 Welcome you to the June 6th, 2022 Berlin Sluck Ward meeting with us tonight as Dave Sawyer, Carl Parton. On my right is Flo Smith and Joe Staub, with also is Vince Connelly, town administrator and Diane Isabel, town treasurer. First order of business is the second public informational hearing for zoning changes. Let's see, any additions or changes to the agenda for the zoning changes? No, sir. Any public comment? Hearing none. The public hearing for the proposed amendments to land use and development regulations. Tom? So with me is Carl Lino Wiesel, the chair of the Berlin Planning Commission and Bramie Saxton, our consultant. So since the last time we've met, the town has not received any comments on the zoning, proposed zoning regulations. May recall that the Planning Commission held a public hearing, and you folks have one a couple of weeks ago. So this would be the third opportunity for folks to weigh in. And we have not received any comments today on that, Mr. Chair. Okay. Is there any comments on it now? Hearing none. Public hearing for the proposed amendments to the official town map. Again, the town map has been distributed through the Planning Commission at their public hearing. It's been warned for two public hearings with the select board. This is the second of those two. It's been on the town website. I think you folks have seen a copy in your packet. Really the only change that on the official map was that in the new town center, all streets have to be a minimum of a, be street standards, and that includes sidewalks, lighting, and tree skate. So that's really the significant change to the official map. But no comments have been received since... First meeting. First meeting. Correct. Any comments on this now? Okay. And public hearing proposed amendments for the Berlin Town Plan. So you may recall, again, that the Planning Commission held a meeting on this, and then the select board advertised two public hearings with these amendments to the town plan. As part of the update, the town plans are typically good for eight years. The town of Berlin developed a new town plan about four years ago and got it approved by the constituency of the town. In that town plan, there was a condition by the Central Monterey Regional Planning Commission that the Planning Commission looked at two items in the town plan and come back with some amendments within four years were in that four-year window. It deals with vocational training in the community and daycare facilities. So the Planning Commission hired the Central Monterey Regional Planning Commission to actually help write the amendments to the town plan that would satisfy them. And so that's the basis of what these changes in the town plan represents. And they have written and it's been distributed to the select board a day the Central Monterey Regional Planning Commission have written a letter basically saying that if this is adopted, they will approve it on there for them. They're waiting for this process. Okay, any comments on this? Hearing none. Vince, I'm at a loss here since this portion of the meeting is not the select board, but the public hearing. And you, do we take in, I'm wondering if we should do the vote here or if we should wait till the select board meeting itself. Cause, yeah, makes sense. And then the other trouble is I don't see it listed under the agenda items. Right, yeah. I didn't even think about that when I prepared the agenda quite frankly. So yeah. Is this time sensitive in new lane? It's time sensitive in the fact that particularly the changes in the zoning and the official map were conditions of the downtown board for our new town center designation. They are prepared to grant us a non conditional permit as soon as the select board signs off on these items. The, I know Fox Run, that development is, has to be in a designated area. So from that standpoint, there is some time sensitivity for it. Since there is no money involved, can we add this to the agenda and vote on it? Or I think we can, right? We'll probably catch flat for it no matter what. Okay, and there's no other discussion on the hearing. We entertain a motion to adjourn the hearing. I make a motion to adjourn tonight's hearing. I second it. Any discussion? Those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passes. Hearing is closed. And I would like to invite, welcome everybody to the select board meeting. Characters haven't changed much. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? As a matter of fact, there are. There is a deletion of the amusement permit. The company was gonna run an event at the mall but recognized that they didn't have time to put it, pull it together. So they pulled their permit. And there are two additions. One is for the approval of a permit to replace a culvert by Ms. Smith on Pine Hill Drive. And the second is to have a decision or a vote on the public hearing for the proposed land use and development regulations, the official town map and the Burlington plan for approval. Okay. Anything else? That's it for changes. Public comment. Hearing none, we will entertain motions on the land use development regulations. I'd make a motion to approve the land use development regulations as the amendments and the official town map amendments to the Burlington plan. I think we have one at the time. Just to, okay. I'll make a motion to approve the proposed amendments to the land use and development regulations. Your second? Second. Any further discussion? Those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Motion on hearing the proposed amendments to the official town map. I'd make a motion to approve the proposed amendments to the official town map. