 All right, so we're calling you to order. It's Monday, June 17th, the more council at work, and we are missing Ray tonight. He's on a very great use, he's not gonna be here. So let's go ahead and start with a public comment, so we have a few people. So let's, who would like to go first? I don't know, I don't know. You don't wanna go first? Sure. All right, you know Joe, thanks for having me again. I wrote some things down just to keep me contained here. As you may or may not know, the HVUSD board is moving at lightning speed on what they're calling a new pre-K through 12 model. Despite our community's efforts and asked for a slower, more transparent, and more research-based process, the board has set forward to choose three models that they will have the district admin team cost out over the summer. They hope to link the final chosen model that they will pick in the fall to a hardwood renovation bond for next town meeting day, March of 2020. The three options are sending all students in grades five through eight in the entire district, including Moortown, to cross the Brook Middle School. Pre-K through four services would happen at Thatcher Brook, Warren, and Watesfield. Moortown would be repurposed to only include pre-K, the Mecha program, and they would move the central office there, which means that the elementary schools we know it would cease to exist, and they would close faced in school. The second option is once again, all fifth through eighth graders in the entire district to cross the Brook Middle School. Pre-K through four services would be at Thatcher Brook and three to be determined schools in the valley. One school there would close, which includes Moortown on that list of possibles. The third option is all fifth through eighth graders at Cross... Ah, sorry, sorry. All seventh and eighth graders at Cross the Brook, so that some Moortown student residents would switch from doing part of the seventh and eighth grade to Cross the Brook. Thatcher Brook, Moortown, Watesfield, and Warren would stay the same, and faced in would close. And so in two of the three models, Moortown could potentially be closed. In one of the model, Moortown students are still changing schools, so Moortown is greatly affected. Now, a few things to consider are that the board just really hasn't done their research. They've come up with their own ideas of what these plans should look like. They've trusted the superintendent to be the only data point that they use. And so I just wanted to, I think I've spoken to you about most of these research studies before, but I'll just remind you of a few of them of what could happen. So a lot of this research was done by an organization called the Ruralist School and Community Trust, which did extensive looks at consolidations and closures in the 80s and 90s and the first decade of the 2000s and published a lot of stuff there around 2010, 2011. So research from West Virginia's consolidation efforts over several decades shows that longer student commutes mean that students take part in fewer co-curricular experiences and low income students are most severely affected by the longer bus rides. Research after New York, Iowa and Minnesota school closures in the 90s show that on average communities that lost schools lose population, have lower property values, lower per capita incomes, a less equal distribution of income, more per capita income from public assistance and more and higher child poverty rates. Research and further, a German study I ran based on data from Denmark, which is kind of a nice Vermont comparison on many points, illustrated that students who experienced school consolidation and especially students who were exposed to school closings actually have academic declines for a number of years after that event. And so I think that this would just be terrible for our community in so many ways, all the way from our residents of Bender the Longus who have children who haven't been in the school for a long time all the way down to our earliest kids in preschool. The other thing that I want you to be aware of is that the board is trying to tie these plans to the spawn vote in 2020. That is mostly about a hardwood renovation but could potentially include Thatcher Brook and CrossFit Brook additions to make room for these changes. So, and all of them are predicated on closures and so what I think may not be legal and I hope to try to find that out but you may want to try to find that out too is that I'm not sure how they can tie a bond vote in 2020 to a plan that includes closures that they're not able to do based on their article's agreement until July 1st of 2021 which would mean that on the day of the bond vote in next March there would be some school board elections so there would be some switching of people presumably and then maybe even again in 2021 before they get to Thatcher-Live part and so I'm not sure how they could say here's our plan. We can't enact all of it for a couple of years but we're guaranteeing that we'll vote on it when the people might not even be the same so that's kind of a weird layer that I'm not sure the legality of. So that's really all I have to say. To be completely blunt, I think it's a disaster and I think it could really have unbelievable ramifications for the future of our town and I think that I'll just speak for myself. I could project that this is probably in the minds of other people but I only share my own opinion is that I wouldn't be here. I would not have been a young person, moved to the town, started a family, built a home if we didn't have an elementary school and I'm guessing that many other people probably feel the same way so thank you. Thanks Peter. So may I address that for a moment? Please don't we have a school warden over here. Let me put you on the spot here really quick, Kristen. How does this, based on the direction that you have received as a board, I think from most community members, certainly here in town, it was something that was on Washington TV is to go slow, transparent. How do we end up here so quickly? Well first I want to say that I'm 100% not in favor of moving five and six out of the school and all my votes had all the options. I didn't know on anything that moved those kids out of the valley. I'm not 100% in favor of them going across it and I said to the board that I have legitimate concerns that too many changes, too fast, too soon, like potentially moving the kids out of Hardwood, to cross at the 7th and 8th, potentially closing a school in the valley, moving the kids from five and six. I said I'm very concerned about that so I'm not in favor of any of that. I also just, you know, the only option that I voted yes to was D. That was the only one that I wanted modeled out. Other than that, I voted no and the ones I did vote yes on, didn't pass. So just to put it, I wanted to make sure. Sure, I'm not trying to. No, but I just wanted you guys to know where I was coming from and what I'm in favor of and not in favor of at all. So I do think, you know, reflecting back, I think that I would have, I don't, honestly, there was this timeline that got set, that got put out and I personally feel that the voting for the three to five final plans could have waited another two weeks, potentially to give the, you know, solicit feedback from community members to do some