 Yep, call the East Mopley Select Board to order at 7 o'clock. Any additions to the agenda? Yeah, I'd like to talk about COVID preparations and management at the town office. Okay. Put that down. You need a pencil? Would you like one? Can you get them a pencil? Anybody else need a pen or are you writing me a pencil? I just got out of the detail here. That's all right. Covered in grease. I got such a thing. Okay, move forward. Okay, first agenda item is a financial review of the past fiscal year. So in your bundle, page 2 is the actual budget versus fire. Yep, you got another one of those? Paul, can you give that to him? Yeah? It's all the documents I sent out there. If you looked at anything before you came to the meeting, this is all going to be old. So, income-wise, we brought in the two payments from Talus and East Mopley for fire. Total expense was $190,000, so we essentially chose the surplus of $4,275. The one thing that didn't get into this particular expense year was the hose testing because the hose testing company canceled on us a couple of times. They did just arrive on Friday and we did do the hose testing, so essentially we did spend that line item. I don't have the exact bill yet, but we had the line item of $3,400. So if you take that out of the 4,275, essentially at the end of the year we're going to end up with $875 left over of the budget. Any questions on that? So that bill, though, that's going to go towards last year's... So essentially if it had fallen before June 30th, it would have been there because it was in this past year's budget. But it didn't, so because we're on a cash basis, we're going to show that as a surplus this year and a deficit next year. But I'm just trying to tell you that in reality this is what we... Essentially we came out with an $875 of our budget. You could have pre-spent the money, I don't know, within the year. I don't think you can. Yeah, you can. You've been allocated. Well, we had no idea that they were even... Oh, we didn't even know. Yeah, they were having COVID issues as well as everybody else and they were behind it. They only came to us because they had cancellations. So it could have been six months from now. Sure. So that's how we ended up in directs and pretty much right on the money. Nice job. Then if you look on page three, or actually the bottom of page two, capital expense equipment, $26,000. That's the payments on the power cuts in the defibrillators. Power what? Power cuts. Oh yeah. So essentially that's where that comes out of. And then on the next page, the $60,000 on expense trucks, that's the two payments on rescue two and rescue three. So that's an annual expense until those loans are paid off. So essentially we're looking at $86,000 of capital expenditure each year. Just to point that out. And you took that out of your... It comes out of a capital account. Capital, that's right, Tom. Right. Yeah. So that's why it's not in the budget. It's in the capital expenditures. Right. And the capital revenue comes in on the ambulance side. So we can look at that when we get to the ambulance. Yeah. Any other questions on fire? Okay, page four. When you say page number, are you talking about... Up at the top. The big corner. Sorry. These are multiple documents and they each have their own... That's why I put big numbers up. Okay, thank you. Everybody can see the big numbers. You can see the big numbers. I see the big numbers. Thank you. The big numbers. Can you see the big numbers? I see the big numbers. It's pretty explanatory. There we go. Okay. Self-explanatory. Carl was having an issue. Yeah, I got it. Okay. So on the income side of the ambulance is a whole bunch of other stuff that you haven't seen before. There is a grant for expenses and that was a grant from the state to pay for COVID related supplies. That came as part of the COVID fundings that we didn't expect. The state also gave us hazard pay for EMTs that actually worked during the period of time that we're out in the field due to COVID. And the 15,000 is the transfer from contingency that we put in the budget for you and that's where that showed up. The one thing you should note is the Marsh field total is one payment extra. They paid their FY22 first payment before July 1st and we deposited, we should have held off on it, but we got deposited before. So essentially there will be an extra 10,000, 927 in this year's income, which essentially will have to take out at the end. So if you go to the bottom of the page where it says ordinary income, it says a surplus of $11,268. If you subtract the 10,927, it comes out to $341 in excess. So essentially, again, we sort of hit the number of debt on. So you didn't want to hold off on the Fodging Act? It came in and our Treasury didn't know. Oh, okay. It just was a timing thing. Yeah. We don't like to have checks sitting around in the firehouse. So essentially she didn't understand that it was the first payment for the next year. And again, because we're a cash business, it shows up here. I see them. I can't really take it out because the date it comes in is when it has to be recorded. Oh, right. Okay. So if you look down to ambulance revenue, you'll see that we brought in over $164,000 of revenue from the ambulance billing. Toby, just point me to where that number is. It's about the way down. So the ambulance insurance revenue. Okay. So the other thing that happened this year, we also got a contract from the state of Vermont to be vaccinators around the state and at the vaccination clinics. The contract, the total contract is up for $100,000. Just for here? No, for us to be vaccinators, for us to provide members and EMTs to provide vaccination. So the grand total is at $100,000. We have not spent that yet, but that's the limit of the contract. So right now we've probably sent close to $40,000 to $50,000 paying people to go out and be crew members on vaccination clinics. And we're going to continue doing that. We have three more coming up when school starts. They're paying it a really nice, sweet $50 an hour for people to do this because they want people to be out there. So if you look down at the bottom of the page, it says COVID vaccination contract. So we had brought in $15,000. We had spent over $30,000 to pay for those salaries. So it's a negative balance, but we just received a check for $30,000. So we're actually in the positive now. I'm just not going to show because it, again, jumps over the fiscal year line. How much does the department keep for administering that? Well, we get $400 a week to administer it. And we also get $200 every time we call us to staff it. And we have to organize the staffing. So essentially it's covering our overhead for what we're doing. So Ty and I, and we have a staffer that's doing the calling of people and organizing the deliveries. So how will that show up? And I just want to think how do you do that? It's right here. No, the other thing, the contract is for $100,000. That's the maximum. It's up to $100,000. They say we don't need you anymore. If we get to $100,000, they'll come in and give us another contract. Can we go back up ambulance insurance expenses? What is this, what is unbudgeted ambulance billing, paramedic? What are those lines? Well, Denise, you should know we've been doing that for... Well, maybe if you just remind me. Those are the paramedic intercept costs. And the billing, when we have the Berry City clerk bill, it's... Thank you, Toby. We also have some people who are newer to the process than Denise here. And those two items are paid from the ambulance collections. They are not budget items. That's pre-distribution. So essentially, we pay that from non-patch payer monies. Okay, so page seven and eight. Eight and nine, sorry. So page seven is January to June, 2021. July to December, 2020. Number seven? They're still looking. So over 650 total calls all year. And it breaks it down by town. Any thoughts, any concerns? You guys had much action with, like, brush fires? We did sell them early on. But we try to keep it fairly regulated in our towns, for the permit-wise and everything. So we've been able to limit that. You see, down to the big, I'd grow a issue, you know, with the company nationwide. We do. I grew. Yeah, it was dry. It's been even with as much rain as we have. It was