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. And, I'd make the motion to approve the amendments to the Burlington plan. Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. And, public works staff position hiring decision. Excuse me, Mr. Chair. I know, Mr. Conti has a document for board signatures to it for this, what you, and that those documents are imperative for us to get our, Are they here on the tables in somewhere? They are, in one of the Manila folders that says for signature. It's in there, though. It's in one of those. That's some license. That's one. There's liquor licenses in there. There should be a, that's the liquor of Manila. Probably this one right here. That's the one right there. Land use. That's right. It should be, the other two should be in there, too. They might be behind it. It's a collective. Go get it. I was feeling optimistic. Right, can I get one of those pens? You can put all of them in one basket on that document. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I'll just give you a brief update on some, Sure. With the, with the Newtown Center. You may recall that the town was looking to acquire a 3.8 acre track of land from the school. We've gone through the subdivision. The subdivision has now become approved. The surveyor, the town's surveyor will be out tomorrow and Wednesday setting the new pens. Plans on filing the mylar with the town clerk this Friday. And I know Mr. Conte has sent draft quick claim D language to their council, the school board's council. So I can envision by the end of this month that the town becomes ownership of that 3.8 acre parcel. So that's good news. So there's been a lot of work to get that done. So just give you that update. The Berlin developer review board has approved the applications for the Fox Run project, the 30 unit housing. And it has also approved the Starbucks restaurant over there. So that's pending and those permits now. Thank you. So hopefully the grain list will start to grow now. It will. Well, the senior housing project is done. It'll definitely grow by that as well. There should be two more papers for signature for the town map and the town plan. I put it all in one. It's all in one. Okay. No, that's good. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. That's something to take this. Okay. He's got to run down there, so you can give me a copy. I will. No, I will. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Appreciate you both. Thanks. Okay. Public Works staff position hiring decision. Yeah. This is a carryover from the two years ago now. Well, we talked about it. We also had the chair of the Public Works Board have a discussion with the board about that. And they went away and reviewed it again and came back with really no changes to the job description and title that's in your package. It's the same one that you saw before. So we're just looking, basically just, we're just looking for the approval to move forward with hiring that position. And this position is paid for out of funds generated from the water sewer. Correct. Okay. Motion on this? I make the motion to approve the hiring of the Public Works Board Supervisor as an exempt management position. Second that. Any further discussion? I think I'd just like to summarize exactly what we're getting and what we're losing and what we're saving again. I know we discussed it a little, but I wasn't quite sure that we were ready to pull the trigger on the hire after that discussion. It could have been my misunderstanding, but so I got, the questions I'll throw out there is essentially this will replace the appointed water sewer commission. The Public Works Board phase out. Yep. Okay. So it's going from a volunteer to a higher position, basically, volunteer commission to a higher position. And under staff volunteer. Absolutely. Well, that goes without saying for every volunteer commission there is, I think, but, and we talked about savings a little bit, I guess I wasn't quite sure as far as job duties, what would be subtracted from the current zoning administrator and placed upon the Public Works Supervisor and how that would change the dynamic in the office. Well, part of the savings was there were two subcontractors we're hiring now. Yes. And those would go away. Eventually they're not going to go away initially. It's going to take a little while before they would be eliminated. The plan was three to six months transition period for the new person with both the board and the contractors, but within three to six months when everybody's comfortable then they would start to phase out. The subcontractors do the work too as well, just not the planning, right? Correct. So we'll still have some subcontractors for that work for the supervisor. Correct. So those costs won't be completely eliminated. If we're digging and installing obviously right now that some of that. And there's a lot of talk about the individual who has the great knowledge that might be retiring soon. He's kind of does that this job as not as one of the two subcontractors, right? No, he is one of the subcontractors. He is one of the subcontractors, okay. So he actually does the work too? Yes. Diane, do you remember what we figured it out as far as the savings? I don't know if it's so much of the savings as more of like a break even point because we were saying if this person has all the benefits and depending on what you're going to pay them it's going to take like 80 something thousand a year. For the benefits we were thinking it would be like 127 thousand a year. So