self-reflecting and then put it on it next week. But I don't honestly, I don't know how. When it's presented to you, is there a goal in mind? I mean, if you could just help me out with the thought process of where you're going and the reasons behind that as a board and then where are these solutions? Who came up with the solutions and how do they fit? You mean like the scenario? The scenario. So it started with a few weeks ago, brainstorming. So we were able to go around and put out scenarios that each board member thought were great. And it was just one meeting where it was brainstorming. And then I believe that, I'm trying to get the process here, I think that led to another meeting where they were kind of grouped together, very similar ones, were kind of color coded grouped together. And then I think there was some discussion, you've got dots that you felt were no goes for you and ones that you were more in favor of. And these orange dot ones, and the 10 that people were in favor of, that the administration, we got a packet that kind of gave a very brief overview of like, if you were to do this, this is, you know, the scenario. You'd like to see some of my body with me, if you'd like to take it just a second. I guess, because again, I'm looking for that goal. What is the outcome? Just to close schools, consolidate, save money. So what I think the goal is to mine or something, I think the goal is to save taxpayer money so that we can get, so people will be in favor of voting for the bot. If you wanna boil it down, that's my personal feeling because what I heard at least one board member say that which really bothers me is the fact that the first thing when it comes to kind of redesign, we have to show taxpayer savings, it's not about what's best for the kids. And that's like, so to me personally, I think that's what it boils down to. You know, the superintendent goes, we can't sustain this, can't sustain this, can't sustain this, they're on this kick, that we need to move the kids from seventh and eighth. Do I think that maybe people could get behind that potentially, you know. What can't we sustain? The four schools with declining enrollment, like with Basin and how much it is to operate the schools and now they're trying to get behind, well, the administration and I think maybe the principals, I feel that putting all fifth through eighth grade together is ideal. No, no, I mean, that's, you know. It is perfect. I'm sorry, excuse me, according to the superintendent. I think the questions you're asking are really important and I'm not sure that those are the ones that clarify as far as what's the problem we're trying to address and why are these the solutions. I'm just not sure. It seems like we have a solution in searching for a problem as opposed to being driven by the problem. So I just don't know yet. So just, that's a great question and I think there's a lot of people that will like clarity on that. I don't think anyone wants to really clearly answer what is the solving driven by because quite frankly, even if we cut 10 million dollars in our budget, there's no guarantee that that's gonna reduce anybody's property tax rates as far as I understand. Not only that, but certain options don't address issues. For example, there's 50 plus kids in the Waterbury area that can't get into the school district or preschool because, you know, so there's only one option that addresses that and that's to repurpose Fortown. There's also doesn't address the fact that Thatcher Brook has lunches that start at 10.45 in the morning. And in order to accommodate all the kids that start lunch at 10.45 in the morning. So maybe an option, I addressed that by doing kitchen renovation, but there is an issue that address that school, certain urgent things. And I think it's kind of small group discussion. I said, kids who live in the district should be allowed to a school, you know, a certain preschool. I mean, like, well, the private day cares. Oh, no, no, no, I understand that. But the parents shouldn't be denied and then have to seek out their own private schooling for their children. They should be allowed to go to preschool in the district. I mean, that's my own personal feeling. I mean, that's anyway. So there's some legitimate issues that aren't being addressed. In fact, I'm meeting with the co-chair, Tyree, tomorrow, we're going to be addressing some of my concerns with her. But so, yeah, I personally feel that it's, you know, way back when we had a forum, way back when the, you know, stuff happened and there's a forum that the superintendent was there, she keeps talking about this train that's gonna derail and she sees it. I don't get it, but she seems to be the only one that sees it. So I really do think that this sort of thing has to do with trying to show people some cost savings. One other data point that I'd like to bring in is, okay. Oh, wait, no, no, no, absolutely not. Is that an outside analytical firm just did some projections for the school district and projected that the more time school population is actually supposed to corrode by about 11% over the next 10 years, which is like unheard of in this climate in rural Vermont. So when that came out, I thought to myself, I guess naively, wow, they might kind of change their opinion on specifically this school, seeing that, but they haven't. I thought, wow, you know, they're gonna try to figure out why, you know, catalog all the factors and try to replicate it for some of these other towns and then that just didn't come true at all. And each layer of this just is increasingly perplexing. I thought, oh, wow, you know, we have the Mecca program, Duane leadership led to some really innovative other programming and rebranding of the school, our location is ideal to all, you know, the nine-quarter order and everything. And so then to see this again on the list is just, I don't understand. Yeah, I don't see how we're going to have savings if you're talking about one of the options and moving five and seven, you know, five and six out of here, and seven, they've over-to-crossed growth. Like, I don't know how that's gonna be cost savings when you're going to have to spend. Well, they haven't done any analysis. No, so the plan now is that we voted on these options. And now over the summer, it's going to be put into great detail by administration, and then we're going to get the information back in September. Is there a vote after the information comes back? I believe, so I have to refresh my memory in October. I think I have to refresh my memory on the timeline, but yeah. Oh, you've just voted to look at one. Is that correct? I've made sure. No, not you personally. Four, you guys are going to analyze one. Is that what you said? Three. Oh, you're going to actually do three. Well, there's actually four because there's a status quo, but then one of them, which he named, where it doesn't name the valley school, that would be like, that one valley school would close, but there still would be three. That's a number of options and one. The number of models and one. So yeah. Now, it was, when I read the value for it last week, we had the 10 options. But Bridget made it very clear that there were three options, I believe, that were supported by the admin team. So those are the three that were voted on and was it the entire board