still really dry. You know, down in the depths of the soils. What happens when you get out in the woods is all the ground fodder and everything you eat, ground fires down in those, they'll start to burn down the ground because there's so much density and just the fluff of the leaf fodder and the pine needles. It's about ten years. It could be lightning strikes. It could be somebody's out, you know, sets a campfire and doesn't put it out. Yeah. Trojan pond. You know, they're open burning over there all the time. Dragon furniture out there, burning it, leaving. Really? Yeah. Over at Trojan pond over here at Coburn Road. You know, we got to do something about the parking over there. That's a nightmare. I'm over there a lot because that field's over there. It's a nightmare. It's not dry through there. If you had an emergency, you had to get through there. You could be in a curtain. Yeah. There's cars in the park right in the middle of the road. It's a nightmare. What is this called? Coburn pond. I know. People go swimming there. This is all right. It is parked in the road. Well, then we knew someone who could change traffic ordinance There's a group of people. Yeah, but it's not a town property. No, but the road's a town road. Yeah, this is a town road. Right. But how are you going to let people park? You have to get a hold of the nutrients. They own it. They own the property. So they're the ones that would have to allow us to move those stones and we think about parking better. Later. That's a nightmare. I'll tell you that right now. Anyway. Yep. So page eight and nine are actually the ambulance transports and non-transports. Almost 500 emergency calls. Part of our 650 total for the year. More than usual. No, we're used. Well, I think we're good at 600 some years. Yeah, I was just wondering if COVID kind of added more people. I think it's suffocating people because no one wanted to go to the hospital. And if they'd stay home and if the ankle hurt, they wouldn't call the ambulance because they didn't want to be exposed to the place where everyone who had COVID was being patient. Yeah, that's kind of what I had heard. Yeah, I think that's changed. Everybody's ready to go back to the hospital. We're busy. We're out pretty much every day. Several times a day. I don't have time. Anything else on questions on transports? Non-transports. You know, I was just going to say, there might be an angle around that COVID road if you're worried about safety on that. I'm wondering if you could use the mini-arka ride program at V-Trans to create one there. And that would actually create a parking. And it might be something to look into, you know, to see if that... There's just gravel roads, they pay for gravel blocks, they pay for it. Going back to the numbers. What's the relationship between the number of calls and the number of transports? Are some of the calls transports? So, page 8 and 9 are transports or non-transports in all of the... The page that looks like this. Different than the little column. If you go to this one, this one's only transport calls and non-transports. Page 8 and 9 are just transports. So, it's only the ambulance. No, I have the... It's only ambulance. And the other is the total of everything we do. So, with all the other fire and other stuff, there's another hundred. It says no and yes. The no's are non-transports, but they still require a intervention that the ambulance responds and has patient contact with them. So, the paperwork is done. Maybe response to the house for lift assist. Some diabetic emergencies. We may give them medications. They stay behind. Sign off release. I got that. I'm only... I'm wondering whether... So, number of transports and number of non-transports. These are mutually exclusive by towns, right? But are these the transports and non-transports of subsets of the number of calls? Yes. Okay, that's my question. You have a page 6. That's the collection rate. Yeah, that one burst when you just put it on. It looks like that's the horizontal. Page 6. Exactly. So, we actually collected more than we built. And I think that has to do with money coming in at the beginning of the year that put it in the year before the total business. I don't think it ever matches up, right? But the collection amount of 162 is pretty close to the 164. Part of the reason they differ is that the billing clerk doesn't always get up to date to the last day of the month for her records to bill for ambulance calls. And that's still being done by... It's done by various cities. So essentially we billed out $225,000 and collected $160,000. About Medicare... Yeah, so we took $90,000 hit from the Medicare and Medicaid adjustments. So if they paid a fair rate, we would have brought in $200,000 plus. Yeah. This is just how we have to do it. You can see that Medicaid percentage was 38, 39%, and Medicaid was 12%. So that's where we get nicked. Yeah. Problem across the board. Right. Doctors' offices everywhere. Yeah. And that's the financials. Any other questions on the financials before we move on? We'll take a minute to look at them. Processing. Okay. COVID updates for us. Our current status is we're still in semi-lockdown, though we never really left that. We limited the room capacities to here to 14, but we're probably not far from going back to limiting no public access. You know, with things really changing and how rapidly they're moving. As I'm sure you guys are starting to look at, Carl's question was what the towns do. So in order to keep ourselves protected and everything, we still have supply and inventory that we were able to amass during the rest of the previous spring year that we'll have supplies going forward that we're going to need, but we're starting to ramp up our precautions. We've always kind of kept a baseline in place, but the hospitals are starting to slowly lock down more and more. And I think we're going to be not far from back to where we were pretty quick. So you maybe have other sources of information that isn't in the news or whatever. I know five counties now that are red. Washington County being most recently added. Yeah, we see the same reports. You guys can have access to. We may just see them a little quicker. Yeah. I wonder if the governor will re-institute the state of emergency. I've always said he's not going to, but... Yeah, I think at this point they'll know, but I don't know if we can't speak to him. Yeah. It'd be interesting to see. So that's kind of our current status and our future status going forwards. As far as EMFD updates, there are special operations, UTV. We purchased a UTV this past year. I thought it was this year, this spring. That's what UTV is. It's a side-by-side utility vehicle with tracks on it. We can pull it out of the trailer if people want to see it. It's out in the trailer designed for forestry and off-road rescue. We've already used it this year for both. Going all the way as far as Northfield for forest fire and the structure fire that we were there for as well. Off-road rescue. We've been off-road trail over. Rescue the woman out of the woods up on the Long Matter Road between there and Worcester. And then going out to Worcester side. By this end of the increase in, you know, trail rescues and things, we've been working diligently on upgrading our trail maps for all of Central Valley area. And just between the four towns we cover in the ambulance, we have at least several hundred miles of noted trails, let alone all the trails that aren't noted. So does that have a place where you can put somebody on a stretcher? It does. Yeah, and it has a pump on it as well. It has a hose rail for forestry to hose and things. So you have it on a trailer so you don't know ahead of time if you're going to need to take it with you? We have certain criteria in place that we would take it and whether we use it or not, that would be determined once we're on site. You know, we're carrying chainsaws and things where we need to, we'll make our own trails through the woods as we need to to get through if we can't fit the trail. I was going to ask how wide it is. It's just under seven feet. You know, it's 15 feet low. It weighs about 2,000 pounds. There are a lot of town trails that are too narrow for a vehicle like that. Yeah. We have ways to make it through. We're