it would be slightly more than what we're paying for now for the two subcontractors that we have and for our own time. Yep. However, the sewer commission and water commission is in very good shape. So if they have to, obviously they can raise more money too in the next time to make sure that everything is covered but they're also in a very good cash position right now. The meals, Carl? I don't know, I'm a measure twice cut once type of guines and certainly measure three or four times when it comes to expansion of personnel and that's an expense that never goes away. You know, it's not a one time budget item. It's not something that we fix and don't worry about for several years. That's adding positions in government is typically forever. So I just. But I think this is a position that you do have some control as far as how much you're going to spend. Like with the subcontractors you don't, not as much. But they say we're going to increase our expenses by, you know, we're going to charge you 10% more. And especially with sewer water, you're not going to have much choice. If one of the, that's one of the problems I see is with subcontractors is that the fellow who's retiring, when he goes away, he has no obligation to impart any knowledge. But at least now he's here and we can get that knowledge into a page form and into, for another person even if it's by Rome, it's, I think it's a good thing. Because eventually we're going to need them. As we grow, yes, and we are growing pretty quickly in a sort of way. And this department probably is going to grow by having other employees in it within probably the near future. We talked a little bit about it with the previous board and there'd be not a retreat, but in an offsite kind of thing that we had about the kind of growth and thing and that was one of the big discussions was about establishing a, over time, public works department, right? So, but again, we want to manage the growth properly for that as well. When we talk about a contractor for doing a lot of the digging work, well, these are things that we can look at now as well and maybe should have been all along is during the summer months with our road crew, there may be an opportunity as we were talking about training now, right? For equipment operators on our road crew to be a little more diversified as well where the town can actually do some of its own digging work. And then you'd have to have a plan in place to track that as far as pay wise so that it becomes out of the highway department and now the public works. Absolutely, it gets charged in the proper department. Yep, absolutely. But those are the kind of things that we are looking at. We will be talking about it more as we move forward. Is he else, Carl? No, just not. Any other comments on the public works? Okay, those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carry, are those opposed? No. Motion carries. Phil Gentili, speed limit signs on pain turn button. Phil? Phil, you're on mute. So basically, Phil was concerned about speed down through. Yep, on pain turn by south, ripping by his place. So he'd like to put some additional speed limit signs in down there between his place in the north field border to raise awareness that it's only 35 and not 55. He did have an incident the last fall, I believe it was. He had, you know, he crosses the road to his place and he had his grandkids there and he had a caution child board out with a sign on it and some lady drove by and took the sign and dragged it right down the road and then the pickup that was following her ran over the sign as well. Do we currently know what we have for signs and how far they're placed down through there? I believe and I'd have to verify. I think there's only one sign down near the north field border at this time coming in this way. What's the speed limit on the north field side? That's a good question. I think it varies. I think there's, where the corners are coming through, I think it's 25 and I think it's 35 same as ours after the corners, I think. Has the police looked into those signs you put up tells you flashes. They've had one up on the Brookfield side probably for a couple of weeks now, although I think they just recently moved it. But they do have one. What about their cart? I'm not sure where the cart's at right now but they have a cart also. I was going to place that up down there for a while but I'll certainly try it. Well, you can talk to the chief. See what can be done. If there's no other comments on this, speed limit on Brookfield, I mean on Tame Turnpike South. Well, I don't know if I'll solve it, but it's... What I'll do in between now and the next meeting as well, I'll go take a look at the quantity of signs. If it looks like there's a large gap and we might need one or two, I'll come back and make a recommendation to the board on that and then I'll talk to the chief about maybe doing a little bit more on increased patrols and putting the cart up down there and maybe also the one on the proposal. Okay, conservation commission application proposal for approval. Let me turn the video on. You don't have information in your package on that as well. We've got time to review that. Would you like me to overview what? I'm taking over again. We don't know who's listening or who's going to. We like to take an element informed. Okay, let me start over again. So this was application in a review process that we've been working on. And this is for projects for people or groups of people to make a request for projects in the town force, either on the conserve land or the town force. And a project we're defining that