that voted or is this the admin team? So, no, not admin team. Was she, you know, again, she hit her whole, this, I can show you my packet and I have some turtles on it, but anyways, it's packet that we got, which had a little bit more detail to each, not great, but a brief like, you know, this would have to happen at this option kind of thing. So what, the way, when is that you, someone at the board might nominate option B? Then second it, then there would be discussion and then the community got to weigh in before we voted and then you voted versus what you voted, so. Right. You're right, she did, she said these are the ones that are feasible and these are the ones that aren't, even though we heard them say, well, if you have enough money, right, it depends on how much money and effort you want to put, you can do whatever you want. She really sort of cut them off about kind of going outside of the box because we'll know that would be good or it goes against the splitting of grades, which I get, you know, the whole philosophy is like our looping and that sort of thing. But when it came down to it, it really was these are the ones and sure enough, most of the board members voted in that way. That makes sense. And some of the ones that were a little outside the box, like the middle school of the valley, just to even look at, like maybe it isn't feasible, but I was in favor of having that held up because my main thing is I want to keep the kids in the valley. Like that's my main thing, I want to keep them here in the valley. So I was in favor of seeing what that looked like. So. I think a possible option, or a possible problem that fourth option with status quo also arrested the fact that the three options include cutting teachers, significant numbers of teachers. I think one of the arguments is if you consolidate, you can do more with less. However, I've also heard that the plan is also to increase class sizes to a pretty significant number. At the same time, we're also being asked to teach in an entirely different way that requires a significant increase in time per student, but at the same time we're asking us to increase class sizes. So if we're going to compare these three options that includes massive teacher cuts with an option that doesn't include any teacher cuts, it's going to artificially go up because one is much, much better. And part of that 46 was to consolidate governance. The goal of that 46 was to consolidate governance, not to close small schools, or at least we were told, we were sold that idea. And so that's where the savings ultimately should have come from. So we haven't even had a chance to think about how we can, under this new model, on board, maybe we have a teacher that travels, a couple teachers where it's a lot cheaper to pay for gas than it is in a new building. Maybe there are some positions that can get trimmed, some that can get cut. As a teacher, I don't see a lot of fat to trim necessarily, but I think it's disingenuine to compare three options with cuts with an option with milk cuts. And I don't think that the average layman, the average citizen is going to understand that he wants, they're just going to see numbers. One of the things that came up in the meeting was the fact that the board cut the face in third grade, they no longer have third grade. And someone, a board member said, well, what happened to that third grade teacher? Are we saving whatever 80 grand it is to pay their salary? No, that teacher has her job, his job because of X, Y, and Z and is under contract and I'm not saying he should have gotten rid of the teacher, but it just goes to show that just because you cut, it doesn't mean there's any money saved. I want to point out something about the numbers that doesn't make any sense and seems quite unfair. If you close a school in the town, the savings and taxes, if any, are then distributed through the entire district even. So there's no recompense for loss of service and the impact on property values. So that bothers me right off. If they would pick close faced it. Shouldn't most of the benefit or a large share of the benefit go to faced it? And maybe the property values will stay flat if their taxes went down a lot. I don't hear anything like that. This is, let's say, more than very money by cutting services someplace else. Not to mention that there's no guarantee it's gonna save anybody money, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we have a lot of schools that are saving money. So it is. That's right. All right, so I think we all can agree on that part of the equation. But what's the solution for us as a board to work on? I just kind of, on the record, as a more top resident. And your name is just a manager. So that's a little off the way of the road. My wife and I, we're looking for a place to move. We invested a lot of money in building a new house in a community that had an amazing school. We have three kids, two of our kids. One of our kids is already three more town owners hoping to go through more town. And I guarantee you we would not have moved here had it not been for the school, without a doubt. And there are a number of young families who are looking at more town as a very, very viable option to get out of Chitton County and get out of Montlager, but yet to be close. And as somebody who teaches about community, and as somebody who grew up in a community that was devastated by things like this, I just, I feel very passionately that the loss of small-world communities is not foreordained. It's not, it doesn't have to be that way. But it will if we lose our school. Veniers of 1988, and I'm just, so the question, what do we do? I think it's a really good question. One of the things is more town is growing. And I think it would help, I don't know how you, or I'm sure you have to doubt it because we have tax packs. But is there a way that Sasha or you guys or someone can put together the growth that we've had in sales? All the stuff, I mean, like hard packs, I think is the only thing that's going to help. I mean, we can all say, please don't close our school, but if we don't show them, look, we're growing, waterway's full, and it is. That's why everybody's moving into more town because there's place to build and there's places to go. I mean, is there a way? I think we can get that, that's easy to get through with the Listers or, or something, you get that show then probably. But to what Peter said earlier, I think earlier this year, I had kind of that same fantasy as well. Well, the numbers are out, more town is growing as a, as an elementary school, we have been not really up to such. That's kind of, we're not going to be, have that target on our back for any longer. And so we obviously still do. So you're a comment to, you know, facts. Facts don't seem to play a strong role in this debate so far. Oh. The other thing I can add is, I'm going to go backwards, but, the other thing is on the table is redistricting and they're looking at, you know, according to the superintendent, there's 40 to 50 kids on the waterway side of more town, where we live, and we drive all the way over here because we love it, that could go to Waterbury. And so now we're looking at all those Gallagher's families who are coming in and, you know, now you're going to put them in Waterbury, which A, they can't go