around alternate just to make it around, you know. But it's a huge asset when you start to bring somebody off a mountain or out of the trails and things and you have to carry them in the time that the manpower requires to do it. It's a time-saving piece of equipment. Well, if you had to do it with manpower, you mean six people where you might only need one in the UTV. So staffing issues would be a great advantage. Makes sense. Would you send one person out on a call? No. Six people to carry the stokes. To carry the basket. When we did the Wister Mountain Rescue last year, it was 50 of us on Spruce Mountain. We were probably 35. And we hoisted here with a helicopter. So it's a needed investment. This one with the tracks will give us, we can go year-round with it through the snow and everything. Was that in the capital budget? I've never seen this before. It's part of the monies we brought in from hazmat and then we took some from the capital under the 20,000 limit that we could spend. But a good portion of it came from monies that we've raised from hazmat calls and other buildings that we brought in through donations. We also have Larry's going to be working on additional campaigning for capital monies towards that around the supplies we need with it. Can you use any COVID money for that? Can you get any of the ARPA money? I don't know the specific answer to that. We can't use the COVID money we currently have because it's specifically designated for staffing purposes for vaccination clinics. Third Ryder program. We've put three people through the third Ryder. So we've got some people that are coming into volunteer through that. And then hopefully some are starting to transition into regular staffing members. And then we brought in a couple new members. It seems like sometimes the flow in is keeping the flow out equal. Sometimes we gain for a while. So it's a constant process working slowly. Can you tell about what happens with the third Ryder program? They come in and they run regular shifts. They'll work with the ambulance crew and they kind of spend the minimum of 40 hours of shift time getting qualified on the ambulances and the other equipment usage. And then they go through a qualifying review of whether or not they're going to transition over. These may be brand new EMTs that have come out of class just recently without experience. And then we may run them longer depending on the student and the things that's in that program before we do the transition levels. Did you get students from Vermont Tech? No. In terms of like their fire program? I don't even do that anymore. We have one of our third Ryder. She came in and she's headed to paramedics a little there. She has VTC? Yeah. So that's kind of it for that. Any other questions about EMFD and what we're doing? Do you guys have going back to the trails program? Do you have relationships with the mountain bike associations? Vermont Mountain Bike Association and Mamba? I believe we have trails. The trail master, what they use. We don't always get the notifications. We try to keep up with that. Sometimes there's bike rides that come into town and go around those ones. Earlier this spring, we didn't get notified of, you know, you've got hundreds of bikers that are going through and riding around the town doing different segmented races and things. We kind of found out about it secondhand. Which race are you talking about? That was, is it back in May? Is it Angan River? Yeah, Angan River did one in Lake King. There was, there was a different segment to it. There was a lot, there was like a... Yeah, they all had different segments. It was like a mile one, there was a... But there were three or four... They're supposed to give us notice and they're, as part of the deal, they're supposed to notify you and the state police. Yeah. So we didn't receive any notification. So Angan River probably did sponsor that one. Yeah, I think it was like end of May. Do you? Back to trails. Do you ever reach out to the town trail committees to let them know? We did. So we've done extensive work with all the towns of trying to put together all the maps we can. You know, the private trails are the harder ones because they're not all mapped out. They may be posted. We had a gentleman that died right at the trailhead on Center Road. Fortunately, he was out near the edge where he could have easily been in the woods and somebody else walking had come up to him. Yeah. But he wasn't too far into the woods and the game warden was there to assist pretty quickly. Right. Yeah, so the hard part we find is that people don't know... There's so many people coming into town that don't know where they are. So for them to get bench workers or where they parked, they don't always know that. So sometimes the only way... Like the one that went over from the end of Long Meadow Road and came in on the end of the Keating Road. The Keating Road, Keating Road in... Worcester. Worcester. We had the State Police with us and they could ping the cell phone out in the woods. But they had parked on the Long Meadow end but they were actually closer to the Keating Road side. The Keating Road side and where they were, but they didn't know that. Yeah, and if they're from out of state or even local, you might not know. So we went in Long Meadow, we went out Keating because it was a better access out and it was a shorter route out. Yeah, because I'm in a cell reception the way it is, I don't know how good it is to call 911. Right. Yeah, there's not always cell coverage, but again, it's just people need to know where they are and where they're going. So if they don't show back up, somebody knows they're missing. Well, I did a lot of people on trails and Eastmoor Fair has a ton of trails. You know, just private trails that they can act through. Some of these backfields and woods and they may be built by trails that aren't really necessarily open to everybody. They're open to select groups of friends and things like that to come in and use them. So yeah, so we're looking for, like I know, we may look for access points to it. We know there was one important move a few years ago but we ended up cutting across through the fields and cutting into the middle of the trail system instead of following back all the way out of the trail we went in because it was a lot easier access and we could get there with the UTV almost all the way in. So what sort of rules do you operate under situations like that? In terms of access to land? Under the statutes we can access as we need to. We try not to damage more than necessary. Under emergency statutes we can access. You know, we have the authority to accommodate our vehicles if we needed to, so we'll build them right over there. We've done that on occasion where we needed to, you know, people with loudest usages or whatever, we'll just go typically take them. Anything else before we move on to the last ones? So the last one is, I guess, the biggest one. Under local agreement, our current status is that back in March 30th, 2021, Cala sent a letter to the Seth Gardner, chair of Eastwell Fair and Toby Cala, president of Eastwell Fair Fire, Cala selected, or Seth Gardner selected. Looking to break the contract for the interlocal agreement that's been in place for 11 years, and then wanted to, in the bottom of this, look forward to discussing meeting video over the next six months to discuss the items of a new agreement. Then we'll be reaching out to you shortly to develop a schedule of meetings for these discussions. We haven't been to any official meetings, so I guess it would be helpful for us from the Cala side if you could give us some kind of insight as to the lead into this, where we're at with this. I think the lead in is we haven't reviewed the agreements since we signed them, and we felt like it was our due diligence on behalf of our taxpayers to review the documents, see if they still made sense, and make some changes as noted that you've seen. I believe you've seen them, right? So we're just trying to do our due diligence to make sure that we periodically review the documents, just like you would in your own personal life, review documents, you wouldn't just keep signing off on something without saying, hey, I haven't looked at this in a while. And then also to, we know that the fire department budget, it's inside the select board budget, and that people can from the floor question that budget amount, but we really feel like the fire department gets a lot of support and appreciation, and I think people like to hear from the fire departments about what you're doing. Woodbury still does that every year. I mean, they didn't last year because of COVID, but, and the budgets always pass. So I think it's good for everybody involved, select boards, fire department, taxpayers to see up front what the budgets amounts are, because for us, the fire department budget is one of the hugest budgets that we, part of our budget that we have between both fire departments. So that's kind of how this came about. And we proposed some language, we smell paleo-reviewed it, came back with some changes. I mean, I don't really, it doesn't, from I think from our perspective, it doesn't seem like it's that much of a change. So anyways, we, they came back with some changes. We said, okay, board voted on it to accept the proposed changes of Eastmont Killers Select Board, and as far as we're concerned, we're good to go. Was there issues of concern to want to look at it after 11 years? Well, just because it's been 11 years. 