 is one minute after 5. Do we have any amendments to the agenda. I don't let's jump right into it. Review Jeff request for proposal. Initial building and etc etc town hall goal of presenting blah blah blah. Is this you live. OK so we said I sent out on Friday I think it was you all should have gotten a copy it was a P. F. D. of the proposal that we'd like to send out this week. For a study of the town hall. And I just want to acknowledge that Sandy did the vast majority of the work working with the preservation trust group looking at some other R. F. P. is for similar projects. So kind of looking at that as our guide for what ours would look like. And then Dave McGeeta. Who had reached out to me. When I had put out a plea on Perch forum. A while ago in when we were writing the grants to try to get this done. He had offered as someone with buildings and grounds expertise from Norwich University for many years. He had offered to help us with this. So we invited him back into the conversation when we knew we had to do this R. F. P. So he also you know took a stab at it and did some editing. And so that's what you see is a request to be sent out to some architectural firms. And have them come back with a with a cost of what it would take to do all the things that are in the R. F. P. I think Sandy and Dave determined that it would be likely at a minimum $20,000 and Dave sort of thought that would be actually very much the minimum and it could be higher than that. That what will come back at just because of inflation. Normally I think it would have been maybe around 20 K. I think Sandy you had maybe her 15 K. So just to give you a ballpark figure. I think that's where some of that ARPA money would come from is to help pay for this to help pay for this. This first step. So I guess that's Sandy is here to help answer some questions. Did everybody get a chance to kind of look at it. Yes, I mean it looks it looks fine to me. I mean, you know, you can you can make those things way longer than that and more complicated than that. And all you do is increase the cost of the bill. I think that that strikes a good balance. And I think it will tell us what we need to know. And if we need more information, we can always ask for it. Yes, Sandy. Yeah, this is intended to be more of a preliminary design type study and not go as deeply into the engineering work that the grant proposal was looking to do. And a bit as a first but needed step to see what, you know, and, you know, more general terms, what would it cost to fix up the building? If that's the route we wanted to go and give us a baseline to look at. Well, if it's going to cost that to fix up the building, that gives us information to to look at what it would be to move or to build a new building as a way to begin to move forward without doing the entire work that the grant proposal was looking to do, which we may still want to go back and do. But this this would still be helpful as as a lead in into that. It wouldn't it wouldn't be duplicative, but it would it would start that process if we decide to go forward with that as well. And again, I base this on on an RFP that was done for the town of Barnett for work that they did when they were looking at rehabbing their town hall and putting the town clerk's office into it. We already have the town clerk's office in our town hall. So do we have a list of folks we're going to send this out to? Or do we need to develop that list? Well, that's what I was going to comment on. And Dave gave us only four names that he thought were that he's sort of heard good things about. And that was my concern that four wasn't necessarily going to be enough. I don't think four is enough in the preservation trust. Vermont folks sent us a very long list of basically everyone in this pretty much everyone in the state. I think we could come up. I think it should go out to about 10 people and figure out folks that are within the general central Vermont, maybe Burlington area with experience in this. Yeah, I agree. I think we need to from what I hear out there and who knows how accurate this is. Right now, most of the architecture firms are really busy. So, you know, you can bet a bunch of them aren't even going to respond to this. We're going to say, you know, I'm sorry, we don't have the time or whatever. So, yeah. So that leads me to the question of so we want to get this out this week, if that's possible, and giving them a bump to respond, which if we got it out, you know, by, by, I think I said, I might have said the seventh, I have to look at. Which might not be possible. Is this something that you would traditionally email to someone? Like, I'm not sure how these go out typically. Do you know, Sarah? Well, you mean, you know, we could. I haven't done I haven't sent out an RFP since the two since 2014. So I suppose things have changed. But I would think if the Preservation Trust of Vermont has an email list, that's probably the easiest way to do it. We can just do a BCCC. And I mean, the state sends requests for proposals and grant notices through emails to I think that's probably the most cost efficient and probably the best way to do it. If you guys can send me an email list, I can send those out. Did it come in email, Sandy? I'm pretty sure I have the email contacts for all for all of them. And, you know, if you wanted to send it out to even a bigger group than that, you could, but I, you know, I don't know that we need to send it to 50 people. If it doesn't cost us anything, why not? No, I don't want to send it out to 50 people. I think that's that's a little crazy. I don't know how we pick. I guess, I guess maybe I would have, I would have had Dave look at that list. He's going to know the cast of characters better than any of us and pick out 10 of them. Yeah, we can get, we can check back in with Dave and and I done he identified for that we should definitely send it to and I think we can find others as well. I bet he can. And so is everyone OK with Dave McGeeta being the contact in the question? In terms of contact, you know, as someone is doing, it has questions about this RFP needs clarification, maybe has, you know, they're in the middle of doing it. I think it's just for now, it's Dave for just the RFP piece. He's willing to do it. I think it'd be great. This is what he did all his working life. He's the expert. Peter. Yes. I'm sorry, Vector. I saw your hand. No, I, you know, you know, I know, I know, I know we talked about this last time. And we we're going to spend 20, 15, 20 thousand dollars. But. And we keep kicking this can down the road. Why don't we decide whether we want to. This, I mean, we're going to spend a lot of money on a town hall. That's after we get done, we're not going to be able to do anything with it. And we're still going to have basically the same problems. I wouldn't take a rocket science to figure that out. And why we don't decide. Like going to Welch Parker, even using our ground over by the townshed. I mean, I guess this is somebody said something about the police barracks, but I think your chances of getting that are very slim. And instead of spending this money. On. You know, an end that you know, which is even Sandy said, if we decide to do it or if it's feasible, why don't we spend this money. On looking or why don't we spend some of our select board and looking at Welch Parker, looking at the town. And seeing. How to build a place that, you know, possibly. We definitely could house. A town meeting and we could house the town administration. And maybe even the city council. The town administration. And maybe even do something for the. Road crew. As far as a building for the road crew. I just. Somebody's going to tell me why, why we would spend this money. On something. That I think most of us know. In our heart. It's just not going to work. You don't have the space for parking. You don't have the area for a town meeting. So. Anyways. I hate to play. The answer to that is Victor that. This is going to give us those, this is going to give us those answers. And I know it's a lot of money. But. You know, I mean, I can get a, I can get an opinion from somebody very quick. Well, it's going to cost us per square foot to. To build a new building somewhere. I mean, that's not rocket science. No, it's going to be, it's going to be up there in the, in the. You know, couple, at least a couple of million. Well. You know, so here's the, here's the other question. You know, if we're, if we're going to build a new building, are we building a new building. Of a size where we can hold town meeting in it. That seems kind of crazy to me. I say you have time meeting at the school. And what we do is build a. Building a new building. And then we build an office with a select board meeting room in it and space for our staff and a decent ball. But I mean, those are all, those are all questions we've got to get to. I don't think it makes any sense. And certainly our existing town hall, unless we put a big addition on it. Doesn't have the space to. Doesn't have the space to have a town meeting and won't have the space. So I think the town meeting issue for me is. You know, it's probably going to be at the pool. It's a school's a good idea. And we do have an agreement with them. But. Yeah, I would be. That's not the end all over there. If you really, if you had to meet, you know, what do we have? What do we have show up for 500. Susan Clark setting right there. She'll tell you. Not even that many. How many. How many people go to. I mean, you're not even the school is not going to be a spot for if, if you had a large, large. Or. Gathering for a large. Highly, highly. I'm out of people voters in the town showing up for the meeting. Yeah, but. We're not going to build a space. I mean, I, so Susan, aren't I right? It's about 250 people. Usually. Yeah. I mean. They set up voting in there as well. 150, 250 depends on the year, but, you know, we don't, if there were a year, it's always, it's always what's on the warning that's going to determine whether you get a really high turnout or not. And if we know we've got a really hot issue, there's nothing that says we couldn't have that town meeting at U32, you know. So I mean, we have some options if we knew we were going to get, you know, an extraordinary turnout. But I think the capacity in the gym at Romney Mike is, I don't know, that'd be a good question if I know. I don't think it might, and I think I've been at every town meeting and I might have missed one along the way somewhere, but there's been capacity to have more people at Romney. But I agree. I mean, there's U32. I don't know how many people, if we pulled all the trucks out of the fire hall, I don't know how many people we could get in there for a town meeting. That's a pretty big space. But I don't see, I really do not see this town clerk's office no matter what, creating a space to have. I mean, maybe a meeting room for a select board meeting and a small hearing, public hearing, but not town meeting once a year for three hours, no. But that's fine, Peter, but you still, this town is not going to stay stagnant. I mean, we're not going to have a town clerk and assistant, and two listers, I mean, we're going to, we should, if you're going to build a place, you would build one for expansion. Right. I thought, I think. No, I don't disagree, but if you're not, I mean, I've thought a lot about this, Victor, just like we all have, and the existing town hall has a lot of wasted space in it, the way it's configured now, and it doesn't work at all. If the upstairs was used for additional office space, you could have a lot of stuff going on up there. And I don't know the answer. I mean, if they come back and say it's going to cost way more to renovate that building that it does to build a new building, I'd say we're looking at building a new building. But I don't think we know that. You don't know, you don't think that. I don't know. I've had estimates of what it costs to put an elevator in there. I've seen estimates for what it's going to cost to increase the, increase the size of the vault. How about the septic design? If all, if all you're using it for office space, you