to preschool. So they probably come here for, I mean, it just makes no sense. I just feel like it's sort of like building up that side of the district by decimating the side, and I don't know why, but I would like you all to fix it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we'll get down on the list if you want to. Yeah, I think we feel you're frustration as well, or certainly, you know, we've heard this and we've heard lip service from the superintendent that there's going to be an analysis, there's going to be some transparency. And then the next thing you know, you get an option of A, B, or C. With no idea what the main goals are. You know, someone can say, well, you know, to save a buck, well, we all like to save a dollar. I mean, when every time we come in here, that's what we're talking about. But there's a difference, but we need to look at value. And as a town, and as a whole, I think the superintendent is certainly not looking at that to your point, you know, the town's gone without the school. So I think, you know, we need to do some soul searching thinking here and figuring out how best to be involved in the process because we're hoping it's going to change. It obviously is not. I know, I'm very frustrated with the fact is probably some of what Peter would feel is that people who haven't had their school friends don't understand when you see those options up there what that really means. Like the Wannaberry people who are voting on the future of the valley, who their decisions don't really affect where they live or their kids or the town they live in. So that's very frustrating to, yeah, let's just vote. Like, you don't understand, and I've expressed this before on certain things like with the whole not offering third grade at Mason, it's a very big domino effect that you're voting on something that doesn't even affect you. Anyway, that's just it. Right, and to Jason's point, and facing it doesn't get any extra benefit for not having to be great for as long as their task is forward because their cost is less. So I thank everyone for coming in. One more quick question, something. Do they have a specific bond in the cruise associated with those options here? No, of course. You know, one of mine is like $40 million. So we put it, it's like for what though? Like for like what, you know, I think we need to get our heads out of the cloud and back down to earth and really see what that means. I think your job, Christian, at these meetings is you've got the smallest thing now and people are not going to be happy with you. Some people are on the table, but your job is not to make them happy. Your job is to make a process like we're talking about and we'll do our part, but you know, so what you can do, we would appreciate, you know, and what we're looking for, we're looking for a goal, we're looking for transparency. I mean, at one point, you know, there was talk about, all right, let's have some meeting in the towns. Take your meeting on the road so that each town would have an opportunity. People aren't going to run up to Harwood, but you know what, come here next Tuesday night. Probably give a few more people here. Yeah, and that's one of the things that I think, I think I can remove the timeline, but whenever these options are going to be presented to the public, there's only two, I believe there's really a couple of opportunities in October or whatever, and I'm really going to, you know, be pushing for more. I mean, once we get our meetings back in September, even at our retreat, I'm going to express them that you can't do things like this with just two meetings and then say, well, you know, they can always email us. That's not okay. You know, that's not, that's not okay. And then if we'll start fully to park those options you got, there's really not much for options there because they're still, look at it, it's all spiraling down and spiraling down to the same thing. With a few little, I guess, very changes here, you know, moving the dots. So they're all the same and they're all, with one thing in mind, your superintendent had mine. It's not what a collective audience put together. And what your board needs to understand is that a superintendent works for you guys, right? You're elected to run that off as she reports to you, reports to you, does not dictate. And unfortunately, with the mergers, with their manipulation of the process, we then have lawyers on both sides telling the school boards and also advising them on how to district this. So let's put you guys as a board at a disadvantage. However, remember you are a person that holds the T to the wallet. And you guys go to start running the board, you don't let the tail wag the dog here, which is happening, you know? Yeah, I agree with you guys. I love the school board. It's very upset and very emotional, because I felt completely overwhelmed by the entire thing, you know? But now, I've gotten to- I mean, that's why Peter left. Peter was, you know, he got his frustrations with it and he sees that, you know, I can fight back from the outside because it's, you know, I'm sure it's frustrating in there and depending on what the other board members, because it's staffed, because as you mentioned, Christian, sort of people are not staffed, whoa. So, you know what? They don't have the guts to stand up and say, no, it's not right in this process because it benefits us. So yeah, I'm not a happy camper. I'm not happy about all this. And so that's, it's, yeah. I mean, I said I'm gonna have a conversation with Charlie tomorrow morning and I'm just gonna lay it all out there. I mean, it's just, it's not okay. It's not okay what happens. It's not okay to be railroaded. You know, I think that there were people that went in that meeting that had agendas and these agendas were talked about and then that's how it went. And the way to voting is clearly a very big problem because of, you know, you get railroaded. Would it be a possibility for the, for the select board to write a letter that we could deliver to the board, that our rep could deliver to the board? Sharing our concerns, our great concerns and ask them for clarity of return. Absolutely, we'll do that. Definitely. Don't you ever wonder when we're meeting? The ones that are next Wednesday. The 26th, yeah. All right. We're glad we got something to Kristen. And then we, we, we have retreat in August but we're, you know, that's it for the summer and then we've got to retreat August 28th and then they start out on September 10th. Thank you. Good. Thank you all. All right, thanks a lot. You're all on a side of the line. Yeah, everyone's on a side of the line. You don't have to make a copy of your packet. And then, what do you do if you can get that to Sasha? Yes. Mr. Cheryl, can I have a word with you? Go ahead, excuse me if I have a notice. That's all right. It's funny to know soon that you mess with us. Nice to get a report back for a month. Was he a teacher? I think he is a teacher. Yeah, I don't know where but I get a copy. Oh, Matt? Yeah. Yeah, he teaches at Harvard Middle School. That's my father. Yeah. Can you reach out to me at any time? Oh, sure. Absolutely. No, thank you for coming in again. So I'll correct it as you do. Yeah, and I wanted to tell you where I stood on it because I'm clearly on your report more pro-mortown. And I'm ticked