11 years is a long time. But I mean, is there issues that would have brought up the discussion and changes in changing the proposal of moving budgets out of the select board budget? It came up here. The first time that we were aware, because we hadn't looked at the contract in a while, it was actually in this room that we said we, it occurred to us, oh, for transparency, and because it's a fundamentally different item in the town budget that we wanted to take the fire department budget out and present it separately, and Bruce was the one who said, we can't do that. So at that meeting, was it maybe, I don't know, six months ago, probably a year ago. It was more like a year ago because it was before COVID, it was too late for us to do it. So we made a note. I guess the other thing that I can add that Denise could have said is we've been working over the past several years in a different kind of way to sharpen the pencil on our own budget. We don't just look at the delta. We look at, we've been doing a zero-based budget. What do we need to run this program? What did we use last year? What money are we not spending? And starting with every line item from a zero to base and it kind of put in front of us the fact that oh, Eastmont Player Firearms inside the town budget, Woodbury is outside. Why is that? And just wanted to create some greater transparency and parallel. And it was here that we realized we couldn't do that and that kind of made us think, oh, what is in that contract? Let's go look at it. Let's read it. We haven't read it in 11 years. We've analyzed also the other issue with the timing of, as a practical matter, when would we want to be looking at it so that we might actually be able to talk to you in a way that makes sequentially made sense for bringing the budget to the town? Because reviewing it in March right after town meeting that doesn't, from a board perspective, that doesn't work out very well as far as timing goes because there's so much else that goes on right after town meeting. And you're right, I forgot. It was, it happened here when we were told, oh, you can't do that. And we were like, okay, well then I guess we better do our due diligence and go back and look at this and see if it still makes sense for Calis. So it's nothing, nothing disparaging towards the fire department or recent player select or nothing. It's just, we decided we needed to do what we needed to do as a board in reviewing all budget items with a fine tooth comb. Because our due diligence, you know, it does serve a couple of purposes. You know, like the State of Vermont, it's going to sign a contract for more than four years. That's a max. You have to have the Secretary of Ministers for a signature to go longer than that. And that's so you review it. For us it does two things. It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of keeping us familiar with it too as we have board members coming to go. Everybody's familiar with it. And that really kind of bringing that out of a fixed, a real intent with bringing that into the public discussion is one of transparency. Fire departments get good support. You know that. This is a way to actually weld that out more. Anytime you lock something out and don't let people, you know, don't really give them a hand in establishing it. Then you feed the potential for somebody to really, you know, use that argument. But, oh, look, you're trying to force something on this thing I want. So this is an opportunity to really engage them. You always have people that do that, that you have a lot of people that will stand up and say, no, no, no, we need to support them. That's a durable, a lot of town meetings. So that's our strategy. You know, we support the service, obviously. It's great. This wasn't about not trusting. This is about our due diligence as board members, making sure what we're doing, making sure we're familiar with it. And it also has the double duty of making all of us, Eastmont Peelier and all the participating towns, kind of look at it ourselves and make sure it's coming. I mean, if we need to make changes, that's what we do. Yeah, this isn't about lack of support for any of that. It's more to put it out there. I think you'll get more support from people at town meeting by being there and explaining, answering questions, bringing a fire truck. You know, I think the more that they, the more people can see the fire departments, both more varying Eastmont Peelier or Calis, I think it's better. It doesn't mean you have to. Obviously, you know, taking it out of the town package and presenting it separately doesn't mean you have to be there. Right, I think it's an opportunity. Well, I think we would have to be there because if you put the budget out on the floor and anybody has a disagreement with it, it's a threat to our ability to do our job because they can make changes to the operating funds that you would agree to in December. And that's a threat to all of us here that operate this fire department. Well, and that could have happened anyways. It could have happened anyways. Well, again, so if you say that the fire department can come and report during the article on the budget for taxes, we can come and report. But again, it's built into the Select Board's decision making and understanding. And essentially, you've met with us three times a year to understand what we do. I'm going to go into the, in front of the town and say, do you have two hours where I can explain what we do because it's not a simple budget. It's not just gas and oil and stuff. There's a lot of things going on that if you put it in front of a group of people that all of a sudden decide they don't like what they're hearing, it's a risk to the fire department. And there's no safety valve that you've created in your change of the interlocal to take care of that. But as we said before, though, I hear you, I appreciate what you're saying, but it could have happened anyways because people could pull pieces out of the budget. Under the existing interlocal, without any changes, you can ask us to present during the presentation of the Select Board's budget and people can either up or down it. It's fine, but if you put it out there like a target, it's going to encourage people to take the shot. I would disagree with that. Before the contract, before this, it was always on the floor at town meeting and it never got shot down. And it was never $180,000. And that's part of the transparency of people appreciating what it is the fire department does. I think it's, I mean, Toby, you're right. When I said you don't have to, I meant there's no requirement. It is an excellent idea for you guys to be there and answer the questions. And it is parallel to Woodbury. That is, that is, and it's actually, Toby, you're at our town meeting. It's impressive, the support that both fire departments get. One is being voted. Definitely one is not. But the support that people articulate and the stories that they tell are impressive and let me just point out that the operating budget for Woodbury is still within