don't need a septic system for 200 people. I don't, Victor, I don't know the answer to any of those questions. No, I'm not trying to, this is going to determine, and I know it's expensive, but I think we need something rather than, rather than fiddle around and fool around. I think we need a professional job of doing this, where they can come back to us and come back to the town and say, you know, this is the way we need to go. And I know it's expensive, but we're going to spend half a million dollars or a million dollars or whatever we're going to spend spending $20,000 to get the information is relatively small potatoes. The old days, the old days, Gene Jocelyn would have sit down with a piece of graph paper and Dwight McCullough and they would have drawn the thing up and built it. I know. We're not in that world anymore. I don't know, how do other people feel? I'm, I'm in favor of doing this. I think we need to do it, but. Randy, you're muted. Yeah, Liz had her hand up. Yeah, Phil, too. Yes. Oh, I was just going to say, oh, go ahead, Phil. No, I was just going to reiterate sort of what Peter already said is that we, you know, I think we have to do our due diligence on a professional level to be able to determine to be able to say to the townspeople. Well, it turns out we have to, you know, look at new real estate or we have to tear the building down or it's rehabilitatable, right? And and I don't think our sort of assessments is or even Sarah's, you know, saying, oh, well, you know, the plumbing breaks and this and that happens. Those are all that's all really good information to have, which we've shared in that RFP, but I think we really do need to have, if we're going to present to the townspeople a major expense, we have to have done the at least that a bare minimum, the legwork of determining that our building has problems and what those problems are. So I'm in favor of spending the money to do that assessment. On a gut level, I absolutely agree with Victor in that in a way, I hate to spend the money because I think I do know where we're going to end up. But I do have to say with I agree absolutely with what Liz just said, that I think we have to do our due diligence. We have to be able to present something to the voters for our rationale and going one way or another. And we need good hard facts and and reasonably firm numbers at least for what it would cost for the for the various options that could be in front of us. So ultimately, yeah, I think we do have to do a study. Randy, you're very quiet tonight, Randy. Yeah, I just, you know, I agree with Victor. Can you are you muted? Getting some feedback here from somebody. Anyway, I agree with Victor to the point where I don't like spending money to on stuff when we think that we're going to get there. But I do understand the need to be able to communicate to the towns folks that we've done our due diligence and and we've we're not just putting something on paper here with the five of us sitting around saying, oh, we think this is what the cost is going to be and and what not. Do I think that it's going to be caught more? Do I think it's going to be better to build a new building and and what not? Probably in the long run, it's probably what the town needs. I would say let's put this out there. Let's see what the cost is and my my viewpoint on this may change, depending on what the cost comes back at. If it's if it's way above this $20,000, I'm probably not going to support it nearly as much as I would as if it's going to come in at 15 or 20. I don't know, but let's put it out there. Let's see what the proposals come back at. And I do think that and I don't know what kind of requirements are attached to any of this, but you're probably going to have to post it publicly. I would think and not just selectively email folks as part of this RFP process. Excellent point. Yeah, we could do that. Probably we should do that. Yeah, I think we should do that. I think it's going to be interesting to see what the numbers come back at. The sort of the fallback and I've been thinking about it. I can't hear you. Oh, I'm sorry. I've been thinking about this ever since I saw the RFP and sort of the want to be careful how I say this, but the more simple way to do this, would be to have a number of folks say, okay, let's let's let's make it really simple. What's the difference between rehabbing our town hall and is that going to make our needs or or what's the cost of a new building? I mean, if you tell them how many square feet you want the new building to be, they can come up with a number pretty darn quick or an estimate pretty darn quick. Is that as comprehensive as this RFP? No, it isn't. But it might cost a lot less money or almost no money. I don't know. But let's see. I mean, all we're all we're doing now is putting this out to see what it's going to cost to do this. And I agree. If it comes back and it's 40 or $50,000, we certainly need to rethink it. If it comes back, if it's 10 or $15,000 hallelujah. But we've done the work to put it together. Let's get it out there and see what we get. I said. So do we need a motion? Yeah. I'm assuming we need a motion. Yes. Okay. So I'll move that we, in fact, send out the RFP to, well, one to a list that we're going to determine are pre qualified, but also post it publicly. I think that's a good idea. Just to make sure for transparency reasons that we. Cover all the bases that we need to. Thank you. I'm talking about Peter. Okay. Thank you, Victor. So it's been moved and seconded to put the proposal out there. And also was Randy suggested to post publicly, which I think is a good idea. With the idea that. Yeah. That's that's basically it. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. Any opposed? Okay. So you all are all settled in. You know what to do. No, I think I'll just need to talk with Sandy about getting the list. So my, but I do want to make the question before I make a final. Copy. Is one month enough time? I think that made sense. So maybe I want to put the date to be. Okay. Sorry. This Friday or something by this Friday we'll have the email out. So that gives Sarah some time. And Sandy some time to get the list. And then it'll be. It'll be October 9th then instead of the seventh, which is what I have it now. Does that make sense to everybody? I think that's fine. I mean, again, they're not doing all the work. All they're doing is telling us what it's going to cost to do the work. So I think that's fine. Okay. I think that might be a holiday. So that's Columbus Day, the 10th. I'll do the 11th. Okay. The 11th. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Thank you, everybody. We all set on that. Yep. Okay. Next item in the agenda is. Joseph Falls worth of capital fire mutual aid to discuss capital region infrastructure replacement plan action possible. Is he here? Is he in the waiting room? Yeah. Hello. Good evening. Good evening, sir. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me and everybody hear me. Yes. Chief, we are sent out some documents today. Everybody get those. Yeah. Okay. So let me give you a little background. My name is Joseph. I'm the deputy fire chief. The city of Bury. I have over 35 years of. Experience in the fire service. Most of it here in Vermont. I'm currently the first vice president of the capital fire mutual aid. System, which you folks have been a member from the beginning and you're a very good standing. The radio system that I'm talking about is the radios that are on the mountain tops. Not on the, in the dispatch centers. You currently have a contract with Montpelier police department. To dispatch your. Fire and fast squad folks. That's currently in a four year contract. So I'm not speaking about that today. I'm talking about the antennas and the radios that are located on the mountain tops. Back in 1990. Then the way he secured an earmark funding. To. Put all those. That equipment on. The mountain tops through Mount Irish and throughout the area. Sorry, Joe. Joe, I'm sorry. I'm the, I'm taking the minutes. I'm having a really hard time hearing you. If maybe you could just speak a little bit slower and, or just closer to the microphone. I'm sorry. I'm missing, I'm missing every, like every five words. Okay. How's this. It's a little bit better. So you're talking about radios on mountain tops. Is that right? Yes. Okay. We're not. See that's. I can't hear you either. I'm sorry. How's this yet? It's almost worse. I think you have to back up a little. How's this. Try again. Okay. Can you hear me now? That's better. Okay. I'm sorry. Technology at the best. So. Back in 1990. Senator. He secured some earmark funding. For capital fire mutually to put in the radio system that we have today. So if you do the math. We're about 31 years. Into this. We've gone through narrow banding. Which has. Live severely limited our. Radio. Capabilities. So point where. I know that in the town of Middlesex. They have. Multiple powers. To tone out. One emergency. So. Just to get the word out. We have to do that throughout the system. Along with that. We also had it independently. Evaluated. And that. It's really come to the end of the life. And that is really. No parts available. Through the manufacturers. So they have to go through eBay. And stuff like that. Trying to find. Parts to replace the equipment. So we really got. Our money's worth out of this. It was all free grit. Earmark. So. We. Through CVPS. We. Employed a. Consultant named. Televate. That. That. So. We have to go through eBay. And stuff like that. To find. Parts to replace the equipment. So we really got. Our. Plenty's worth out of this. It was all free grit. Earmark. So. It was a, it was a. Plan. To replace the. Televate. That did a study. They did a. A study of our. And they corroborated what Burlington. Communication says that. It's truly at the end of life. And that. To. Deliver the services. And I'll learn our first responders effectively. And allow them to communicate on the fire ground. Which at some point they're a. Portions of the region. That they cannot. There's portions of the region that they cannot talk on their portable radios. They either have to go to a tech radio or a car mobile and Chief Lativia can give me a sign if that's accurate, but that becomes a safety issue. So with the end of life of the radios and that being a safety issue, we redesigned and added a couple of hours to balance out the system and create a simulcast system. That means that every time it goes off at the same time, it increases the efficacy of the radio system. So with that said, we also became partners with the state. So the state is having some issues in themselves where they're shedding 110 EMS, fire and policing in the area. That's due because they have about 80% efficiency for their dispatchers. So they're not gonna be able to have a sustainable model. That's why they're trying to get the radio system under control. So between us in Montpelier, very city of Montpelier with capital fire in the corner, we went and testified at the legislature. We had given it back to the light work and we would absorb a couple of the departments that are being shed, but we'll need this upgrade anyways and they knew about that. So we designed this radio system to look towards the future. But one thing that the governor and the commissioner of public safety says is, listen, we understand we don't want you to come back and say it's broke again in 10 years. Part of the state funding request is that you have to come up with the way to replace it in 10 years. You should not come back to the legislature with your hands out. So that goes to the spreadsheet that you all have that I sent to you. And basically it's a 10 year savings plan that you will put in to save your, save for your portion of the radio system. So we went through with manager Sheplek from the town of Waterbury. He came up with this and we decided that it would be best situated that we went on the equalized municipal grand list. So basically, if you look at your portion and middle sex would be on the hook for approximately $2,900 a year. And we figured that was a small amount. So over a 10 year period, middle sex would end up