal with the buildings fund 71 which is the infrastructure of CIP for the highway for years that have items in there for the highway garage and the like so I think we just need that in there and then the library is exactly like we talked about last week so I think we can end up with a budget of $52,000 or $53,000 and still have a big chunk of change left in our company that the next select board can start talking about where you might want to go with it for us throughout the building tonight you know maybe the swimming pool is a place that some of that money can go we don't have to decide that this year it's not going to be including this year's budget it will just remain in that fund 87 which is apple money and it won't grow interest there I don't think I'll take the chance to move any of it into an investment fund because we don't want it to drop the value in kind of between $2,026 we'll have to use one other quick question to my misunderstanding but I can't come up with this $32,960 there's several different ways and I can't seem to hit that mark I must be there missing something there so the $32,960 is additional revenue it's not taxes taxes are up by $148,000 in the highlight fund I think that means so taxes were up $148,360 and then $174,600 in the aquifunds so the difference between here and here here and here is $32,000 see I subtracted I subtracted that one from that one I subtracted that one from that one and I couldn't come up with that number maybe I made a mistake but I believe it's I don't have a calculator you know I'm not the first to see up there that's right I'm thinking that I might miss something about that yeah so the taxes are up $148,360 and then $18,840 so it's $355,000 some math in the highlight fund so I was going too fast I guess sorry so does the line on the revenue budget change? the revenue line is right it's just my math so we're all good then I think we're all good so I don't have anything else do you want us to say what tax rate sounds like $52,000 or $53,000 do you want us to do that after this? that's yours up to $53,000 but yeah we need to look at the we need to look at the money consider a fill in ballot you know a meeting before this we already know we're doing that right well you did it by consensus last week and it's been in a webinar and it's almost suggested that you vote for you just have to redo it then I'm going to make that one yes do you consider a fill in ballot annual meeting? to consider you're conducting the meeting the annual meeting by a fill in ballot great I'll second that second name for the discussion I would like to favorably say aye aye until the morning and set the date for the informal meeting so you're proposing the date the Monday, I mean the Tuesday before yeah if you go in line with last year it will be the Tuesday before February 22nd at 7 o'clock and it will be a our recommendation is that it be a this kind of meeting that the select board you can do it two ways last year we did it in Zoom and everybody was at their own home and just Zoom and we can set this up and do it where we're all in the same room if a few people show up that's fine so we can do it hybrid it's really your choice do you want to do it all Zoom we have a concern of too many people coming and sort of defeating the purpose or could we do just select what a person is we talked about that Karla and I talked about that a little bit I think we wouldn't a lot of people would come I don't believe that if the board is going to be meeting together that you can prevent the public from coming you just wouldn't suggest I can't remember how the participation was last year resolved by Zoom we got a good turnout we got a good turnout I think I don't know if we can do this but have like people say just for planning's sake are you planning on attending and contact the town clerk and that way we just have a gauge of how many people are going to be in here then you know if need be if we're going to have 200 people which I don't think we're going to have we might have to do something the safer thing is to do it all Zoom some people like in person meetings sure but the problem with the hybrid is that it's a lot easier here in the room to speak up and try to talk and then if you're sitting around Zoom not sure if you could hand it over I don't know just manage the meeting then if it's all on Zoom it might be easy it's the board's choice I don't want to put an extra word on Carla by like keeping an attendance I also don't know if we're going to call an audible and that would be like well 50 people are coming so we need to change it I don't want to do that I'm okay with either we could set up chair space a little bit and maybe we get a capacity I don't know I'm okay with either I'm happy I'm not worried about people being here I'm just 50 people in here for the because the whole reason we're not having some meetings but I think I don't know I know from people sometimes being there clarifications are easier than if they were seated over Zoom just some people especially some elderly people don't like the technology of Zoom is it okay to say we're not doing a hybrid but we encourage for safety purposes as many folks to Zoom in as possible like yeah I think this clarification from the Secretary of State's office you are allowed to meet fully remotely now so I can get kind of clarification if just we can meet here and not consider it a physical location or if not just yeah say like just like how we have voting and we encourage I can switch that voting that I have on here is to help by Zoom so it's not going to be a rush okay yeah well you can sign a warning I can