the select wood budget and anything that's on the floor is a capital purchase for a fire truck. It has nothing to do with the operations of the fire department in Woodbury. There's no requirement that Woodbury be inside the town budget. I know, but that's where you've had it for years. It's not been out on the floor. It's not in a separate article. Because this one was that way. And this was by contract. Woodbury was just by handshake, if you will. I'm just kidding. But I'm treating both departments identically and I'm moving both out on the floor. And my sense from Woodbury is they're not happy with it either. And I'll just tell you that's my, I've talked to Chance and I'm going to continue. That's not what he... That's not what Chance has said to me. That's not what he has said to the full entire Calis select board. That's not what he has said. So if he's telling you one thing and telling us another, then that's a problem. Yeah. That, yeah. That is, that is... That is that way. So what does Eastmont Piliar... How does Eastmont Piliar weigh in on this? We're just going to see what happens. I mean, we're not moving out of our budget, our down budget as a separate article. I think that there... I think that we're making a fuss out of something that's really up and really mad. I think it will get voted because my experience with budgets and lots of numbers, people don't really understand them. They just get passed. Right. But you'll have more discussion of a $1,000 item because it's a simple concept. It's $1,000. People grasp it. And they'll talk about that for two hours. But when you talk, hundreds of thousand of dollars are like, Oh my God, let's pass it. We love the fire department and it'll pass. So I'm really too worried about it. I mean, I understand the concerns from the fire department. And if it doesn't work, then we can give notice ourselves and make things work better for the fire department. So right now we're just like, well, we'll see how it works. But what about the idea of doing our due diligence and reviewing the contract every so many years? That's fine. I mean, you have new members. We have new members. Yeah. It's just that I've been on it so long that I wasn't feeling the need to review it. Kyle's been on it for quite a while. Bruce and I were on it originally. Yeah. So we didn't really feel that need. And we also explain it to new members in side conversations all the time. They all ask us a question and we answer. So it isn't like it's in the dark and no one knows what's going on. You've got long standing members on East Montpelier select board that understand them very, I mean, I do. Very, very thorough. Yeah. So we weren't worried about anything in the agreement but because you folks expressed some concern about getting the fire department budget out of your town budget and voting separately, we thought that this is coming up pretty quickly September 1st that we'll just try it. So that's why we amended the language that we did and sent you the copy because we need to move this along. But if it does become a problem, then obviously then we'll give notice and try to fix things. Right. But I really don't think it's going to be anything. I don't think it will be anything. I understand their concern. I just don't think it's going to happen. Yeah, I understand their concern. I appreciate them expressing that. And as we said, it's not a matter of non-support or non-trust. None of that. It's doing our job as the town select board to be aware of the contracts that we have. We do the same thing. We have a contract with RD Tech. Every year we have a meeting with RD Tech to go over the contract, to review town pieces of equipment. It's just the right thing to do. Well, I think that's where we felt we were in a contract that we were with a relationship we have and meeting three, four times a year. You know, we're going over and discussing all those items leading into this. So we wouldn't be aware and questioning whether those contractors are good or not and why has it worked for 11 years. Fine. I think our concerns, really, to put them on the table clearly is that we're concerned, if one, if it doesn't get voted through for whatever reason, we all believe there's a lot of support for the fire service. But if something happens, what happens? What is the ramifications of that in terms of how does that get picked up? Right? What does the Eastmo payor do if they're voted through and approved and Calis doesn't vote it through? How do you fix that afterwards? Do you have to have a special vote in Calis? Has there been discussion on what that is? Because that's been nothing that's come to us to say, look, if in those moments if something was to happen and it didn't get approved, this is our plan going forward. We're going to either fund the difference or we're going to call for another vote or, you know, because, again, the budget time was, we have staffing we have to worry about. If there's no budget, there's no fire department. But that's not a unique concern. The schools have to deal with that and school budgets do get voted down and it's a lot of work. Town budgets could get voted down. Those concerns are valid but they're not unique time. It's very different. The schools can go borrow and bond money to move forward and continue on. So what I'm curious about is what outcome you expect from this conversation right now. I'm not going to go for one tonight, but I just wanted to be our concerns on the table because nobody's invited us to come to the meetings. We understood the concern. I understood. We had exactly the same conversation. Exactly. What happens if, finally, we're like, not likely to happen. If it happens, then we're going to deal with it. That's just where I came from. That's where we're at. I just don't see it happening. It's so unlikely. I understand. It's like, oh, well, if they vote in a 130-year money scholar, what's going to happen? He's not going to pick up some slack or something. I think if you make the effort to go there to the town meeting and talk with folks and just be there, I think that goes a long ways to getting it approved. It's going to be the people who are interested to go to the town meeting. And those are probably people who have benefited from fire service and EMS. So I think it's... I just don't see... I see such a small chance of something getting voted down. I just don't see it. The problem is, you present your budget and we all kind of load on to give you the money before town meeting. Right. So that's... That was kind of the preliminary discussion and review and if there was concerns about it. Right, right. It was set in line to go into the budget and it's like, okay, we don't have the authority to approve that budget, only the voters do. You didn't need to because they would approve their town meeting. If it's really the basis of more presentation at town meeting, when I'm sorry, sometimes I just can't leave my job to go to town meeting. I just can't. I have to work. And if that's what it is, we'll make better effort to be there and have more solid presentations if that's really the basis of it. And that would not fundamentally change at all how we currently do business. Yeah, but the thing is, it's a separate line item. It is a separate line item, it does. But if it was the same exact way we do business, it's just more about more presentation on what we do. I don't think they were really worried about that. That's not what's there. It wasn't their thrust in separating it from the budget. I mean, we've had the same concern from some citizens these months earlier. They wanted to separate out the fire budget from the town budget. We've always been kind of resistant to it because it's hard to do that when you've already guaranteed sort of your money. Which we don't have the authority to do that. We have meetings with the fire department and they come up with a budget. We understand that budget and we will put that in the budget. We don't have the authority as a board or you guys as a board to guarantee that money. That money is not guaranteed until it is voted on by the taxpayers. But we've come up with a budget that's the thing. And that's what our job is, is to come up with a budget and present it to the taxpayers and then they get to say, like I said, as