being on the hook for approximately $31,000 for the system. So we just put in for a state funding request as a Friday at 12 o'clock for $3.23 million. So that would upgrade and change out all the radio dollars. If we don't get that over, we weren't able to have that opportunity. We would then have to come back to the committee member of the county and say, hey, listen, we got to figure out how we're gonna pay for this. And so right now it was an opportunity to apply for the grant funds. And I spoke with Chief Metivier and we were able to get all 20 communities. The tenant of the agree, yes, we support soliciting for the state funding portion. So we were successful, we put it in, we were able to put in our letters or put in our capital plan and put in what we have done with the telephony people for the project. We felt that that was the most responsible way to do it and to present a good, complete project that's valid for the system. One of the things that we did do is we'd have public input. One of the things people asked is on what about our old radios? So the way we scope project is that we said, all right, we're gonna do a mixed mode system that allow us to communicate digitally and to our older portables and mobiles and allow people to utilize them as they transition to your radios. Also part of the RFQ we put in for special pricing for a two year period, just over two budget cycles for to hold them to have them hold pricing for mobiles, portables and radios, pagers. That's how your firemen are alerted and they look like that. So we thought that was the most economical way that we really hit through the bang for the buck. So we did that. We should hear from the legislative government who's making the final decision on or about September 25th. Now I know that's a Sunday, but that's how they beat. And so right now are when it gets released. So I- Joe, excuse me, it's Peter. When you rock back and forth, you fade right out. So- Oh, I'm sorry. If you could stay in one position, we'd hear you a lot better. I apologize. Okay, thank you. So I know I've talked a lot and I put a lot but part of what Capitol Flyer, the city of Bury and city of Montpelier want to do is make sure that you're informed. Make sure you know it was coming down the pike and that there was no cloud or mystery. One of the things that we did find out was that we created the system to be LTE compliant or be able to meld with that cellular technology. Right now we had some meetings with a lot of the cell carriers. And as you know, cellular service is not reliable but as it improves and in the governor's plan we're able to incorporate that technology. We also met with a couple of other folks from public industry. One of them was consolidated. Consolidated said that they would give a special pricing on fiber optics, each of the mountain tops. Now it's the latest and greatest. But the problem with that is that it was not sustainable. On a yearly basis, we would have a bill of $110,000 in fiber optic connectivity. Each of the mountain tops. And there's no way we could raise that funds off of capital flyer dues to sustain that model. So what we did is we went with the next step and that technology is E-line capability, which is all the other dispatch centers are using. It's much more affordable and it's a negligible increase to get to where we need to go to connect all those. So we also went to... Excuse me, it's Peter again. So we have already given you a letter of support for this project, correct? Yes, sir. Thank you. And we appreciate that. And that's 100% of the capital fire mutual aid region to include the town of Warren and the town of Chelsea. So there'll be new people coming on to stabilize the system. We also, and I'll just finish up, we did meet with Velco who offered tower space and access to the generators so that we could have back emergency backup power. And so that was built into the redundancy and that was very, no, that was a donation from them. So I will lend it there. I don't know if Chief Pantivia wants to add anything or if I missed something, I'll open it up for questions. Okay, thank you. So, Eric, you're up to speed on this. You're supportive of this, correct? I mean, we talk about this back when we signed the letter. So, I think we're all good. Thank you for your... Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait, I have a basic question. Hi, I'm taking the minutes. I just want to be clear, are the grant, if you get the grant, will the town still be responsible for this money or is this only if you don't get the grant? So this is state funding. This is not a grant money. This is state funding. It's been funded in the budget. So basically what'll happen is, is that we'll get that three point, is actually put in for 3.5 million. 3.5 million. If you get the 3.5 million, would the town still need to add that money for each? For example, will middle sex still be on the hook for $31,000 after 10 years? So you will be, but it's more like a savings account. You're paying it forward. Uh-huh. So if you look at the bottom, manager Sheplik actually looked at how we would invest. Okay, you're going out. Do you know what agency is going to fund this, this 3.5 million dollar? It's out of the government legislative ops. Government, and you, are you sure you're going to get it or if what happens if you don't get it? So we don't know. And I probably end up coming back to say, we have a problem. How are we going to fund this system? So in other words, these numbers that you've given us here, those are numbers that, if you get the 3.5 million dollars in state funding, otherwise you're going to come back and say we got a bigger problem. Yes, ma'am. Okay, thanks. So is this, do you anticipate that, you know, provided you get this 3.5 million, that this extra, whatever it is, like around $3,000 each year, is over the next 10 years, will be just added to our bill or is it a separate thing from you guys? Yeah, the way we envision it, and we haven't actually approved of this, this is a concept of, we would invoice you on behalf of Capital Fire, and that money would be sent into a separate account, which it'll be invested. Manager Sheplek, as you know, is retiring at the end of December. He has agreed that he would manage that account for us, so they'll optimize the return. So we'd have our regular bill and then we'd have this additional $3,000 bill. Yes, ma'am. Okay, Gotcha, thanks. Any other questions, anyone? Okay, thank you very much, Chief. Okay, thank you, sir. We appreciate your information. And Eric, you're going to watch this like a hawk, right? Yes, sir. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. I think, Peter, before we move on, this is speaking on behalf of the Budget Committee, I believe this is an item that would fall right at our Capital Improvement Plan. Correct, I would say so, yes. I mean, there are a lot of, you know, we don't know if this is even going to happen yet, but it sounds like it's something that needs to happen, but like everything else, what was different ways to skin the cap? We took advantage of the opportunity, that's why we moved it so quickly, but it was such a narrow window, we only had three and a half of it put all together. No, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Peter, you passed over the discussion of polling place accessibility survey. Yeah. Sorry. First item. My eyes are dilated. I was at the eye doctor this afternoon, so I'm struggling here with my technology. I apologize. That's an excuse, huh? Well, it's the best I've got. I haven't been drinking all afternoon. I'd rather that. So we need to back up and have a discussion of polling place accessibility survey about the disability rights of Vermont last month, no action expected. I thought Sarah had already told us about this, but do we have some? I just want to put it in the minutes that you received it. I mean, that's part of this whole thing. You received it, you acknowledge it, you can move on. That's why I put it in with the town hall stuff. So that's all I have to do. That's fine. Nothing we didn't know. Right. Okay, thank you, Phil. Okay, so next. Highway report update on center road paving action possible. Victor. Eric got a hold of EJ Blondon of paving company. They're either going to be here to coal plane on the 12th to the 19th, hopefully. And the coal plane is going to take a couple of days. Eric's going to, I think he did today, I don't know, make a spot for the grindings that come off the coal planer. So we can stockpile them. And they said to take a couple of days and then right after that, they promised to, or they didn't promise, they said they would, we're going to pave right away. They wanted to pave it as soon as they coal-plained it. Correct. Hold on, wait a minute. Vic, EJ Blondon, is that with Hutchins? Correct, I'm sorry. I couldn't think of it for a second. I thought it camouflaged that real well, but I guess it didn't. While we're at it, I'd like to thank Eric and the crew for getting some material in those sinkholes that we run through. Yeah, yeah, unfortunately a lot of it came out. I know it the better, those things are a problem. And I know you guys have been filling them in, but as you said, Eric, doesn't last very long with people flying over that. And what I find hard to believe is you think after they've been over three or four times, they know where the places are and slow down, they don't seem to. No, I lost track of how many cars sped down the road today while I was filling them. I mean, does it, I guess it doesn't. We're about to be into it big time, but I almost wonder if it makes sense to put up a sign saying caution, danger. I saw you put some cones up. I had a bump sign and some cones and most of the cones disappeared and I noticed the bump side is gone. It was attached to a barricade. Yeah, it was attached to a barricade. Let's put it this way, the sooner it happens, the better. Now, are they gonna have to close the road when they call Plain or no? No, no, they'll have traffic control. They'll go up one side and then up the other side. Yeah, okay, okay. They'll have the same quality traffic control they had down on route two. Yeah. So I do have some, you know, it just struck me as odd. Did we know that route two was getting repaved this year because I had not heard that anywhere? And all of a sudden, we've got all these discussions about traffic coming and the next time the road gets redone and all of a sudden the road's getting redone and nothing else has happened. So we knew they were gonna do that? Yes. Okay. The humor or, you know, the part about that traffic control thing is, I think I've got, I think I got like 10 or a dozen calls griping about getting stopped down by the interstate down on route two that people couldn't get on interstate, couldn't get on the interstate and they're missing doctor's appointment and couldn't get their kids to daycare and blah, blah, blah. I'm saying, we don't have anything to do with that. Yes. That's the good news, right? Yeah. Well, it's frustrating. I mean, I, you know, I understand people are frustrated but that's the cost of fixing up the roads. Well, I talked to the resident engineer and he said the company that's providing the flagging service is new to this area and new help and they were struggling. Yeah. Randy, you got a question? Yeah, I have a question for Eric and Victor. I've heard some discussion and some comments around the difference between the cold planning and the reclaiming and concerns that basically the traveled path within some of this, so the W that it creates within the larger vehicles doesn't get nearly addressed nearly the same with the cold planning versus the reclaiming process because of the way that the roads repacked with the reclaiming and just looking for you guys with the experience to educate me a little bit on, you know, is this, is the savings worth the offset in the different methodologies that we're looking at here and is there concern on your end from, you know, with the potential for the road not to, you know, hold up as long. All right, nobody jumped by once. So I don't have a big concern of that. The road is already compacted, the base. I