about what's going on. And so that's one you guys know exactly. Thank you, Chris. We appreciate your coming out. Can you tell us who wants to meet before we move on? I'm going to put it up. So that was really good. And the same thing, if Josh and I were going to buy an analysis on what we decided not to, it's a tear down the moment we have because we don't know what is going to happen at school. Yeah, I think it's really is a, I've seen pretty many problems in the community in general and they've kind of lost their school. It's amazing what property value is. My sister and Rochester are testing the thing. Think about how those taxes have to go down to have the same effect on property values. Yeah. It's not realistic when I'm doing what happened. It amazed me that one of the only difference that makes. So I mean on the other hand, there are some ideas that probably could be worked out that might be a little more cost-effective. Maybe one or two grades might be of large enough classes that they could have optimum class sizes if you're fewer teachers. That's not really a big thing. I just want to give you a growing school here too. And to someone's point, let's look at why we have a growing school. And I think that probably all we saw that you had the Mecca, you had a great leadership here. And again, her religious plan was to, you know, bomb that by taking the lane out. I mean, I was playing, you start taking the energy out and so. Vanny's doing an excellent job of keeping me going over there. Yeah. So I think that you were good there. But it's a state-of-the-art community too. I do like the idea of this, except that you get together. Because as a Harvard student, walking in freshman year and you meet all the kids in the water very quickly, and it was awkward for probably this first six months because all of the Valley schools had time to bond. The water very side had time to bond. And you didn't get the time to bond together until that freshman year. So I mean, it was awkward. It's different. You don't know anybody. So having that together would be nice only from that aspect of being together. Or if you're not going to do that, you can get some more activities together. Exactly. There's something useful. But that's the only reason why. Yeah, I think there's so much. You can, and the traveling teachers, I mean, you get your resources. I mean, I think that's fine. That way, all the students can still be making their happens resources available to them. But you know, it's ridiculous. And the weights for private daycare are ridiculous. Yeah. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And expensive. I don't know why, but years ago, when I was doing analytics, I was going to imagine going there. Yeah, until you get in, because everyone's trying to do it. But it's crazy. It is interesting, talking about moving the industry of offices to Moretown. Since for 10 years, Bridget has wanted to move into the high school. So now one of the options is moving to Moretown. Nice to have that neighbor right there. It's about finding a place to park, right? Yeah. Well, that's good. I let everyone, they came in. Let's give some thought. I think what I'll do is we'll put something together for the rest of the board to see. I may talk to Ron about it as well. And then Ron's going to come in later tonight. I think it would be worth a while to have him. Peter knows the facts. Yeah. Yeah, Peter is right now. Peter knows the facts. Yeah. So all right, let's move forward. Reports and communications. Watershed and something working for the Vermont Community Waterships Summit? Well, of course, this is from Pam DeAndrea. Did you happen to go through this? What are they working for here? With the watersheds? No, I didn't. I registered in this college. No, they have to choose someone to, they have to choose someone from the board if they want to be a town representative. So this looks like their effort. There's some opportunity for funds for the watersheds. So let's take a look at this. It looks like they're looking, you must really need two or three criteria. So we'll look through and see if Motan is eligible in a VR. All right, and then now we're, OK, this is from the Vermont Community Leadership Summit. And they're looking to see if there's anyone in town we would like to go to a summit at August 12 at VTC, visiting a local leader to participate. Can it be anyone? It looks like they're talking about economic development. They're talking about someone who's provided leadership on a community project does community things. This person could be a community volunteer on this official or an energetic person who'd like to celebrate and encourage new ideas. Anyone have an idea of hanging around this table like to be that person? Seeing nobody. Actually, what I saw is what I was thinking of is what about Cory from the library? Want me to reach out to her and see if she's interested in going to this? Do you think that you're supposed to put that up on from which form and see if anybody is interested? Or we can do that. Well, let's do one that I won't ask them if they want to do it, then put it out there. Yeah. Take a look at just the criteria, kind of what I write to you and see if they're looking to, you know, is there some out there that would like to do that? It's free. Definitely, I think it's $50. And it's because the lunch and actually an interesting thing. Hopefully, we can get some new energy and talent from this. Is that it? Yeah. Did anyone start to get noble? Kelly, did you have anything for news or communications at all? Yeah. You knew? Yeah. I was walking my dog. He just stopped. Benny Berger did with me. I guess he had an issue with one of the members of the department outside of the department things for the fire department. OK. But was wearing a fire department T-shirt. And he had some concerns around that. And we're representing the department. So I just passed that on the step. He's going to address it. Who was it? What got to you? You don't know? It was Benny Berger. And it was Benny Berger. It was Randy. And it's going to have a discussion with the officers about it. It has probably one of those things where they knew you're wearing more talent for a fire department T-shirt or what you do. And with your officer plate on. Yeah. Yeah. Good. All right. So you passed it on the step. Thank you. Thank you. John. I spoke with Michelle Berger regarding a management plan in the town property. And so she's going to be talking with the rest of the black community at the next meeting. And we'll take it from there. Very good. All right. Jason, do you know that? I do not. Jason doesn't. And I can't remember. We've got the town hall started and painted. I don't know if you've noticed that. One side. We need to get some more paint for tomorrow. All right. So I'll take care of that in the morning for those guys. And I think that's about it. Yeah. Actually, people are calling on it and have comments that they liked it. So we're in the right direction. Anything better than what it did? I mean, I'm supposed to be here and obviously is not with a dog complaint. He and I have passed calls back a few different times. I had asked him and I know the Sasha at one point, Michelle, did the same thing to ask him to invite both Riley and his owners and the complainants here. And so that has not