you have said it's never been a problem. So for me it's an integrity, an integrity of the process. When the town votes on the town budget they are voting in a new world post this change. They are voting purely on the things that are squarely and only within town function. Running the town office the highway department the dog licensing function it's purely town function. And so as we've done this work over the past several years to kind of get closer to understanding what is town function, what is slightly different all the special articles those are not town function, they are outside. This was an anomaly being something that is outside of pure town function and yet being baked inside the budget. The same thing with our we've taken our and separated out the sheriff, patrol and made it its own item in the budget. It's not a large amount but it used to be buried in I can't remember what it used to be buried in but it used to be kind of buried in just kind of town government and we've been taking a really hard look because times are hard people's pocket books suffer and we want to make sure that we present to them as much detail and as clearly as possible where their tax dollars get spent. I don't think anybody is going to argue their tax dollars being spent on fire and ambulance because anybody and everybody can need that at some time. It needs just historically I'm very good. These are services directly from people and they have that much time even after 31 years with the town meetings and places and that doesn't worry me at all to support what it does. To me I see this as an opportunity to actually build it instead of having it locked away where it doesn't even really get discussed much here it puts it in their and it might well probably it's a long way we're going to have somebody somebody that barks about numbers but there will be a lot of people including us that stand up for this and we will point out if there's any serious resistance what the ramifications are for the town on that too but we will we're advocates we're not out together believe it that's not the intent here this is more about transparency and kind of keeping people engaged in it. I would say I agree with Seth we'll see how it goes I think this is going to be a non-issue I do too at the end I think people will have a better appreciation and understanding of where their money goes and how valuable that money is by doing it the way that Calisford like is going to do it and on the handed voting it up which means a lot you know when they they're about to be participating in continuum there won't be I can add something from my perspective to what Seth said as he mentioned we have had people in town who over the years have argued that they would like to vote on this budget fire department budget separately from other things and we have had that discussion on this board and have always so far come down on keeping it within the municipal budget and we have at this point no plans to change that regardless of how this agreement is changed but for some reason the voters should vote down the town budget and they could vote down the town budget they could vote down if the fire department budget was separate from the town budget they could vote that down to either way it would be by Australian ballot the way things are set up in East Montpelier everything over $25,000 is voted down by Australian ballot so then we would have to look at our conversations with you about whether the fire department and ambulance service need for a budget and our agreement with Calis that we would shoulder two thirds of that and they would shoulder one third of that and if the voters voted down the town budget first of all we need to figure out did they think we were spending too much or too little in the town budget maybe there are services that they think we should be providing that we weren't putting in there and that's harder for us to figure out whether we're doing it by Australian ballot than it is for them when they're having the discussions on the floor and then we need to figure out okay well to get this to pass do we need to take money out of the fire department budget or do we take it out of the road budget should we not be keeping our roads in such good condition or should we be paying our staff less or what do we need to do but we would be having that discussion fully conscious of what we've heard from you guys there are obligations according to the interlocal agreement with Calis to pay for two thirds of your budget and that would highly inform our discussions I mean the the payment amount doesn't go away two thirds, one third that doesn't have any change and you know if you look at Calis's budget we have really worked really hard to even if it's a small amount of money like the conservation commission it's its own separate item and it lists under there all of the things that they have funding for same with the town hall same with the town planning commission same with the town clerk's office general office, select or budget we have broken things down so it's easier for people to digest so this is part of this process and though the things that these just listed are all right and they're all laid out just like that that's it so what do you see of the next step because we've already voted on these changes right, so we have we have some review to do I think characteristically we felt lost out of the meetings along the way as you guys stated in your letter from back then we were going to be reaching out to you and having regular meetings set up and we apologize for that but as you know select board extremely busy with a lot of other, a lot of stuff I can't even tell you how much stuff and then there was all the stuff with the changes and the COVID, I mean when we initially did this we were still doing we were still in COVID state of emergency what we could do is do a meeting we feel that this should have some importance to go to a meeting if we're going to talk about it we're talking about such a this is a pretty important document that is how we operate and function and how the three parties are joined together and I think we're seeing that kind of fall apart some and not all three parties with that it's just we should just why don't we set a time we'll annually calendar these so that we just have those on a meeting and we lock them in I think that's fair feedback that is fair feedback and like I said we apologize we just get overloaded that's kind of why we signed it at our meeting when we went over the language we're like well let's change the language and we'll sign it now so we can get it over to you guys take a look at it and get it to you so you can discuss it because we knew the timeline was getting right really tight well and that's something in the proposal you guys are shorting the timeline right to three months from six months so if we couldn't do it this time the six months how do we ensure we do it the next time in three months I think that's one of the things we have concerns over we're we've got to take this back and review it we're probably not going to have it done by September 1 which means we have no interlocal agreement in place what do we do in the interim you know our proposal is we have a draft interim contract is so simple to extend it for up to three months to allow it to go through further discussion and negotiations well I can see I can see what you're saying but as I said just giving that letter out to you at the end of March with everything happening right after town meeting was was hard for us so I don't know if we should be looking at a different amount of timing and that's a fair comment on your part I think it has to be especially for the parties that call it out you've got to be diligent about this and follow through on it it can't be a we didn't have time we didn't have to, we're all busy I think it's important that we look at that in the final minute because our concern again is just as we look at the comparison of what we just did in this evolution we can't do in the evolution that's being proposed because we couldn't accomplish it now there's something to be able to say we can do this in half the time and get it done the next time if we say we're really busy what makes us less busy the next time we're going to have