mean, you're not gonna get it any more compacted than it is. So once it's leveled out and repaved, I don't think you're gonna notice those wheel ruts, you know, certainly for any time at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, Vic, on that. It's like the interstate. You know the interstate, of course, the interstate gets a lot more travel than we do. We repave that, what, every five, six, seven years between here and Potterbury. And, you know, once, of course, that road is, see, 1965, so that's 35, 55, 60 years old and those trucks and everything have been done in those same ruts. I mean, they're like sheep, they go in the same ruts. People go in the same ruts all the time. They will come back in a few years. The big issue with the reclaim, it doesn't really work once you start it up, because your problem is, they're only reclaiming down about 12, 13 inches and the real problem is not down 12, 13 inches. It's down beneath that, if there is any. The idea of, yes, I don't think some of the people, I don't know if you've been talking to Jason, Maro or what, but it doesn't matter, but I don't think people understand that they're gonna coal plane, yes, but it's gonna be like route two, they're gonna go down and they're gonna lay, they're gonna level up the material so you have a good plane either side of centerline and of course compact that and then they're gonna come back and put the inch and a half pavement on top of that. And when you talk about compaction, that stuff has to be, that stuff compacts to 95%. So that's pretty high. That's the standard for the state. Actually, if you pound it too much, you break it down. So the ideal is 93 to 95% compaction. So will it ever, never come back? Yeah, it'll come back at some point. I don't think it's gonna come back next year. It isn't, when it comes back, isn't a lot of it that the surface is wearing down just from repeated, it isn't that it's compacting, is it? I mean, once. Well, you know, there is some deterioration. I mean, yeah, it's, you wear it off. Your tires and your snow plows wear that off. They heat it up and wear it off, but it compacts in the same area because that's the weakest point where everybody's been driving for 60 years. Right, yeah. Come to think about it, that road's probably been there since 60 years too because I think they put that in when they went from Montpelier to Middlesex. And then there wasn't any interstate beyond Middlesex for a few years. I know in 1958 there wasn't. And so I think they did this road up through here in like 55. Yeah. Sarah, you had a question? What are you guys talking about? You're saying, are you talking about, could you just be clear? Are you talking about the side of something creating ruts? Could just someone give you a normal sentence, what you're talking about? So I think what we're talking about is the problem that we've all seen on the interstate and we certainly saw it on the center road is that over time you get what Eric described as a W, but you get ruts where the heavy trucks go and those ruts fill up with water and ice and they make the road hazardous and dangerous. And the concern that Randy expressed that he's heard is people think that the cold planing versus the reclaiming is gonna make that worse. And I'm not qualified to say whether it is or it isn't, but what Victor said makes sense to me and that by reclaiming you're creating a lot more stuff that needs to be compacted than you are when you're cold planing. Okay, thank you, that makes sense. I didn't know what the W was. Yeah, that's a pretty good summary. And my question really comes from a lack of knowledge as to whether or not the savings of cold planing is worth the longevity of what that is. It sounds like Victor feels like it's negligible between what would occur during a cold planing effort versus a reclaiming effort. So thanks for the explanation. Well, I know just one other quick thing, Peter, the non-highway engineer I went to a meeting years ago when this cold planing process was being introduced and they were creating those machines. And the strong sentiment then was that cold planing was much better than reclaiming. And it seems to be used everywhere it can be used. So I think it works. The other thing we have going here is we had to make some winter sand and we were tentatively gonna do it on the 12th and I'm not so sure it depends on what they're doing because we can't be in the pit and hauling cold planing up at the same time they're hauling out sand and the notch road's a little bit narrow for that. Yeah. So traffic was felt. It was felt that there'd be too much work. Yeah. Victor, so I'm gonna call EJ tomorrow. He says that Wednesdays is when they do their group meeting. So I was gonna call him tomorrow to see exactly when they're looking at it. All right. Okay. Maybe we can have a better idea. We all set. Anything else? The trucks are running. I take it? Yes. Yes. Good news. Thank you. You're all set, Victor? I think so. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, believe it or not, we're almost on time if anything a little early. We have a letter. You all received a copy of it and some correspondence back and forth considering Mike Hill's request that to begin the statutory process under 19 VSA 708 to upgrade the class four portion of South Bear Swamp to class three action possible and Mike is here. Welcome, Mike. Thank you. We're glad to have you with us. Nice to be here. And I believe everybody got that letter and saw it and understood it. So, and I know Sarah has explained to you the process that we have to go through to consider doing this. But give us an overview. We read the letter. So, we get what you're asking for but give us an overview. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate Peter and everybody else for considering this. So, yeah, Sarah sent me a reference to section 708. I'm not sure that explained the process to me. It probably just I'm too dense to get it but I didn't understand. What I understood is either 5% of the town which we're not talking about or somebody who abuts a road which we are talking about can raise it or this like board can raise this stuff any time on their own which I've asked the board to do since 2019 and but it's gotten worse over time. And I mean, this year we had ruts in the summertime a foot deep, a foot wide. There are cyclists going through here all the time. Could you just back up Mike and just so everybody understands this section we're talking about. Okay, so at the end of South Bear Swamp Road the northernmost section that runs into East Bear Swamp Road and ultimately to North Bear Swamp Road is about 0.7 miles, maybe a little more than that. And there are five families that are on the southernmost third of that, maybe 300 yards. And I was one of those families eight years ago it was my ninth summer here. And after a while, we were having delivery trucks who couldn't come here or frankly tow trucks who couldn't tow sometimes some drivers out. And I just asked, well, can we consider maybe just getting it plowed down to just past my driveway which is the first 150 yards. So people could make that hill. So I could but that would help all four families the other four families down the hill. And I guess I didn't understand the procedure well enough then and I'd hoped it would be taken up but it wasn't. So this year it was really dangerous not just in the winter when a family moved in last August three young kids, three now four, six and eight now nine they couldn't get fuel. And we're all taxpayers here and it can't be that you have five families and 300 yards a road and there's some reason and it's not in 708 as to why the town's resources are being spent for one family on East Bear Swamp Road to extend the plowing of well over a half mile for one family I want to emphasize I'm not against that. I like that feeling I know that family I know all the families or most of them in the Bear Swamps and I like them all. I just don't want to see that I want to understand why the five of us can't have well a road that's safe in the summer I have a bicycle, a motorcycle not, you know, if I ride those on the road it's about four miles an hour and I see people even driving their cars gripping the wheel. Again, just to back up and maybe it's just me but I'm a little confused about exactly which stretch of road you're talking about. Which is worth the, okay. So when you drive up South Bear Swamp you get to the very top of the hill where Rita Rickettson and Dave Feldman live and there's about eight black mailboxes on the left. Right there there's a sign that says- Randy? Yeah. So Mike, I happen to be somebody who doesn't necessarily know the residents within middle sex. I am looking at a map as you're talking. So when you refer to folks mailboxes and driveways it doesn't necessarily click for me. I'm sorry, yeah. When you're talking about driving up South Bear Swamp I'm looking at a map and I see Daniels Farm Road off to the left hand side. Yes. It's the side of South Bear Swamp that you're referring to. It's, that is, well South Bear Swamp, you know you're coming up from Santa Road now and Daniels Farm is on your left. What I'm talking about is another quarter to a half mile past there. The begins a quarter to a half mile past that. So you'll see there's the last 0.7 of South Bear Swamp Road. Keep going up and you'll see how South Bear Swamp ends by merging into East Bear Swamp Road. Yes. I'm only talking about the last 0.7 or maybe 0.8 or 0.9. That's all I'm talking about. And really importantly, I'm only talking about the first third or maybe quarter of that last 0.8 or 0.9. I'm talking about- Just past the Bridenstines and there's another house on the right. Is that what you're talking about? No, he's not. Okay, I'm really confused then. So just to, do you guys know where, you guys know where Manash but all the property from the Christian farm, right? Yes. Okay. I thought I did, but now I don't think I do. Do you know where John Christian lives? No. Okay. Do you know where David Lawrence lives? No. Do you know who I know where lives is called the Britsky. And if I keep going up that road, there's the white farmhouse and then that's where the road ends. Kind of allowing. That's where the class three ends, correct. Right, that's where the class three ends and then you go down the road and I think your house might be on the right but I'm not sure somebody is in the way back there. Then there's that log cabin and then there's Joanne Bridenstine's in another family. You got it. Okay, so let me tell you this. So yeah, for five years I've been the first house on the right. I have about 50 acres. And then the log cabin is my neighbor, Bill and Diane Chapin. And then Bill sold me most of the rest of the road on the right last August because so, but he kept his 14 acres, his house and his ponds. He and I have become very good friends. And so I bought from him and kind of wraps around there's 10 acres just beyond Bill and the Lund family bought that last August from Bill's daughter Heather. And the Lund family are a young wonderful couple farmers from Michigan. And they're with me, farm in some of my land now. And they have three young kids and they're the ones who couldn't get fuel this winter. So across the road. Where do they live, Mike? Where do they live? Where do they live? Okay. Do you have an address? Yes, you can't see their address is 406. 