as, an activity that may be running for a season or all year and new activity or change to an activity or it could be a new trail or a modification to the trail. So something that's fairly big that has the potential to impact either current visitors to the forest or impact the natural resources. And there's two parts to it. There's an application that the person who would like to make a request to use to make a change or put a project forth can fill out and the conservation commission can definitely help them do that and work through the application with them. And then the second part is guidelines for making a decision. And the guidelines are based on our conservation easement is based on the management plan. It's based on best practices. And the three big things that we're looking at is, first of all, we wanna determine if Berlin as a whole would like the project. You know, is this something that there's a demand for? And also is it compatible with existing visitors and is it compatible with the natural resources up on the mountain? So that's the first thing we're looking at. The second is, can the group who is submitting the proposal do that the resources and then know how to actually implement it? And if they don't have the resources, is Berlin willing to give the resources to do that? And then the final thing that we're looking at is long-term sustainability. You know, if it's a new trail, how's it gonna be sustained? Who's gonna pay for it? How does that happen? So there's two parts. The first part is the application and it's two, three pages, but basically a description of the project who would be interested in the project what's the public interest for the project? So after the general information, the next part is a section to determine who would implement the project and what's their experience and what are their resources? So can they implement the project? And then on part number seven is ongoing maintenance. How is this gonna be sustained over the years? And then the final part is just there if they have experience in other areas, what is their input as far as how do we manage multiple users? How do we manage the resources? We're trying to get input from them on how they do that. And once they submit this project, then we have a set of guidelines for evaluating the project. One is to make sure it's in agreement with the easement and the forest management plan and if there's a conflict with the forest management plan, what kind of modifications would we need to make to that? And would they be in agreement with the easement? The next section is their public demand for this and public support for this type of project. And then the third section is what would be the natural resource impact up on the mountain of the project? The next section is visitor management. How do we manage, if there is gonna be a conflict, how do we manage that? Think about that upfront. And then we wanna know about construction. How would it be constructed? Who's gonna pay for it? What are their experiences for doing it? And the final question for the evaluation is sustainability and ongoing maintenance. And so those are the areas that we're proposing to review a project on. And I think the really important thing is to have a process. We're not completely tied to this specific set of criteria. This was our best shot at it, but we've had multiple people come in with requests that are being handled differently. It seems like everybody should know upfront what the criteria are and everybody should be handled. Their request should be processed in the same manner just to be fair to everybody. And have people know how their proposal is gonna be evaluated. And we do have several things sort of float in the background. I've heard about e-bikes. Somebody's up there with snowboarding. There's things that I hear about that could potentially expand. So we really, in my opinion, need to have something in place so that we can process this through in a fair and sort of logical way. So this is our proposal. I'm open for questions. Any questions for her? I had a little bit. I'd just like to comment. Thank you for the thorough process. It's very well organized. I guess the only question I have is, as I look at this, and this is probably an easy answer, but do you consider maintenance to existing trails or infrastructure or current uses, something that would need, would require this document to be filled out? You mean ongoing maintenance to something we have going already? Yeah, like existing trails, the bridge, any current use of the forest trail system at all? Yeah, that's not really the purpose of this document. It's covered in the corridor management agreement. We have two user groups up on the mountain right now. They both are under corridor management agreement. And that defines our responsibilities and their responsibilities. It's renewed every year. Thank you. That's all I have. Any other questions? Have a motion. I make the motion to approve the Burlington Forest Project application through the conservation commission as presented to us this evening. I'll second that motion. Any further discussion on this? I personally would just like to see some kind of format of how these would be handled if an application was put in. If the application was put in, some kind of timeframe of acknowledgement that the application, not just the applicant, but to the board when an application is put in and how long the process may take. I understand if there's some evasive species or anything like that, the process will take longer, but I think there ought to be some kind of framework of how the