more time to accelerate it twice as fast and actually get it accomplished on all three parties I hear your point to me it doesn't mean we have to go back to six months there's a number of ways to improve process we are working a lot that's one of the things we do spend time on is effective and efficient and I would take this breakdown as an opportunity for us to improve process rather than to just go back to a longer timeline you're right we have to be better when we pass that letter we should have appointed one of us to be anybody but somebody to take the next steps we should have to be moving because we had created an expectation that because we didn't do that we didn't meet but I think the issue is real and I just wouldn't I don't like the solution you're proposing but I recognize the issue and that it needs a solution I think if we do change it to three months there has to be some meeting structure built into that contract agreement that there is a weekly meeting so that the joint meetings are actually scheduled and under issue with the contract and that you have to show up I think that would be an important part that needs to be in any change that you make to a shorter period of time for reopening the contract I think you just have to set up some kind of parameters that you have to follow that are in the contract not just three months well there wasn't anything in the contract now to do that either so that our experience we've never had this happen before in a five month notice is now two weeks with the fire department not having any time at the table I just don't think that's appropriate and again if you want to change the time period down to three months then you have to put a structure in that everybody's helped you so how long do you think it will take the fire department to meet in the I don't know we have to talk to there's all kinds of things that we need to adjust we need to look at it as much as you guys have in five months and we haven't had the time because we haven't had a joint meeting where we understood what your proposals were and what you actually were concerned about so could we agree tonight to extend the time by 60 days or 90 days with the understanding that the contract that's still in place stays in place for the next 90 days or something like that we have a letter we got to take a quick look at those before we make a decision on that you have just one for each town? one for each town they're the same you can read it out okay to call us an East Montpelier select board re-fire department service agreements dear ladies and gentlemen on March 30th, 2021 the town of Callas select board formally notified the East Montpelier volunteer fire department of its intention to terminate the emergency response services contract among the towns of Callas and East Montpelier and the East Montpelier fire department volunteer fire department effective September 1st, 2021 to date neither a replacement contract nor amendments to the existing contract have been agreed to in light of the imminent termination of the emergency response services contract scheduled to occur on September 1st, 2021 and in order to continue providing emergency response services the East Montpelier volunteer fire department requests that the parties agree to an interim extension for up to three months to negotiate one or more contract amendments what's the date of this letter? Good. So one of the things that occurs to me listening to Carl read the letter and it's accurate is there wasn't anything to there wasn't any other way to raise the issue except to notice a termination if that makes sense going back to Denise's point about timing there's not a there wasn't a way in the current there's nothing in the current contract you just have to notify right of your attention not to renew we didn't I don't think we ever use the word terminate I think we said non-renewal. Yeah not to renew the current contract which is you know for the for anybody who ever watches this this is very different than terminating we want to make changes to the contract so the only option we had is to provide notice of a non-renewal that's that's a detail but but if we're going to work you know tinker then that's you know some option for friendlier language because you know everybody wants to be in this relationship but being able to to discuss the relationship on friendlier terms is something we could put in the contract while we're at it I would be fine with 90 days but we have to take it back to the board that's just me talking what what what quorum well but we want to also be aware that 90 days from September 1 we're pushing this up against our budget our budget and our so it absolutely must be done and that that kind of I would actually be more interested and that's December I would be more interested in 60 days so that you know we're really done by December 1 well September 1st or 90 days September November December 1 September September November 3 September you're right September is the last third not the last quarter that makes sense so just looking at the current contract and the proposals for changes nothing is going to be done differently by either town or by the fire department for three months after September 1st either way well we have to I think we would have to agree to extend the contract right we're asking for three months right I'm saying if we agree to extend the current contract or if we agree today to the changes that East Montpelier and Callis have voted in either way all the parties are going to do exactly the same thing as they would in the other alternative between now and December 1st I would like to think that would not be the case and we think we could move forward from the last five months to where we can get the other and resolve this I don't mean to say that we only have discussions I hope that we will have those discussions I hope there will be regular discussions what I'm saying is that the changes that have been proposed by the towns on town meeting day those decisions are made by the select boards in January so between now and December 1st there's no practical difference between how we operate well not how we operate but I think really the elephant in the room if you will is the difference between whether those changes hold or what I'm imagining Ty isn't quite saying a lot he's looking for a chance to influence the decision that the town council has already made what does that mean explain that she's saying that the fire department is not happy I didn't understand the word you just said please explain that okay so Carl's point is that nothing that we have approved in Calis and I guess that he's going to say that he has approved as well as a practical matter none of those changes take effect until until the new year because they're all around how we present our budget at this point and so that's really what Carl's is saying and what I'm pointing out and so in a way Carl you weren't saying this I don't want to put words in your mouth but in a way we could say what differences it makes what does 90 difference make well the difference is I'm looking for I believe without again I don't want to put words in your mouth but I'm looking for you to maybe confirm so I want all of us to be clear about what we're doing here what Tide's looking for is an opportunity to influence through the meetings that we didn't give you what we did so that maybe those changes are not what we end up doing by January 1 he's looking for a conversation I think he's looking for a conversation with a different outcome I would imagine a new conversation not totally about a different outcome but more that there's a plan to address our concerns versus just see how it goes right throw down the wall and see if the sticks doesn't work really well for what we do for business one of the things that why I kind of question you on that did it ever occur to the boards that maybe the fire department has changes that they wanted to put in and we never had that opportunity which you may not like you may like because you don't know that we're not at that point it's actually not it's not true that the fire department didn't have that opportunity the fire department had the same opportunity we did to provide notice of changes that they wanted well it sounds like