406, okay, thank you. And that's what I see. And the Chapins on the right hand side are 376. Now just across the driveway from the Lunds is a single driveway that serves two families with 50 and 20 acres respectively. So one is the Bridensteins and Mike Klein, right? Joanne Bridenstein and Mike Klein. You can see their house readily, but if you go halfway up their driveway, there's another driveway up to the left. Oh, I know that. So Dan Riley has a house up there with 50 acres. So, Mike, just to give you a little background, and I appreciate very much you're coming before us tonight. But over the years, we get requests to upgrade roads. And I think in my time, we've gotten maybe eight or 10 of those requests, some longer, some shorter. And historically, we've been, I will use the word reluctant to upgrade roads, mostly because of the cost. And in some cases, neighbors have banded together and we've given them permission to improve the road or repair the road. I have no idea what the cost of upgrading that road would be, but it would be pretty substantial, I'm afraid, which means it's a problem. I mean, and the other part of it is, and don't get me wrong, but all of you who chose to live on the Class IV road knew it was a Class IV road when you built your houses there or when you moved there. So I'm not saying I'm not sympathetic and the board is unsympathetic, but I guess what we need to decide if as a board, we will go ahead and consider this request, investigate it, see what the cost is, and see if there's any way we would consider doing it, or if we just can or don't wanna do it. And I understand it's frustrating when people can't get fuel and it's frustrating when plow trucks can't get through and all of that, but again, and I don't mean to sound mean or nasty, but you knew what you were getting when you built your house there or bought the house there or moved there. So how do other board members feel about this? Victor? Well, Mike, would you be considered the petitioner? Well, I am at this point, I've not asked anybody else to pull in. I wanna be clear, I have tried to work with this town to give it other things and I have felt vilified, frankly, and I'm not gonna pull people into this with me. So right now you can consider me the petitioner, I will tell you there's nobody opposed to it, nobody who would be opposed to it. Oh, I ask, is it? And if I could respond to some things, Peter said, I'd like to, but go ahead, Vic. Yeah, okay, you can in a minute. Yeah, it's just the question I always have is the section 711, and if you're the petitioner, you may be the one that would pay for the upgrade. Are you willing to do that? Well, I'd like to know what the costs are, I'd be helpful, Vic, but with all respect, Peter, when I bought my property, no, I didn't know it was class four and I didn't know the difference between class four and class three. So that's on me, perhaps, but it was never told to me. Now I might've been stupid, but that's what I bought and I didn't mind for a while, but yeah, you might get eight or 10 requests and you gotta consider that, but this is a democracy and when requests come up, I think we're all in the town allowed to be treated equally and regardless of how long we've been living here. And I think we're absolutely going to treat you equally, I can assure you of that. We're not gonna discriminate against you in any way, but it's a bigger question than your section of road. I mean, and we struggle to maintain, we struggle to maintain the roads we have. That's all I'm saying, you know that, if you've been at town meeting and we have much see the problems all over the town on our class three roads. So all I'm saying is it's a financial issue. I appreciate everything's a financial issue, Peter. But if you can plow, well, first of all, I'm not insisting upon this being class three fully. I had understood from one of my neighbors that there was something happening in McCulloch Hill Road. I mean, he may have been misinformed, but if he's not, this is all I would seek is some plowing and some grading. It doesn't have to be widened. You told me years ago there was an issue of turnaround. I said, no, they could turn around on my property, they could turn around at the end of the road the same as they do at the end of East Barrow Swap Road. So I don't accept that. I don't accept that I've not been retaliated against for standing up to Monash on the law. Mitch Oseki, I have said to him after I bought the 160 acres and put over 200 in current use. Vic or Mitch, I understand you're head of the trails committee. Look, if you ever want to talk about townspeople using trails on my property, love to talk to you. Didn't hear from him. Rodham didn't hear from him. Now you might say that that's coincidence, but I don't think so. And there's other things and I shouldn't have to go into these. I just want a transparent process where people who live on my section of the road are treated as well as people who live on other roads per dollar of maintaining. I'm happy to do some stuff, but if you're gonna retaliate against me, I mean, Peter, you and I met in 2018. Look, look, I don't want to get into it with you. I am not intending to retaliate against you. I can understand why you don't want to, but if you're gonna be denied, we're gonna get into it. Mike, my turn to talk for just a minute. Okay, yeah, yeah. And then Liz had her hand up. In no way, in no way or am I, or any member of the select board retaliating against you, you're making a request, we are going to consider your request. All I was trying to do was give you a little background of the town's history with regard to upgrading class four roads. And if you thought that was retaliating against you, I'm sorry, it was certainly not my intent and I apologize if it came across that way to you. Not that comment. Okay, so I apologize for that, Liz. Yeah, I was just gonna comment about just the overall, like, you know, precedent setting of upgrading roads that are class four to class three. First, I just have a question for Vic. Does that road, does that portion of the road ever get graded like once a year? I'm glad you asked that question. Thank you, because we have to, we have, we do. Mr. Lone called me the other day and they keep telling me that in the past that they have graded that road. I know Eric went up and graded it. I know that a person named Crystal called about North Bear Swamp from East Bear up around the corner to the gate, she wanted that graded. And Bill Reineke, I think has his graded twice this year. I don't know that it ever, I don't know. I've talked to Eric about this and it's gotta keep it within reason, but there are certain roads that are class four, like Upper Burnett, that we never grade. And there's houses, there's kids, and all that stuff. So. Those that are class four? Yeah, okay. I'm talking about all class fours. Yeah, okay. So. Let's just back up a minute and. Can I finish my question or my comment? So I just wanted to say that to Mike's comment of plowing versus grading occasionally, my understanding from all the previous conversations we've had about this kind of thing is that we do occasionally grade class four roads, you know, when it fits, when the grader fits, they're somewhere they don't, right? So they never get graded. But we never plow them, like that's definitely not something that we do. But what I wanted to say just to kind of wrap up Peter's comment is that I think there's a precedent that would be set, that possibly would be set that other people. So for example, I live on a private road that has five families on it. And I believe I could petition because it's five or more families. I could say I would like this to become a class three road, right? Because I would like it to be plowed because I live here. Even though I moved there knowing that I have, that we have a driveway agreement and we have somebody that we hire to do our plowing and grading that sort of legally I could go to the town and we could have petition that says, well, we would like our road to become class three as well because there's X number of families that live on it that are served, that are townspeople. So I would be somewhat concerned that we could see more of these types of requests as more people move in and as driveways get longer and bigger like Leland Farm Road, for example, like those are examples where, you could see the town getting asked to plow all those houses as well. So that would be my concern. So could I just, could I just back up for one minute and I see your hand, Randy? I guess I'm a little confused, Mike. I thought, I thought initially when I read your letter that you were asking us to upgrade the road to class three road. It sounds to me like that is not the case. No, well, my point here is I'd like to have it plowed or graded and if the only way to do that is three then absolutely I want to be treated as well as the single family at the end of East Bear Swamp Road or some rational reason why I'm not, why my five people are not. And Liz, thank you very much because nobody in four years has told me what you just told me, which is that five people can get together a petition. I don't know how you know that because yeah, I went to law school. I don't know that. I didn't say that, Mike. Before you even asked this question and I've seen seven or eight. Well, then what? Nope. I said five families on a road can, if there's five families physically living on a road. We have five families physically living on a road. That could constitute the request for a road. Okay, well, why does that not apply to me? I think it does, but I'm just saying there's a lot of people it applies to is my point. Like there's a lot of people in middle sex who have lived on private roads with five or more people, five or more families. You live on class four roads, Randy. And you live on class four, right? So, I'm confused. Are you saying that if the five of us in this pod ask for this to be either plowed or graded or even class three, there's a mechanism for us to do that? It doesn't feel like it's any different than you coming forward as an applicant now, the single person. Thank you, Randy. I appreciate that. I just think there might be a body of law someplace that I haven't seen. So I'd like to know about it. So my comment for the board and for Mike and if I'm wrong here, I'd like somebody to clarify, but in the documents that are on the town's website, and I think Victor mentioned this earlier, that while you can petition to classify, to re-classify the road, it does state in the ordinance right now that the petitioner, in that case, you or the applicant, right? Or the five people if they're all applicants would be responsible for cost that would be incurred to upgrade that road. Hence your question before, what is that? I mean, I don't know, but I just, sounds like there's some confusion as to whether or not you can come, but I just wanted to re-point that out that that re-classification doesn't, that the town is paying for the upgrades needed to move from a class four to a class three. Well, if there's a cost, I might be willing to do it. I mean, right now we're spending over $5,000 a year to have someone plow it, and I'm not looking for driveways. So don't be concerned about long driveways, because we will take care of our own driveways. My driveway is long, but it's flat, it'd be easy. What we have is a road that trucks can't go down. So five families are really cut off. And I guess I'll pay if it makes sense to pay, but why should us five pay when somebody else gets a half mile to their door and they don't pay a nickel? I just, I'm just looking for parity and transparency and a reason. And if there are rules out there like this or that, I mean, I can't even find a map that tells me has the road been thrown up? Is it a trail? It was suggested. Posted on the wall on the town hall. It's a mystery to me. I, to post it on the wall on the town hall, you can look at it any day that town clerk's office is open. Okay, I will do that, but I don't know why it's not on the website in a way that- Well, it is actually, it's on the AOT website, Mike. If you go to Vermont Agency of Transportation, you can go pull down any map of any town going historically, including currently to see AOT maps. We have them, we have it on the wall or it's at AOT. Okay, well, that's helpful. I'll look for that, I'll find out whether or not, for example, what is listed on Google as a road, the road behind the Feldmans is road or was it thrown up? The road that crosses my property, bushy. I'm glad to have it be a public road and for Vast to be across it, but is it a road? Is it a trail? Is it what, where do you learn these things? It's a mystery to me. That's where you learn. Come on down to the office. We'll have a long discussion. I just want to, just for the point of clarification, it's the number, I don't know why everyone's getting hepped up on the number