application will be handled. Framework or time limit? Some kind of time limit. Yeah, two minutes. Kind of a process of time limit. There are some challenges to that because this could be looking at a small project or a large, larger project. I think definitely we can acknowledge and get going very quickly. There are some things where you may need to see the trail in different seasons. If it's a new trail that's going in. So for instance, if we're going to put a new bike trail in, we may need to see what it looks like in the spring in that timeframe to see how wet it is. So there could be challenges putting a really hard deadline on it. What we could do is if we get an application is make an agreement about what the timeline would be. Right up front at the beginning, depending on the scope of the project, that would be an option. So something small we might see in a couple of months, something that's extensive, we could agree up front how long it should take. Any other comments? Hearing none, those in favor? All right. Motion carries. Can I say a word? This is Phil Gentili. Hey Phil. Hey Brad, how you doing? Sorry, I was on another timetable. I had it up on my screen, but I didn't know you guys were so far ahead. Do you have any questions for me on my request, not for the conservation commission, but for my request on speed limit signs? Yeah, we took in head of discussion about that. We're going to see about putting the speed card up there on Payne Turnpike South. We'll see if the chief can do a patrol or two. I don't know what else we can do. Well, I would suggest that we put a 35 mile an hour speed limit sign right at the Northfield Berlin line. We talked about that too. I'm going to take a look at the signs, Phil, what's out there and where they are as well, and then come back with a recommendation of what we need to add. Yeah, because basically any of the traffic, all the traffic coming from Northfield and Williamstown can go 50 until they hit my property, which is through the Mirror Lake intersection. So we have trucks and cars in the morning going 50 and 60. And now we have children in the intersection. We have two school bus stops turn around. I mean, it's pretty, it's a lot more than it just appears on the surface. We've had terrible speeding problems, and the least we can do is put 35 miles an hour right at the town line. So if nothing else, the police chief is covered by saying, okay, you are over the limit. Right now they're not over the limit till they get to my house. They can go 50. Meanwhile, last year, the select board all passed 25 miles an hour on Mirror Lake and Brookfield Road. So there's a little bit of a discrepancy there, I feel. And I'd also like to petition for children's science too. Now that they're children living here at the Four Corners. So that's just my, if that can be considered, sorry I was late, but I've been waiting three weeks to say this, so I just wanted to get some words in. Yeah, so when you go up to their events, you set a time with Phil and pick your crews down through. Yeah, absolutely well. Okay. I'll be in touch, Mr. Gentelli. All right, thanks so much, appreciate it. Not a problem, Phil. Let's see here. Vermont Land Trust Letter Review and Decision. Yeah, there's a couple of pages in your package about this, the Vermont Land Trust and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board looking for a response to this letter. Only if the Select Board or the Planning Commission believe that the proposed project doesn't comply with the town plan and zoning efforts. The Planning Commission hasn't found an issue with it. If there's no such concerns, then we don't have to do a response letter. So it's just, it's really a matter of the board now to see if they have any issue with this. And then I will address it with them and trust in the Conservation Board through a letter. If there isn't, then no response is required. So this is to conserve, there's a map here of what used to be, I believe, was that at the end of Clinish Road, the old Maloney Place, and they want to conserve everything that's outlined in there, in the yellow. Now then the current, the new owners. Yeah, the, so there's no... I'm trying to thank you. Is the farm under land use now? I'd have to check. I don't know the answer to that question if they are under land use or not. I'd have to check. The farm that's here, the new owners of the farm? Maloney. At the end of Clinish Road, doing Maloney Farm? Right. Last I knew it was. It was under land use? Okay. And this won't change the tax revenue off the place. If it's not in current use, then what did it occur in use, obviously? Yeah. Well, let's see here. So do we need a motion on a letter? Whether we, whether the board has an issue with it or not, if there's no issue, then no letter is required. Anyone have an issue? I just wanted to clarify. The current owner of this property wants this to happen? Yes. Yes. Okay. They're the ones asking for it, actually. Okay. That's Merfin? Yeah. Merfin is, Merfin and McKay are the new owners of the property. Thank you. And the planning commission had no issues. The planning commission didn't. What benefit is it to them or to the town? Obviously, there's an environmental benefit to... Well, it used to be that if you put your land in land use or into easement, they would pay you for the easement. So it would be a reduction in, or a way to generate operating capital or a reduction in the mortgage. There's a little bit that describes that in a letter to it. It says, you know, the easement restricts non-agricultural use and features subdivision of the property. So