fix that paragraph I mean I don't even have to warn the informational meeting on this morning but it's just it's easier for posting if you can see it but I can fix that wording after the silence I honestly think that there wouldn't be too many elderly people up here because they probably feel more at risk and then I would think that you know honestly we would want to if you're suggesting that people really have it and not know it that's I guess it could be a concern of yours but I would think that most people or everybody that would show up here would probably be wouldn't show up if they weren't feeling healthy no but it's more if we're not having to come meet and do everything that's the health thing why are we calling informational meetings or everyone in a room smaller I think it would be helpful if you could sign it just do a hybrid and see how it goes I mean I think it'll rate it with itself I'm okay with that I don't think like thinking it through I don't think we're going to have I don't think most people could win if you could sit at home in your jams if you went over one of the last times no it was all in the heart of the pandemic yeah okay, so hybrid show them a clock start yeah, February 22nd can I do a little well let's think about this a little bit I think to kind of backtrack but if there's going to be an expectation we share screens so people can see this stuff doing it from here this way is not easy you'll be taking minutes and everything else last year I think we did put all the budgets up and all the information that we had so who did that, who shared that I did I think we're going pretty smoothly yeah but but I was in my office right here could someone be here to share it we could try I mean we could try it with Karen to be the zoom host yep we'll make it work either way I just didn't know if it was an easy fix or not I don't think so my personal opinion is we're going to start by agreeing towards some form of policy at some point the whole point the whole point is not an in-person talk meeting not to have people congregate and by having a hybrid who knows, maybe three people I agree with you somewhat Karla, but I think there's a big difference between 150 people and 20 people alright we'll make it work I'm going to go ahead good morning so the first four are pretty standard Article 4 sets the tax due dates August 12th and November 4th which are our standard August and November dates November November varies based on Veterans Day what happens to be the following planning so we don't want the tax due date to be a holiday so we moved it up in the past we moved it later we moved it later then it gets spent to get involved with water bills being due and staff has difficulty collecting taxes and getting water bills going on at the same time so we prefer to move it up walking back to Charitiesburg that's what we had in 2021 we felt a little bit we missed the vote we could have had a lower penalty of interest if we wanted to but we have very few democracies really we just left it the same standard we want you to approve the warning tonight and sign it but I'm going to have to these numbers are going to have to be adjusted I'm not asking if those are realistic numbers they were all realistic numbers before we started but I think we adequately talked about the numbers the biggest number on here on article 6 that you have to decide I've said authorizes the board to set a tax rate up to 53 cents I think that is a safe number you can set it lower if you want if you decide that maybe it would be good to generate a little bit of an increase you can button the capital budgets in the future so I would leave it at 53 and let the board decide in July based on the grant list how much you want to go up or down what's the real world number between you and my house say $300,000 they want a marriage I think that's somewhat of an average house here what's the difference between the tax bill on 52 cents versus 53 cents is it $300,000 it would be 30 bucks $150 $150 it's a penny per 100 right right so if you have a $300,000 you divide that by 100 and then one penny on that is 30 bucks 53 cents and then if you turn the page over that's where the special articles start so Arvin I decided it would be best to put the ice center the $50,000 for the part planning as the first two special articles as opposed to the last two I made it the first two just because I figured that if you made articles 33 and 34 there might be some people who get helpful through the special articles because they don't bother with that so it makes them more likely to read those two articles but I know I mentioned some of them but I don't think it's necessary I wouldn't put it in there but I think we can well the ice center is this unique thing that has never caused taxpayers really anything and some people might call questions to it and that's a nice explanation of how this part has been funded and why and 8, I feel like there's enough there that enough people to correct creation that gives you to see where that lands and then it gets loaded forward I think there's a way that I learned about this is good I wouldn't add after to the article 8 and the rest of the same as last year but for the new article 34 it's a minute of petition does it make sense to say it one time spent I don't think you need to well they're all one time spent well they are but the other ones they get to think it's every year to say do come back every year I don't know I see both sides it's your point you can make it say any more I mean if you put one time spent there does it make everybody wonder why nothing else has one time spent on