five. It's just that the, I just want to make sure that people are not confused with 5% of the voters and petitions. It's not the number of families. And I don't think that was Liz's point, but I'm just saying that you need who are voters, landowners, and whose number is at least 5% of the voters. So that's the number that you need to petition. If the board doesn't accept your request, Mike, you need 5% of the voters in a petition. That's- And I'll do that if I need to, but it doesn't seem like I want to trouble 5% of people who I'm just getting to know. But to Liz's point, exactly what she said was said to one of my neighbors by a fuel delivery driver. So, but again, this is not a mystery. It's written down somewhere. I'm just going to ask you to tell me where a layperson- Mike, have you read our highway policy? No. Oh, I would suggest you read it because that's what spells out this process. Well, I did ask for- I asked for the process, Peter, four years ago, and I asked for it a month ago, or August 18th, and no one has said the words highway policy. I have a hard time believing, if you formally asked for a copy of our road policy that Sarah wouldn't send it out to you in a hot second. I didn't know to ask for it. I asked, what are the procedures? And I was told 708. Look, look, look, look. Let's settle down here. Let's do a couple of things. Okay. I would suggest that you should review the highway map, that you should review our town highway policy and then come back to us with exactly what you want to have happen. And I would encourage you, as far as I know, one person can do it, two person can do it, 10 people can do it. I would tell you, it will have more strength if your neighbors all get together and come to us as a group with a proposal of what you want to do in conformance with our road policy. And, you know, we will absolutely, absolutely consider that. We've done it for, we've done it for many other people. We haven't done it at the town's expense for many other people. But that should be the process. I mean, you say you're a trained legal person. You should be able to find out this information. It's easy. As a high school graduate, I should be able to find this information. It doesn't matter. You could. I don't want to argue with you about that. It's readily available. Randy. I put it in the chat. There's a link in the chat now to the ordinance page from the town's website. I just want to be clear that that ordinance was passed way before, like years and years ago. And I just want you to know that the state statutes trump everything on that. So you've barely got a, and the reason why you know so much about this fricking Title 19 is because the town just recently discontinued or downgraded five roads. And then that last year discontinued to a, or downgraded to a legal trail, a certain part of Dolan Road. So the board's been through this recently and they're pretty familiar with Title 19. That's statutorily what you got to follow. Okay, well, I'll do my best. I'm having trouble. Oh, no, I think I did do it. Randy, thank you for sending that link. I'll look at that. And Sarah, I'll come down and learn what I can from you and take it from there. Yeah, so thank you for your time, everybody. I didn't mean to take up this much time. Okay, well, thank you. I don't mean for you to think that we're against you on this. We're not. We're just trying to explain the bigger picture, is all I'm telling you. Okay, thank you, Peter. Okay. Thank you, Mike. Okay, all right. So you will get back to us. Sure, yeah, yeah, I'm happy to, yeah. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay, we need to go into executive session to discuss appointment or employment of an employee. Is there a motion to go into executive session? I move that we go into an executive session to speak about it on a potential employee. Okay, thank you, Victor. Is there a second? Who's going to be included in that motion, Victor? Oh, yeah, I forgot that. And we'll get it eventually. I would say Eric and all the select board and I guess Dorenda if she's the one that's going to run the, be the host. I don't know. Does that sound reasonable? I'll second. Okay, thank you. All in favor, please say aye. Raise your hand. Aye. Okay, we're in executive session. So you'll give Dorenda the power, Sarah. Yeah. Thank you. I might slide away here just shy as seven because we have company and we're going to have dinner. So if you see me go dark, that's where I've gone. Okay, well, all I would say is, so we have down here in our other business, considering whether we're going to go back to in-person meetings or not and when. Do you have any thoughts? Whatever, everybody else decides. Okay, all right. Okay, that's fine. Okay. Okay, Dorenda, treasurer's report. Um, I don't think I have a lot of financial stuff. I did send you guys that RB technology stuff where they're billing us for all of the, you know, to tell us several times over again how bad our server is. And we also received a new contract that they want signed. I did go back and check in April, we were paying $705.86 in May. They went to $735.86 and now for September, they want to bill us $798.71, which I think Randy did the math earlier and. 13% increase in the last four months or five months. I just think there's a lot and reading through this contract, it almost looks like they're going to be billing us differently. How they, not just the rate, but how they're going to consider different things. So I'm just concerned, you know, we, they came in two weeks ago and on a Friday, I believe it was when the offices were closed, they tried to upgrade the system for the new 365. And so he called me, Holland called me at home and he was able to get into the bookkeeping computer and my laptop and the recording station for Sarah, but he was unable to do any other computers because they weren't on and, but there was no advance notice that this was going to be done. There was, you know, we had called them and told them we wanted to do this, but I just feel every time we have worked done with them, that we always have some kind of issue. And as it was after he up, he just says, okay, when it comes back up, he says, just go in and do this and do that, which I went in to do and I couldn't do it. So I had to call him back and then he charged us for that time for me to put in a support ticket and I, I'm unimpressed. I think one of the things that stuck out to me looking through some of these service tickets that Durand provided us was, there doesn't seem to be resolution in a lot of them. And there's no, like, if the problem is aging equipment and maybe this was before my time, but there's no recommendation on, you know, letting us know that we need to start looking at different equipment if that's what the issue is. So it, I got the impression and again, I don't know what's happened here before, but I got the impression like there, the attend, the attentiveness just isn't there. And it's kind of like, yeah, I'm here, here's 15 minutes. I'm billing you for it. Even though half of the issues are things that are unresolved and they're just repeating. Anyway, that was my take on the information that I saw today. And I haven't had a chance to, I haven't had a chance to look over that, but, you know, we've been hearing for a long time from Duranda that she's not, and from, and from Sarah that they're not comfortable with the service we're getting. What, what is the date on that contract they want us to sign? Well, I guess they wanted to sign a mile back from my understanding. I don't know when the original quote came through, but I got a copy of it the other day. And I don't know, do you know when this was supposed to take effect, Sarah? When this is supposed to what? When did we originally, because it sounded from the tone of the email we got the other day that we still hadn't signed this contract. I, you know, I think that this was something that we discussed a while ago. So I was really confused by we went when, when we got this, either had been resolved or I thought it was sent. Like Phil wanted to look at it. I don't know why I was surprised by your tone as well. Well, I hadn't seen it before the other day. So I don't know if you've got a copy. I didn't, I didn't get a copy before this. Well, here's where I think we need to do guys. I don't know if you've got a copy of this. I don't know if you've got a copy of this. But what we need to do is we need to ask them for a three month extension of our contract, whatever the expiration date of the contract is. And then we need to go out and. What are options? Interview people again, talk to, talk to different vendors. I, at this point, I used to know who all the vendors are. I don't know anymore, but I'm. I'm sure we can, can figure out who they are. I don't feel like I've had several conversations with Ruben and, you know, nothing seems to change. And I know you've had conversations with them as well. So. The last page. So the last, the last page on this says the delivery date is nine two. With an expiration date of nine 30 for this. Monthly agreement. Yeah. That's the expiration of our current contract. The date of the sale. One month. That's, he's just given, I think. Well, that's attached to this. That's attached to the quote that's just, you know, showing how we're going to be billed. I don't think that. Oh, that was just a sample bill. Okay. Nevermind. But we, you know, the other thing is is I really don't understand what's in this monthly agreement that we pay for, Because they still turn around and charge us like if you look at the billing tickets. They charges like on 722 they charge just 3250 for recurring monthly health checkup. I would assume that would be part of the services but yeah. We're all what I read what I remember is what I remember is that we contracted for a certain number of hours per month. I believe we pay. So we pay so much for the first two hours or $130 and 50 cents for the first two hours. And then the billing structure later on in the agreement moves to $200 an hour. So they give us two hours a month at a discounted rate. Right. That's how it was done. So, but what is included in the monthly programming because they should if they're coming in to check our corporate we contract them to check our computers once a month, or how often they do it. Why are we also paying for, you know, why is this time also going on the service ticket. I think it would be part of the monthly checkup. I mean, we'd have to go back and look for contract we signed whenever we signed it but, you know, I've, I've heard enough over time and feel like we've suffered enough. And I think we just have to say hey we we want some time to look at other options before we sign this contract. And they're probably going to say well we need to, you know, give you another bump in the rate or whatever they need to do I mean it's going to take us some time to do this we can't. We can't. We can't, we can't fire them and not have somebody else ready to go so. I don't know how the I don't know how the rest of you feel but I mean I'm, I feel like we've beaten this horse horrendous tells us these horror stories every every month and Sarah tells us our stories and they nothing seems to change. I really wish we could find, like an individual who was reasonably local who could, you know, cover this stuff as opposed to a firm or with small potatoes to them, because that's what it feels like with our be tech that we're not big enough to really be particularly important to them. Well, we are small potatoes. And I don't know, I mean maybe there are individuals out there and they're old in the old days there were a number of people who did that who did that kind of work but I don't know who they are now. I'm sure we've talked about this but who does like callous and with Worcester and all those places. What is that. Yeah, I'm wondering who does do I did Sarah have you talked to the other town clerks. No, but I'll be happy to. That'd be a good start but I think. I think what we need to do is it's center and say, and I don't know how long the right, the right period is that we, we request a 60 day a 60 day contract and we need to let you know that we're going to use that time to explore other options and see what see what their responses. Maybe they'll say well in that case you're all done September 30. I don't know. I would hope they wouldn't do that. Either that or we just ignore the contract and go ahead and go ahead and do it and see what they do. I'm better to lay out cards on the table than just ignore it. I would rather do it that way. Yeah. No one opens. So who's going to take on I guess I'll ask the question who's going to take on the job of finding a new other than Sarah checking into the other town. I mean, again, that's one more thing that needs to be put on the goal list. I would say you guys, yeah, I was just looking back like in April, the board or somebody from the board was going to meet with RB tech. Several times. You have. Yeah, I did back then in April. Well, after that, after that, whenever that was that we had this discussed the serious discussion the last time yes. Robin was going to call me and set up a meeting. He never did. I followed up once and he still never got back to me. So, I don't think that we've seen that contract before now. I know I don't think so. Do we have our current contract? What's the contract we're operating under now. I go back and I don't recall signing a contract in a long time. I've been doing rate increases and no notification or anything. It's just, oh, here's a bill for this, you know, this is your new, you know, monthly bill and I think it's at least two years. If not, I have to go back and find where the original bill, I think it got. The last, the last contract you have, I believe it, well, this is the data. This is perception managed services by RB tech. I don't know if that's the same thing. That's what this is. That's from June 30 of 2020. 