we're going to have to make an extension yeah however things come out we need to extend this 60 to 90 days under the same I guess operating agreement that we currently have so we can either do that tonight because we do have a form or we can bring it up on August whatever I think it's the 23rd when we meet next we're going to have fire and ambulance services after September 1st and we understand I understand that it's a short time to have a conversation from your point of view but then this gives them 90 more days I understand that it gives everyone 90 days if we go to accept it so I'm going to be talking to my fellas law court members and I will be advocating to so we should have some break out I don't want to be sitting here in front of everybody having a callous life there no we could go into another room I think we should we can get this done tonight well we'll take the UTV out we'll drive you around in circles I want to drive the UTV you haven't touched the training class first is there anything else that you need before you walk away what is your process because you have to sign off on the extension too right so how would your process work how does your work work we can approve that tonight how we have a board form here we can approve that we can make the extension to go forward this is the discussion we had before years ago it's not on the agenda and it's this kind of stuff that we were trying to avoid and it's this feels uncomfortable we can put it on our agenda we can put it on our agenda we can put it on our agenda we have the full board everybody knows what's going on and that's how we're going to do it we're going to put it on our agenda we're going to draft the extension I don't know they were talking about lawyers I don't know that we need a lawyer we need a lawyer for the extension can we just put it in our minutes we don't need to get all I don't see why we need to get that formal it's just going to take up more time works for me so I think I just want to draft the extension I don't see it I kind of agree with Denise on this that's what I think too we need to at least draft a motion that both boards vote on so that we're using the same language I think the challenges what Bruce is saying is the easel up there is not here in the official capacity is that correct Bruce? we're not on our agenda it's not even introduced under other business it's nothing you have a procedure to follow for the meeting part of it is having an agenda at the beginning of your meeting you add or delete from the agenda but you don't do it in the middle of the meeting you have plenty of time to warn it we have time to draft a motion and each board can draft their own motion it doesn't have to be the same as long as it gets to the same outcome so obviously on this we're going to have the time extension the question I would have is do we have to change the maximum amount maximum what? it's the contract amount we're running out of contract as of I write contracts all the time we don't have to do that so I'm just making sure we don't we have to build in that three month contract amount so that there's money because we have we started my first we're operating under our new budget and it's already been done the contract accessing that money that doesn't have any so I think I'm just thinking through my point about extending the contract and it comes down to this we had we had a very fixed timeline under the current contract to provide notice of our intent let's not say terminate but to see changes by September 1 we did that if we step away from that how is it memorialized that our our issues are still in discussion and we have preserved our rights because we stuck to the timeline that's in the current contract does that make sense? I know what you're trying to say and I think that can all be done with a motion well but everybody else has to agree it can't just be our motion everyone at least has to agree that the current terms that we're suspending you guys have to suspend something in the contract for our right to continue the negotiation is preserved I don't understand that at all the suggestion is to extend the contract as it's written for a limited period of time and the contract as it's written includes a very tight timeline through which we have to provide notice of our intent but we did that we're just extending in my mind the whole thing so let me stop this one and I will send out something on Tuesday to all of you that will lay out a very simple extension that will say exactly what you're saying and it will be the same thing for everybody it doesn't seem like it should be that hard it won't be it'll be one piece of paper I think we're trying to make this more complicated than it needs to be it'll be a very short letter thank you short into the point Bruce like that do we want to set a time schedule how do you get through this what is the availability of select boards me jointly me separately we'll come to each of you individually I think it's better to do it jointly so that we're all hearing the same thing at the same time I think that though the ball is kind of in in the private departments for the court so you don't have to come up with something and then we'll meet let's set a meeting the ball is in our court let's set a meeting October or October or whatever let's put the dates and put them right into this agreement well I just don't do it with our why with our meetings can I make another suggestion to Callas if you sign the original that we created in July and we hand it to the fire department tonight because you've already got authorization to we'll hand it to the fire department and then they make a response to that and then we start there needs to be negotiations then we start up and we got to determine the process at that point but again it's not on the agenda no that part you've already done all you're doing is physically signing it you agreed to that on the 9th well no we agreed we on the 9th we talked about it but we didn't do an official motion but on the 26th we did and I brought the minutes with me on the 9th it was just the other day that's when you made the official motion it's the office at Denise we did I brought it on the 26th and then we made the motion on the 9th and those minutes I didn't bring we can get to them if you want to but you need the original you could sign it tonight and then hand it off to the Titans over and they can respond to it but they'll respond but then what Tyra's saying is you want to set up meetings we already have and then right figure out if you want to have it as joint meeting or one of you Sharon was saying earlier do you want to have a designated negotiator which is how we did it last time and it still took us way too long we had a designated negotiator I remember going to a lot of meetings we did go to a lot of meetings you might have done the designated negotiation I don't think I was though okay you were okay and at that point Toby was still on the slug board but once they respond we'll definitely get this thing done I am by the way taking you totally at your word that what I just signed is what I think I signed what did you sign it is the thing you handed to me the mortgage for her own that was for Denise to sign there was only one slot for candidates and they all signed but I'll sign it because I just signed the original and now the original has been messed up with lots of signatures this is the one Seth already signed it's better alright I don't need to sign it again will you somebody scan and email us a copy of that please yep we'll go copy it you want me to copy it so you guys have to sign it okay we can do that you have to sign it no we wouldn't sign it we have to sign it we have to sign it we didn't sign it we didn't sign it everybody went signing you're smooth I'm trying I didn't think you were you got it how little did you know what's that are we done I don't know you have to start we're done with you you can be done we have still to continue our select board meetings so Calis so the fire department will vacate this room and we'll pull out the UTD if anybody wants to see it okay I need a motion from Calis to adjourn I'm not on the Calis select board don't look at anything each one is three and a half each one is three and a half we like to be accurate