it basically keeps it in as farmland and perpetuity. Or I mean forestry, it says. Didn't when this started back years ago, did it have to, that it was left open for fishing game and people to hunt and stuff like that? They couldn't post it? No, because it's still, even though it's in land use, the owners are still responsible for the management of it. And though it doesn't sound like it, but there's been several times when farmers has had put their land in the easement and then did a seeding and people wanted to go fishing and drove down, things like that. It's very rare, but there are inconsiderate people out there. Oh. And it's more than you wanna admit. That's why I think, I believe, I mean, less has changed, you can still post. I thought it, well, I know years ago, back up a piece of property that if they did that, it had to be by permission only and stuff, but I don't know, I was just curious. Maybe I can check. How that changed. Is it yellow? All those, so if there's no issue with this, we are. RFP approval acceptance for audit services. You have all those there on the window. They should all be labeled there, all on all the community services on the janitorial. Yeah, and that's the decline services. That one's a letter of decline. You can read that one, and that's the only bit. It's one bit, it's two documents, for the one bit of the audit services. There you go. Thank you for the honor. In terms of the audit services bid, we received one from Father Gil Segali in Valley, dated May 9th, 2022. The letter reads, dear Vince, thank you for asking us to submit a proposal to provide audit services for the town of Berlin. For the fiscal years ending June 30th, 2022, with the option of mutual renewal for subsequent fiscal years. We are unable to bid at this time. If you decide to request proposals in the future, please consider us again. Sincerely, Michael Segali, CPA, Father Gil Segali, and Valley CPAs. They have been our auditors for how long? I think the last six years. Yep. Yeah, the issue I'd actually talked with one of the people there is because we're gonna have a single audit and we just don't have enough people working there to provide an extra person. So we only have one bid? And would you care to read that out loud? Sure, all 32 pages or just the totals? Just the last one there. Okay, from Sullivan Powers and Company, PC, Certified Public Accountants. It does appear that they're, I'll read the introductory paragraph. Based on our knowledge of the accounting system and the regulations and guidelines, we have determined that the audits, the financial statements can be performed for the following fees provided that books are closed and reconciled, and our to-do list is completed prior to our commencing field work. And it looks like the total out-of-pocket expenses, including principal, senior staff, clerical is 28,000 even. If the town requires a single audit in any year, the fee will be 6,000 for one major program and 4,000 for additional major programs. What will we be paying? Last year we paid $18,500. So that's a $10,000 increase. Well, we had a single audit last year that was 18.5 with a single audit. So you're looking at over 30,000, it's 34,000. So they also offer up in the proposal a proposed increase each year for 2023, $500 increase to 28,500, and 2024, 29,100. And it looks like there's a couple copies if anybody would like to. Yeah, for the pass of the round. Glance. And that's the only bid we got on this. Any comments, Diane? We have to have them and I could have booked them as soon as I can book them. We have to have a single audit by law. For our USDA loans, we have to. It's not, if we can, we have to. Our loans depend on this. And I will say, I have dealt with Selden Empowers for 15 years wherever it was before. They're excellent. Absolutely excellent. And not that Father Gilles Galli weren't because they were as well, but I can attest to this company as well. You feel the additional fee rates for the next three years? Well, it's not like we have to do it all three years. No. We can just every year look at it, but we want to have that ability. Yeah, to have them tied in. Yeah. And from what I understand right now, there are a lot of towns that are scrambling trying to find somebody to do the audit. I don't know if the growth of our grand list is keeping up. So a motion on the audit services? I move that we accept the bid from Selden Powers and Company for the total $28,000 for the year 2022 for the Berlin audit services. I second it. All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Let's see here. So Nix's Cemetery Office Law. I knew somebody wanted that. I did. Those two. Do you have all four Diane or is that? Is that? There's three of them. Right there. Joe, do you want to hand that? I think two of them. When I'm opening is listed for town of Berlin, lawn care sealed bid from Kirk Yard Services LLC out of Marshfield, Vermont, 108 Sixth this old hill road. The letter reads, we will mow and trim from May to September, municipal building at 108 Shed Road, town memorial, corner of Payne Turnpike North and Crosstown Road, Dog River Park, Route 12 Riverton, Friendship Park, Mudsy Road, as needed to keep the lawns maintained, raked, mowed, trimmed and trees pruned for a clean and professional look for a total of $4,200. We are fully insured and we'll submit our proof of insurance if our bid is accepted. Respectfully submitted Joseph Magnum Kirk Yard Services LLC. Is that 4,200 a month? That's usually the bid set. It doesn't specify per month. It just specifies 4,200. I think it's probably a season, isn't it? I would say. It's from