2020. Okay. Yeah. Two years. And then their proposal for what they would do for us is from October 30 2019. The first contract you had was I think 2017. Well, if you could put out something or call some other clerks to see who they're using. Yep. That would be a good first step. And I'd be willing to make a few phone calls if there's, you know, some people around at least to start beating the bushes a little bit. I don't know why I'm on the contact on this or even why this would be more confidential or a municipality. There's no reason for this to be more confidential. Right. So, you know, Yeah. Anyway. Okay, I will do that. Okay. I'm flying out guys. See you next time. Hi. Hi. So the process is going to be Sarah, you're going to make some phone calls, give that information to Phil. He's going to make some calls. Are we going to notify? I think we should know by the end of the week, I'll have a I'll have a list of the towns in this area and what what technical who they use for tech services. How's that. And how happy they are. Great. I haven't done it yet, Liz. So, You're going to be great. At the same time, at the same time, do we send RB tech a letter? I just, I mean, I'd wait and see what happens by, I don't know, maybe not. Let's just wait till Friday to see what what if they all have RB tech. Well, the other thing is, is I don't think they're going, they just keep charging us. Whether they have a contract in place. It appears to be they just In the short, in the short run, let's, let's ignore the contract and look in the long run. If we're really going to, going to start interviewing other people, I think we have to let RB know. I think it's sturdy pull if we don't do that, but Who these other folks are using, and at least take a few preliminary steps before we do anything. And if they, if they, if they call and ask why we haven't signed the contract, I'm happy to have a conversation with them and say we're, we're considering other options. Well, I think you need to give us more than four days if we just received this last week, you know, to make the decision on it. I wonder if there's a, if there's an end date on our current contract who knows. I mean, two years old and this contract is for a 12 month period so I think what happened is through the through the whole ordeal. They issued the contract we signed it two years ago. We've been operating underneath the month to month agreement because they contract expired basically and, and that's, they noticed that they didn't have a signed contract and that's how this one popped up. This says this agreement shall commence as of 911 2022 and shall remain in effect for a minimum period of 12 months. There's no end date it's just a minimum period for a year. Yeah, so that's probably what's that's probably what's what's happened. Let's let's take it one, let's take it one step at a time but you know I don't know. I mean, it'll be very interesting to see what, what Sarah finds out from the other towns and how happy, and how happy they are. If they're all as unhappy as we are, maybe the way the world is these days I don't know. This place I worked we used arms bees, but I don't know if they do municipalities or not but even still in business. Yeah, they just sell dishwashers. Yeah. No, that was different they have a computer end of it. I think there was I think there's some guy in town it's not David Lawrence it's like it's some maybe we should have put something on front porch forum saying hey do you have great computer skills do I don't know. But there was a guy a single guy and never he tried to sell us is and we were like well. It was a long time ago I think there was a long time ago. I mean, there, there may be those guys out there I would just I would just warn you and my in my experience down through the years, the, the high and I had single guys working for me under contracts I had single guys working for me as employees. That's all well and good till they're sick on on vacation what do they have for what do they have for backup when the server. But anyway, also I think we have plans for that we have we have like a lot of information on RB servers as well backed up. Oh yeah, they're backing up they're backing up our stuff but somebody else like they can. Okay, alright, I don't. I mean they probably would like to think they have us. I mean, I don't think they have us and I don't think they've been very responsive and I don't think they've done a good job managing our account. You know, all we hear from Dorinda and Sarah is complaints about the bill and complaints about this and complaints about that and I don't disagree with them. Well, I just don't I guess maybe we don't understand the bill, although they, you know, many when I first came on they came in and met with us and tried to explain the bill and that's when we bought more hours. Right. It just is it's really confusing how they just build for everything. Well, the end of, and I remember those conversations the intent of setting up those hours was, that's the amount of time that they thought they were going to need to service our account on a monthly basis we said we don't want to be getting. We don't want to be I mean once in a while are we going to get bills for extra time sure we are but it seems like every single month we get bills for extra time every month we have extra bills. Right. All right. Yeah, and I also agree that that my memory is that part of this process was that they were supposed to, you know, have a plan for us updating and doing whatever we needed to do with our equipment and for them just to say well your service to all well. They're coming to us a year ago and saying it's time to upgrade your server and here's here are the options. No. So. Yep. Okay, well that's all I really had. Okay. All right. Okay. Well, let's let's see what Sarah comes up with and then we can we can go from there but in the meantime don't sign the contract. No. Okay. No. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So that's of August 16 2022 select board meeting action likely minutes. I'm sorry. Is there a motion? I'll move. Second. Second. Thank you. All in favor of approving the minutes. I didn't get it back from Rob. After you got the attachment to set the attachment number one. Okay. So I guess we're still waiting on that. We should pass over it. I guess so. Yeah. I have a question relating to that. We cut the $100,000 check if we should I hold off sending that. I would think so. It's in the orders for tonight. So. I can pull it back, but. Probably. Because they'll probably cash it. Exactly. So. So hold off on sending that. Yeah, I would say so. I mean. All right. Just to be on the safe side. Probably a good idea. It's not jump change. And if you could. See if you could light a fire under. Under Rob Sarah, that would be great. I will. Or if I need to do it, let me know and all. And I'll call him. No, you know, it's just was a long holiday weekend, things like that. Okay. Here's a good one. And I'm, I'm recommending. I'm recommending we pass over this tonight because I think we need to think about this. This is considering to continue requiring social service agencies to submit petitions. With 5% of the town's voters. If they're requesting more than $250. To be approved in March 7th town meeting. And have never requested for a meeting. Before or they are increasing their request. My thinking on this is. We probably do need to have a petition over a certain amount. But I think that $250 is the wrong amount. I think it's too low. We've had that 250 for a long time. But I think we're. We're going to have to, we're going to have to, we're going to have to, we're going to have to run out of time and energy tonight. And I don't want to, don't want to make that decision quickly. So I would ask you all to think about that. And let's take it up in our next meeting. If that's okay with everyone. Okay. We're going to pass over. Discussing whether to resume in-person select board meetings action possible. It's a lovely space down here. Randy likes it. I'm still at the office, Randy. I see that. I couldn't make it to the office in time. Excited meeting until five o'clock. I personally am in full support of meeting in person again. Thank you. I think it's long overdue. Well, I don't know if it's long overdue, but I think it's overdue. And we are going to create the ability for people to. To, to zoom in and participate in meetings if they wish to. So when would we do this effect of the first meeting in October? Yeah, does that give us all time to get our, that the new shot, which I think is coming out like this week. This week. Yeah. Oh God. But this is a promising shot. For the Omicron. They all were. Well, no, this is more promising. You guys want to make a motion. I would say, I would say it does not give us enough time to get the shot. So maybe we should say November 1st. Now I'm not a fan of going in person meeting at all. Because of the Omicron. Right. I mean, because of the COVID. Yeah, I'm not 29 years old anymore. I don't think any of us are Victor. I thought you were. Sometimes I behave like I am, but that doesn't mean it's real. Right. No, I mean, I understand what you guys are saying. I mean, I, maybe it should be that. We. Those who can come in person, come in person, and that we make it in person meeting. And if you don't feel comfortable coming in person, then you call in. That's where we're at today, right? Yeah. No, I don't like, I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. Right. Here it is here too. Right. You're sitting somewhere there. And I want to, I believe that you guys are really missing out looking at these orders. Things that come through that. I think whether. No matter how many people look at them. I also think it's good that other people look at them as well. I do believe there's a lot being missed on it. I think it's important to know where some of this money's going because you see the totals, but you don't see. What it's, it's in that total. I just want to say though, because I wondered sort of what happened, the times that I have come in. I haven't seen them probably because you're, it's not safe to just leave them out. Leave them out on the counter. But all I see are the, um, the, just the sheets, the two pagers with the, with the totals. Not the, I don't see the actual like receipts and things like that. That we used to look at. Don't