happened. Riley was on the leash the other day. So on the hill and I will press that to find out what's happened and try to get all parties here. So we can get people to. This is the scene. Right. That's it. So you got to put your new year. How long ago was that year? It was over a year ago. Or it was last summer at least. Do you remember if he gave him a fine? I wrote a letter for him. He didn't find him. No. No. There's eyes. Yeah. All right. He wrote, had me write a letter for him, but he, it was not a fine letter. It was threatening to find. Right. Okay. There's a reason I can't. They just haven't paid it. But. Um. So let's wait until we hear back. Yeah. I think. By points with him and I will follow with him. Continue till he gets a resolution on that. And asking him to continue to make sure anything he's doing is documenting. But to make sure that he is doing it as well. You mentioned to him that, you know, this is serious business. If someone gets. Bit. Right. Yeah. And I'm not going to say that. Saffons are very conscientious. They always have their dogs. They can't go down there because they've got their colors. Right. And rock birds. They, their dog. There's not to be on a leash. There's can't be their proper right. Right. Right. Exactly. And so if it's leaving the property and that's a violation, but if it's just at the edge of the property, then there's really nothing we can do. But right. Because that's in some of the complaints that I've read. That's, you know, the combine of dogs, you know, when they're probably walking around, that doesn't constitute a violation. Right. But I mean, you know, clearly as well. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a problem. Just any of that. That's why I like everyone trying to hear what I know. Have that worked out. It seemed to work for a year and a half. Right. Now let's get people here. So let's go ahead and move on to the personnel policy and visions. Can I just make one thing? Go right ahead. Sure. This is a report of your expenses as of today. We'll help you for each of you. I want to let you know that the big grant that we have, the cash basin and the sidewalk grant, has been reconciled. The numbers agreed with the numbers on the expenses. It's 2014 to the present. All the income that is on the spreadsheet matches what's in the computer system. So everything on that big grant is balanced for Sharon. We'll take over. So there's, you know, it's been audited. Okay. My client call today, my client architects, they wanted permission to come into the building and take pictures of their architectural work with the building alongside any of the offices and the outside. And I said that I was not giving that permission that I would come to the board. Right. I think we can see it this time. Huh? So that's interesting. Yeah. They want to put it as on their new website. And if we end up setting five bucks an hour or something like that, they could take pictures tonight. I mean, the last time we dealt with them, they pushed back and asked them to do something forced. So we wanted that on the ball. Yes. And that's why I didn't say, yeah, okay, come on down. I don't know how you feel about it, but I can't say on one hand that things turned out well for us, but on the other hand, let them come into the building and put it on your website. That's not me. Yeah, because we ended up spending some additional money because of, and they had told us, I mean, they were the ones that designed this thing. They were the ones that garteried it in the head. Basically. It's not that or that. People see that and then say, Hmm, I know. Let's hold more times for reference and see how they did it and tell them. Yeah. I don't have a problem with it for that reason. You need something seriously just to get rid of us. John, what do you think? No, I agree. I don't. You feel that? Yeah. Someone knows that you don't want based on our... Fantastic experience. Fantastic experience, yeah. Not really just pleasure. Yeah, just fantastic experience. Yeah, ending that with that this time was probably really good. Yeah. And I'm sure this is your last meeting with us, right? My last meeting. Thank you for everything. It's been enjoyable. I'll sort of not be in the next couple of weeks in here to work with you on some things, but that's been something, huh? 20 years? Yep. I'm going on basically by the time I leave. Yep. Any regrets? No, no regrets. No, I love my job. It's just time to move on. Yeah. Oh, we're still young, you know. We can... Remember, there's got to be a place in New York for me and time to do other things. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've got a tremendous asset for the town. Oh, thank you. Everything that you've done, you've put a lot of heart and soul on the gun, probably beyond what, you know, an employer would ask something to do for them. I don't know, you know, and very, very fortunate. Everyone here in town, I speak what says the same. You know, time, some of them have gotten frustrated with you, but you're right, they say. And, you know, I think, you know, it's going to be hard to, you know, I think Sasha's going to do a very good job, but it's going to be, you know, those big shoes to fill. And we're lucky we have, you know, given us a little time between now and the end of the year. Thank you. Yeah. If only it was me on the board. You know, you helped me out tremendously. You know, I talk, you know, a lot professionally and personally, I think. Yeah, right. I have the longest history with you, and certainly those years have been wonderful. And certainly thank you for all the support of all these years. And, you know, I think of you as part bulldog and part golden retriever. It's not about how we do it. Yeah, but a mix. And a hell of a quote, too. Yeah, really can put some treats together. So we all thank you and I know that everyone here around here, I'm sure feels this way. And it was a nice, nice party. Beautiful party. Very nice party. Perfect. Yeah. So anyway, so let's go ahead and look at the personnel policy revisions. I want to just summarize, show what has changed the people that were here. I think most people have gone over it, but. Yes, these changes. Every change that was made in here has been a suggestion from BLCT and BLCT is legal to help protect the town, the employee, and our insurance and to clear up some of the language to make it clear and cover more of the basis. And some is legally, legally needed, you know, the new regulations for time off for family time and broken alcohol testing. No. I've gone through it. I don't see anything in there that seems terribly restrictive or. And it seems very well put together. It does seem very well put together. The language is good, clear. Also with that, we will have two new applications that were supplied by BLCT. One is for an application for a CDL operator if we hire a new CDL operator. The second would be for an employee such as myself or, you know, another employee who do not have CDLs. Okay. Have you seen something in there? Yep. Very, very minor stuff. Page 19, lessons. Town should have an apostrophe in it. Page five, that should be issued, not issued. Four form down. What is it? Yep. And then there's a bit of a logic problem with the language. Just like BLTC, no. This is in regard to control substances. Page four has an