it I mean what about the next article it doesn't it's a special article it's a it's a they're all one time from year to year technically but as we all know 95% of them are year right since we put the other big items up to be not putting very area senior association that's a $20,000 up there well that's you can if you want the budget I spent time today because the special article budget is not in line with it wasn't in line with the numbers so I used it all I thought it said if you wanted to put these because they were an alphabetical order before now they're just kind of in the same way they're in the budget when they get funded but if you want to move it up because it's a bigger amount I have no problem with that so we cannot take this forward tonight and sign it even though we have to how does that work is the $0.53 the $0.53 is the operative number that you're really asking I mean you've got two choices or three choices one you can sign the warning as it is understanding that I'm going to put the appropriate numbers in there and then come back next week and see what the numbers are two you have to call a special meeting sometime before 4.30 on Friday I mean the warning has to be actually posted when Friday technically on Sunday but let me have to do it Friday so or the third option is I have to go and spend half an hour in the other room coming up with a real number so I would just say start a warning all the things are here you've made your decisions I'm just going to normalize those and change the numbers slightly someone is going to say so we've done that one that's the right one that's Dr. Buck but we want to change it to a better so nothing else is changing other than the numbers at this point I make a motion to do a proof of warning for March town meeting 2022 has written other than so what I would say just say to which is my name to approve a budget with tax rate not to exceed 53 cents incorporated the changes the board made approve the warning with tax rate 53 cents necessary changes to other I think it would be a dollar for years to make that work to make that work who's that I'll second that seconded any further discussion all those in favor please say aye I have already just pointed out that's for primary school I'll fix that too I have this for you sign on five liquor licenses that I forgot to pass around before I know there are only three establishments but blush will have three we added an item of manager hiring before we adjourn so before you do that just to go back to the process you've approved the warning budget of 53 with a tax rate not to exceed 53 cents incorporating the changes made in this meeting I still think that we need to have a brief meeting next one day because I need to bring the numbers back and if I not done exactly what you want with the numbers to change the numbers next week as long as we don't change that 53 cents because the warning so we have to meet next it won't be a 11 o'clock meeting if you want to meet at four o'clock we can do it at four o'clock could you not just send us the updated budget and band questions if that's what you want to do do that we know we're going to land 53 cents I mean there's only like five changes alright that's fine look at the board I'm just wondering if everyone will be okay with that I don't see why we would need to meet if that's all that's changing we just can't discuss it we don't have to make any motions or anything no I'll send it out and if any of you have questions you can call Kyle and we can just say this doesn't seem right if one of you says that we'll call you yeah alright okay so then would that change would we have a regular meeting on the first Monday of February or is that to be a check yeah and if you're hiring Bill so I know Bill sent me some great information I didn't get the email until today so my email's up to him he said you have a personal connection to him I know if that's gonna work and I'm just stepping off the board so I'm happy to participate as I can for certain reasons I'm happy to participate I don't know how does it typically work something like this is similar to the conversation around committees around charter does it make sense to build a group of people identify or interview because this is unique to a lot of the decisions we hire for typically so you're involved with the hiring process of many levels below you but when it comes to replacing you it's a little unique to yeah and you know it's one of those things that I can only tell you what I know from I've never been involved in putting back the grant of sub-communities have you know citizen committees but I think that's something that if it works something out with BLCT I think they would assign somebody and have conversations with them and I think that's really the first thing that it should do would we be subject to open meeting law that would be very awkward with searches in an open meeting kind of no you so the I believe that you would be able to do all of the discussion about resumes and things like that in the second session I don't think you have to do that but again I'm not there someone from legal station town would show up yeah yeah and that's yes Mark there are communities that do put you know get citizens and help to renew things we once I mean when I would have to hire a police chief the village was the existence even though it was my hire there were times that kind of kind of holding that across whether it's like an actual hiring committee or else otherwise I think it will also be prudent and compassionate to get solicited in from like opinions from town staff right I mean the people who are