put them out on, we don't put them out. So that's what you're missing out on. Right. You know, that's what I'm saying that I think it's very important for people to, um, come in and look at them. And I don't think it's fair that if you come in on Monday and Vic comes in on Tuesday and Randy comes in on Wednesday, that the bookkeeper has to go pull out the file. And you know, when I don't disagree with that, I just, I'm talking about when I'm there during a meeting on a Tuesday. I haven't seen those. It would, while you've only been to two and we haven't changed the protocol. I mean, so they're not like, Randy, you don't have them right now. Yes. Yeah. I mean, she went, she went and grabbed them for me tonight. Okay. Sitting here right next to me. Yeah. And. Decision about when we're going to go to in person meetings. November 1st. And again, guys, if all of a sudden the world comes to hell and half of, half of, uh, the world comes to hell and half of the world comes to hell. And so, you know, Vermont has, has Omicron and the other half has monkeypox. We'll go right back to remote again. We can do it. Quick. You want to motion. Yeah. I move that we, uh, we, uh, move the meeting in person date to the first select board meeting in the month of November. Is there a second. Yeah. I mean, we keep pushing it off. We keep pushing it off. And I think there's something. The only reason to push it off, Randy, is that there's a real chance that, that most of us can get that shot by the 1st of November, which I think there will be. I think that's a reason to push it off until November. It's been this long. Another month isn't going to make that much difference. It's going to make that much difference. And, you know, it's like. There's nobody else sitting in this room, except for the people that you come in and meet with when you come in to sign the orders. So I just. Yeah, but if you're going to, if that's not, that's not actually, I don't agree with that. Because I go in there. And if I want to look at some, I asked Cheryl. And she just post, and she pulls that blue. File folder out. And if you think that bothers Cheryl too much, I'll go down, I'll get up early and I'll go down with Eric when he goes through it. And Cheryl's not there. You're looking at the highway folder that has the highway bills. You're not looking at all the other ones. They are not, you're not looking at the office bills. I think they should be left out because if you're in an in-person meeting, I, if you're in an in-person meeting, and I remember when I was on the select board before and you sat there and you try to go through them and everybody's talking and the meeting's going on, you don't pay any attention to them or you can't, you don't, you miss out on them, on the meeting. I think you have to have a separate quiet time to look at them. I don't, I know I do. Well, I, I know for a fact that Liz would sit in every single meeting and add up every single invoice. Well, I guess Liz is a much greater genius than I am. And I were lucky to have her on the board, but I don't think that's true for me. Well, maybe so then don't look at the bills, but I'm just saying that, you know, tonight I fell. Look, look, look, we're getting, we're getting off the point. Do we want to do it October 1st or November 1st? Yeah, October 1st. And if you can't come because you haven't gotten your viral shot yet, you just come on the, the zoo. Okay, so try to come on October 1st. If you can make that your goal. So Victor's motion is going to die for lack of a second. Are you ready to make a motion list? I'll, I'll move that we start October 1st. With the goal of everyone coming. And if they can't, they come via zoom. Is there a second for that motion, Randy? All second. All in favor of going in person on October 1st, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And opposed Victor. I am staying. Okay. That's fine. So the motion does, the motion does pass. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. That does. Yeah, I vote. So October 1st, we will be in person. So. Sarah, how are we going to notify the community? Are you going to do a front porch forum post? Are we going to. Are we going to do. Just to be, just to be clear, it's the first meeting in October, which happens to be October 4th. Yes. So I think what we'll do is we'll just, you know, I'll put out a general note. I'll put something on the website that says, if you want to tune into a meeting, if you want to come to the meeting, we encourage you to come to the meeting, but if you want to come through zoom, we'll come through zoom. And we'll just have one laptop here. That like this, that if someone wants to come and zoom, they can come and they can participate and we'll work it out as we go and see how my recommendations, you guys figure out where you want to meet what, what you want these meetings to look like. And then you can try to work on camera equipment from there. But I think most people I know who would want to come to meetings, they both, they are willing to come to the meetings. I've had to tell people before it is. We are not, we are not allowed at this point in time to require masks, right? You can do whatever you want. I thought the state of Vermont had a rule about that for public meetings that you could no longer require masks. Am I wrong about that? I don't know about, I don't know that the state of Vermont can tell you whether or not you can require masks or not. I personally don't even think we should go there. Yeah, I don't think that's an issue. No. I'll probably wear a mask if people are coming, but I don't think we're going to get a lot of people. All those that want to wear a mask are more than happy to wear a mask. I don't think we have the conversation about trying to force people to wear a mask. I agree with you. If somebody wants to wear a mask, they can wear a mask. I'm scheduling my appointment right now. I will tell you my policy in the town office. We've been one of the few town offices that have been open consistently from the get go. We've been very, very lucky knock on wood, not to have a COVID exposure, but the rule I have is if someone wants to come into the office and research and they want us to wear masks, we will wear masks, but otherwise I don't require people to come in and wear masks. That's just kind of the way it's all worked and it's been done. I think legally we can do that unless there's a state mandate. But again, I'm not a lawyer, but I wouldn't, I don't think we go there. I can't even go to the secretary of state's office. They still have a doorbell and I have to stand outside the door and they have to decide whether or not to let me in and put a mask on. So. That's what the states. So. So, let's see how it goes. We're doing the fire department public meeting to. That's right. The, the. I think you guys kind of had tentatively spoke about that. I think you guys kind of tentatively spoke about that. Well, that's something on the 29th or something. There's something on the 20th, you're having the public hearing about the zoning regulations, but then you didn't make a definite division. You didn't make a definite decision about the fire department. I think we did. I think we did. I think we did. We did. We did. All right. I'm sure we did. And I want to say it's like, I almost thought it was October 4th, maybe. Oh my God. October 4th. The board designated it's October 4th, 2022 meeting for a public hearing on merging the fire department into the town. Okay. Thank you for refreshing my memory. There you go. I just made my appointment, but it's not coming till next week. The appointments aren't available till next week. Okay. Where did you get your appointment list? Walgreens in Montpelier. And there's plenty of appointments. And it says for the Omicron variant, and I'm getting my flu shot, which I would recommend you all do as well. Oh God, I'll be so sick. I'll be so sick. Just do it all at once. Every time I get one of these shots, I'm down for the count for three days. We'll take one on a period of October. Better than being down for the count for real, right? Yes. Pretty bad. I mean, chills, fever. It's awful. Fuck that. Great. I'm gonna go off a cocktail. Thank you very much for that. Do we have anything else for tonight's meeting? I just wanted to mention that the Mead Road scrimmage continues on. Yeah, let's not get into that, please. Have you had, have you been a conversation? Yeah, I get them every day, just about. I got a, I received an email and a phone call about that as well. Provided some links to information. But it's not, what's that? Pictures, Randy? I didn't see any pictures, no. I got pictures, but I couldn't figure out what they meant. So it sounds like there's a political sign placed in the right-of-way on the class four in the last residence property of that road. And I was questioned as to information that the town had about whether or not that was prohibited or not. I couldn't find much other than what was in the town highway ordinance. And the V-trans in the state of Vermont, the legislative statute, I think it was title 10, 495, prohibits that from taking place with the exemption of signs that were less than 260 square inches. But if it doesn't sound like the town has a specific ordinance on signs like that, the town highway ordinance refers to some signage saying that the road commissioner needs to approve any signs that somebody would wanna put up, but that seems to be like more in a permanent capacity. So it seems like a pretty gray area overall. I don't think we wanna get into policing political signs. Of course. And I wouldn't even leave it at political signs. I mean, it could be a yard sale sign or something like that. I think what people get revved up about is the political signs. Wow. I don't know. I mean, people put up signs from time to time, they take them down. I'm not aware that we have a serious problem, although I can certainly understand that somebody could object maybe potentially to a political sign, but what are they? Is that what they're complaining about? That one of their neighbors is putting up a political sign. Don't get into it. There was no mention of that. It's just, that was the question and I said, they asked me if I gave permission and I said, I have not talked to the person you're talking about since the select board meeting that we all met at. I got out of it that way. It's an ongoing neighborly dispute that continued over from our last board meeting. Whereas, one of the neighbors put a political sign on the other neighbors within the right of way of the road. That's really- On the other neighbor's property, though? Yes. In the right of way, on the other neighbor's property. Why don't they put it up on their own property? Like, should we be talking about this? I really, really, really think that this is not wise. It's not warned, like, let's maybe we should move on. All right, okay. If it keeps bubbling to the surface, maybe we'll have to do something. I don't like the idea that they're putting up on the neighbor's land. I don't care whether it's in the right of way or not, but- Yeah, but that's kind of like the property. If it's a property to owner, to property owner dispute. No, I don't disagree. Okay, folks. Have a good evening. We'll see you in person on October 4th, Randy. Well, you're gonna see us virtually on the 20th of September. Oh, hold on, everybody. I have a conference in Atlanta that day. Is there gonna be a quorum if I don't attend? The 20th? Yeah. I don't know anybody else who's not gonna be there. Yeah. Is there a problem with me not being there? I mean, it sounds like the four others would be there. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know about Phil, but- Well, we've got three of us then, anyway. If you're going, Liz, you're going. No, I know, but I mean, you know- No, no, no, it's fine. I could maybe get out of whatever the evening thing is in the conference, but I'm afraid I'd forget. Once I'm out of Vermont, I forget like what's going on in the rest of the world. You'll have a quorum, because these three are agreeing to be here. Okay, that's good. All right. Okay, good night, everyone. Bye. Bye.