absolute prohibition on it. And then it is conditional on page five. And those two things aren't about. On page four, you said it's, okay. Second line down. Second red paragraph. That's not conditional. That's not absolute prohibition. And then there's the next one. And then on page five, if you have a proper issue prescription, it's fine. Well, that says under the influence of the legal drugs. Control substances. So, control substances. Yeah. Control substances for which you have that prescription. You know, just like in the mail, it's not something that you should involve in fixing. So was there any change there that you're recommending, Jason? Probably just including the same parentheses that on page five also on page four. Oh, yeah. Just to control some of that. Yeah. That's what they're saying is not within it. Gotcha. All right. So those, these two things, they should do some making motion. Sure. I move that we accept the revised personnel policies as amended. Sir second. I still, I still have something. Yeah, you do. Further discussion. So on page eight chart. I think it's a little bit confusing. So if we had the full-time employee count, he's the 68676 for single plan dependent. I think it probably makes sense just to have the dependent premium. For a two person plan and the dependent premium for a full family plan. Because under the health reimbursement account. That's how you do it. You show 1300 for the employee. It's 650 for the dependent. So, I mean, it's either one way or the other. Either we have, you know, what we pay for a single plan and a two person plan or a family plan. And then what we do for the health reimbursement for a single or for. Dependence or we just have the additional premium that we pay. I think it's best to have the additional premium for dependents. I agree. Minus the 68676 in those figures in the last box. Correct. Correct. That's the one. Anything else, John? No, that was the only thing I said. So does that have to be ten pays, next dollars additional premium for two person plan? Correct. Right. It would be. Right. The difference between 1034 and 68676. Right. And then the line would say additional premium. Correct. Correct. Exactly. Looking at like vacation leave. Their vacation time doesn't roll over. So if you don't use it, you lose it. And most places have a roll over. So you can roll over a certain amount each year. Or you can roll over up to a certain amount. I know I can have up to 380 something hours of time saved. But even if it's just like you can roll over five days a year. Like last year, they came at the end of the year. And they asked if they could roll over. Cheryl, do you or John, do you history? Is there a reason why they don't do that? Or you haven't done that? I think it's a benefit really. We used to be able to accrue up to five days. Correct. And then the select board removed that. Were there any issues with people taking long stretch of vacation days at one time as a result of that? I don't recall that there was any problem. I thought there was a problem once in the winter. I think that the winter employees can't take a vacation or time off. They can be over there. Right. And that's been changed since then. Yeah, I don't certainly have a problem personally. I don't know if you guys want the number. It doesn't have to be a lot. Really? I think it's starting a little bit lower, but I don't see how it works out. Typically when they have, how many days are they? Most everyone has two weeks. Once you've been here over 10 years, you have three weeks. And when you've been here over 15 years, you have 15 years. I don't know if I'll be five times worried about that. It's not worried about us. At least four will be done. Junior. You know, this is more than we would want you to have in one timers. But yeah, three to five is fine with me. Really, because most they have is, pretty much most of them have is 10. They're taking a day. How many are they going to have at the end of the year? Quite frankly. I mean, this would include you as well. Where I work, I know it's five days. The next year. Yeah, I think like after two years of employment, they carry three days. We still have it in the first year. Yeah, carrying over. They're going to use those values. And I think three days makes sense. We start there after two years of employment, you carry over three years. I think at this point, aside from step on it, it covers most of them in almost two years. All right. An example in my case, because I've gone full time, I've been considered here. Yeah, sure. You've taken all the decisions you go out the door. I love that. You'll be careful in your next couple weeks. Yes, you're... You know what? I mean, you've been here for, and getting the benefits anyway, but only for time benefits, right? You know, Sasha, we're not going to make a policy on that, but if at the end of the year, you want to leave some days for just come to the board and we'll work with you on that, I will be here at least until next March, so I can make that decision. So how many years have you been here for time? I've been here since the big four. So that was, what, 2001? 2001? So if you just took your time here and multiplied it by the percentage of time every year, you're a little bit over the age of something. Yeah, you're a little too young. All right. So any other discussions on the... so you have a motion on the floor here, on the personal policy? Yes, I guess we need to add that to the motion. After two years, you can all work the days? Yes, but it's still... On the dependent day. Yes. We've got the two changes, I'm going to get some grammatical changes from Jason, but also the two from John on there in his motion. Any other discussion? All in favor? All right. All right. Now let's go ahead and do any old business. As soon as Ron gets here, we'll go into Montgomery, which is a good business, but there's not a lot. Sidewalk stuff, Cheryl? Any updates? The state has approved everything. As far as the right-of-way goes, they have the bid documents now that they're looking over for approval. Chris Hunt doesn't think that there's going to be a problem on those. They appreciate pushing them through quite quickly. So the bid should go out by the end of June. We have $400,000 left in the two grants that were combined. You've got the sidewalk grant. We've spent... It was a $525,000 grant combined, and we've spent $77,000 so far. So we have... When the bids come back in, I explained that process to you. When the bids come back in, it will ultimately be this boy's decision on who to hire. If the bids come back in way higher than the money we have, we'll pull in Chris Hunt. I have new figures from the state and the model, other projects, that I'm using for... that we are using. Cheryl and I are using to apply for another grant that we're working on. So we have up-to-date numbers. We know for a fact that this grant happened in 2014. The labor's going to happen and the project's going to happen in 2020. So I'm confident that if the bids come in higher than the money we have, we can work with the state. We have good points. We met with a fellow from the committee who turned down the grant that was written in 2018. We know where the weak points are. We have pretty much verbatim on what should be put in there. And we were strongly advised to apply for the