actually working under and with the person on the databases so that's something I want to make sure of the conversation as well which you have to be careful with that you know I don't know if you you might and I have to be careful because it's your process you might you know talk to staff and find out things that are important for them in terms of what what would a good boss look like or something like that but I would not necessarily have the staff on the search committee I think it's a little bit awkward to have somebody involved in hiring who their boss is going to be well I mean I understood when we get out of that conversation but I have lots of organizations and companies but if it's not something that everybody feels involved in but at least being part of that conversation I think is really important what are the pros and cons of going with BLCP versus going with that independent search firm headhunter kind of place other than probably I think BLCP intuitively I'm going to say it's going to be less expensive yeah and you know I think that they also understand what the more responsibilities are and what challenges are based but it's your choice there wouldn't be any I'm just asking this question there isn't any professional online organizations that search for business positions and CEOs and stuff like that I'm not a computer nut there are all kinds of headhunters that can do all kinds of stuff they may not have I think where BLCP is I think they deal with town government where a lot of headhunters may not they may deal with town government when it's real larger municipalities you know I can say that some of these search firms you know if you're looking for a mayor of Hartford, Connecticut I bet you they may use a headhunter and to answer your question I'm sure Mike that we can do some research and find out exactly what the difference is and then decide and probably be pretty honest with you where do we typically advertise positions for municipal manager I would definitely put you know and add in international city management associations newsletter in Vermont newspapers it used to be that you'd always want to put it in the free press free press it's not what used to be seven days is probably you know it's they're pricey but I think on something like this you want to cast as wide as possible you know they may have advertised when I took the job they may have advertised in the Boston Globe I don't know what's that it indeed seems to be a very something like that but I'd be interested to hear what Ted has to say in terms of do you think about it today so many people are working from either home or other places they can be searching across the world for positions it would probably make sense as I started to talk with Ted another board member and I think you have been able to do it maybe the two of you but get out and I step back or whatever just my involvement with the board and I'll be able to hear your decision I'll try to send out to you the Vermont Statue which describes the duties and responsibilities because I really, you know, I don't have there was no written job description when I took the job I haven't written one but the state statute is really a pretty good description of what responsibilities and priorities are just so you are aware of that is that going to be a huge swing from what you've actually done over the years? No. That's where I think legal situations would be helpful. They would probably have a kind of pro forma for the town manager type because they've probably done it for a number of years. The challenge is it's not that all of the things that are written in the state statute are legal authority and the manager is responsible for these things It does not necessarily describe everything that I do in terms of the best portfolio it's all right. Well, that's what I meant I guess I wondered how much different what you do is different from what they suggest Well, not only that, but if through maybe discussions with Bill what should this new person really be responsible for and what duties are you doing now that we shouldn't pass on and try to get this person to do we're not going to do that how are we going to do it because I think there was a point where you said hiring a financial manager under discussion surrounding that so that all needs to be discussed as you go out to hire because if that's not a talent that you need you could be also going to add a financial manager to your employment position so that really should be figured out sooner than later so you can figure out what but of course there's someone that has that talent we're of that like size talent I don't know is that a unique thing you think to your current role or do you think that that can be continued to be absorbed into the talent manager position I think You know I more and more communities on our side in greater have a talent manager and a finance director um back in the day when I first started almost nobody had a finance director as you know Burlington did Monterio did but the rest of the communities pretty much the manager did it but there's been lots of you know I told you a couple of times when I came here the time didn't have any money so there was real need to help a beer to do that you know so anyway but these are things you can talk about with Ted and other meetings I'll be happy but it's getting late night Can we have a conversation about the town charter in the parking lot for us I think you should take that up but first you have to if it's the arrow watcher remember right motion to adjourn so hold second any further discussion all of them in favor please say aye aye