grant again for the west side of the parking lot. To get the west side of the parking lot, you probably will have a bond vote to cover the town's share because you remember the other share on this side of the street was covered with children's deer year money? No. The town's share is 10% of the grant cost. The catch basin grant is a little bit different. I just did an invoice today for $4,000 or so to charge back higher for 5% of that grant because it's the catch basins that are going on in school and the agreement was that they would pay 5% and stuff. Is there anything that you need in the next few weeks before you sign off from us or that needs to be real critical stuff that needs to be passed to anyone else or is it everything now? I'm doing that as I go. All this information that I just said has been gone over with Sharon. It's written down for a step when we do something. She's there. She makes notes just like Sasha does when we do something when Sasha goes howling for the time that the road crew works. It's all documented. FEMA schedules are all there. She has all that. She's doing that now once or twice. I'm there and I look it over. So those are the type of things when you come in that will be crucial to look at. It's just making sure that those eyes have been crossed and the teeth crossed that I thought of. All those little things we're not missing now. Sasha has a good handle on the day-to-day operations and you come in here and you deal with more people. How to code the bills, yeah. Code the bills for everything from the engineering and whatnot is going on to the sidewalk part and all the construction money will come out of the hedge-based parts just the way the state wanted it for now. So yes, it will improve. Oh yeah, she's getting it. Very good. Do certain bonds come in at 7.30? Yes. Local sports with permission for their 100 on 100 relay race in August. There's a portion of the 100. I'm fine with that every year. And after almost 12 years on the planning commission, I decided to move on. Please accept this. That's my recommendation, effective June 4th, 2019. I found great pleasure in serving the town over the past year. We're up on a roof. Sure. So on that, we should post that on front page form as far as, you know, why don't we thank him first? What we would like to sign, or we do sign. And then follow it up with, now we're looking for something new. So if at the next meeting, you know, there's, you know, you have, you know, put a couple weeks out on the notice and then not probably the next meeting, but the following meeting when we didn't meet anyone that needs to, that would like to participate. So I'm making a motion to be accepted through Reservation. So in the county, all in favor? Right. Any other new business? I haven't. I think that's involved. So this year and last year doing it, last year we started with like $2,000. When I started on the committee and this year we started with like $2,000. Of course every year everything goes up. The fireworks were supposed to be $4,000 but I got them to do it for $3,500 one more time. So that's just starting next year with $4,000 and right now we don't have enough money for this year. So they very, very well may not be more of this next year. We've asked all the people that will always donate to us. We've gotten one new donor. I'm not sure what else we can do to raise money. I actually sent an email to everybody today asking if they thought maybe we should just put a post on Frontport Form saying that we know if you want to keep going then we need help. A couple things. I wondered if maybe you could have it's going to have a draw box, the data, more tests. I'm going into the area here if there was something. Because we had hundreds of people in there who would have dropped a couple of bucks. We did it last year and we got like 100 bucks. And we talked about doing maybe a really small all-silent option Apple Fest with like big ticket items to help me raise money. Have we given you anything this far? 500. So we paid for the fireworks and we have like 20 bucks right now, right? And one thing we have to pay for that we agreed with the PTLA last year was that we would pay for the sheriff last year and that was in our agreement with them that we would pay for the sheriff. Because we're not, Morpheus isn't it to make money if they are. So that's $350 right there that we don't have. And then, you know, we did we did a few other small things but really that's all in the quarter party we paid for the extra quarter party for the weekend. So it's like 350, 450 that we still need to raise for this year. Lawson's gave us $1,000 of the money that we have so that was one big new donor. We didn't do, last year we did Cinco de Mayo which raised to $2,500. So that's the difference between last year and this year. But I've run out of people to ask. I don't know. I just want to let you know that I'm not sure that the fireworks is a big cost and next year it's going to be $4,000 that's the minimum. And with that fireworks I think you'll lose everybody. Yeah, I mean that's a draw. Yeah, I mean you see them all start coming at dusk. I mean we have the beer tent it's going to be two different people I don't know if I'm allowed to know that so I won't. And then we have all our food vendors from last year plus the fire department plus another person. We already have everything set which is way ahead than normal. So that it's going to be a full field plus it won't be a partial it will be touch a truck but B trans is coming there's race cars coming our guys, fire department, ambulance are all coming. We did that. Secondary box. I mean there is things to do I mean we could, I could probably guarantee that we could probably raise $500 at this year's event but that's a far thing from 2000 starting then. And everybody that there wasn't anybody that gave last year that didn't give this year last year was the only new one but it was the, yeah, the single why I'm not, nobody wanted to do it. Well we will, you know, you should put that out there and do you think that would be okay to do a post? I mean because we also there's a day of the event too so I was going to kind of lump it all Yeah Yeah Right Yeah Before you set it out Oh you set it to Sasha first? Yeah And you know then as a talent we can, you know, we can talk about it as we want, we want to support I mean I know it's a lot of town play a few It does and there are a lot of people who respond I mean not a lot of people I know you spend money on other things sometimes you know a couple thousand dollars and you might be better spent than the other If anyone wants to make a personal donation you might invest in a talent Alright So we'll just wait a couple minutes and I'll get here What you said? You want to start with a sign? Yeah And I got a clarification on the C.A.I. This price does equal the dimension Pretty I'm going to talk to the email so we can get that sentence agreed The library has a new person and I need to go on that Okay great And then there's letter of intent to participate It's for two different grants for a long time It looks like it's going to happen in a month Two Don't you go ahead These are for drinks Thank you so much Are you still in this already? No There's sign of things getting done We are going to move in to executive session here That's why I move