the May to September. And I don't think so. Really? We got a lot more area at the trailer park and the bids were around 7,000. So I guess we'd have to clarify that just to make sure it seems pretty high for a monthly. How is the RFP worded, was it? I'd have to look again, but I didn't get the copy in the back, but I'm pretty sure. This other one that I'm holding is also from Kirk Yard Services LLC. But it specifies we will mow and trim from May to September, Johnston's to Sawyer, Dewey to Wright, East Road, Black, Colby, Coxbrook, Howard, Dion, cemeteries every other week keeping the brush out of the confines of the cemetery and the West Berlin cemetery will be maintained weekly for the yearly price of $8,500. Any additional work will be by bid or by the hour at $40 per hour. We are fully insured and we'll submit our proof of insurance if our bid is accepted. Again, respectfully submitted, Joseph Magnan, Kirk Yard Services LLC. This other one here, it says roadside mowing, that's different. One of those from Kirk Yard should be from roadside mowing. The one she just read is the cemeteries. That one should be from roadside. This is roadside, yeah, that's another one that I don't know who that's from, but it's another roadside mowing bid. Okay. So, that's an hour to determine for roadside, yeah. So, for the cemeteries, one bidder for the roadside, we've got two bidders, okay. So, unless there's two bids in there from the same company, I don't know. Yeah, this is strictly roadside, okay. So, a motion on the cemetery mowing. I make the motion to approve the cemetery mowing bid to Kirk Yard with the clarification on the 4200 quoted. The cemetery was 8500, that was pretty clear. 8500, my mistake. I'll second that. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Those opposed? Motion carries for Kirk Yard or the cemeteries. And let's see here. Office lawn and highway mowing services. And that one there is for 4200. And this is from Donnell Dexter of Williamstown. And he will bid proposed prices $5,600. And he will do a single pass mowing on all class two and three roads and a second pass on paved roads. And I would have to take him, say you want to check and make sure he's insured. He's the person that covered it last year. I think the last two years. Last two years, yeah. And what was Kirk Yard's price? 4200. 4200. Here, a motion. Make a motion to give the roadside mowing to Kirk Yard for 4200. And that is for the year, correct. That's for the offices. The town office is not on the offside. Donnell is the roadside. So just one for it. That is just the, okay. That's not the roadside as well. You made a mistake here. So now we got two different things going on there. Yeah, let's see here. Office lawn mowing. That's that 4200 that was Kirk Yard. I'd like to clarify if that's for the season because it appears to me, I would think that would be for the season, May to September. That should be. I thought he was including the roadside mowing as well as the cemeteries. Because he's always done the cemeteries. Oh, okay. Okay, sorry. So I think that's my issue. Yeah. But I think, yeah. Because that's like 840 a month that we divide that by five, so that makes sense. Like maybe just to reiterate. Well, take and clarify and a motion on the office lawn mowing. I'll entertain a motion for the office yard mowing for 4200 after clarification. I'm still a little mixed up here. So we approve the cemeteries. This 4200 bid is for the town offices and Dog River Park, Friendship Park, Town Memorial Corner only without roadside. Yep. Okay. So. There you go. I'll say that too. But second. Do hear a second. Second. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries. And now for roadside mowing. We have a roadside bid proposal for roadside mowing. It is from Donnell Dexter, 1188 Baptist Street, Williamstown, Vermont, 05679. Dear sir, I'm writing to submit a bid for the 2022 roadside mowing season. The proposed bid for single pass mowing of all class two and three roads and a second pass on paved roads. The bid proposal price is $5,600 even. The mowing in question is scheduled to be performed using a John Deere 2555 90 horsepower tractor equipped with a five foot boom mower. I would assume as with other towns a 30 day contract term for acceptance of bid. I would like to thank you for your time and consideration of my bid proposal. It was dated May 13, 2022. You're a motion on roadside mowing? Just a one. I make the motion to approve the singular bid tonight from Donnell Dexter for the bid proposal price of $5,600. Do hear a second? Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? All right. Can you oppose motion carries? And we are through the bid acceptance procedure now. The music permit was withdrawn. Discussion with Tree Warden, Dave Wilcox. How's it going? Good. How are you? Well, pretty good. Want to come closer to a microphone? Sure. Thank you, Dave. Welcome to our new Tree Warden, by the way. Yeah, first appearance. Yep. The power went out the last time I tried to. Tree took the lights down in the last minute. Yeah. Tree on private land. Hell, ironic. Yeah, so I'm not sure exactly what the previous, I knew the previous Tree Warden, that doubt. Worked with her a little bit on the Ash Tree Survey. I do have that data. Maybe I'll back up a little bit and introduce myself. I've been a forester for 25 years, just about 25 years with the state of Vermont. I managed state lands for 19 years, and now I'm the watershed forester with the department. So I do a lot of work with logging contractors and foresters training. Most of my job is water quality, but also the other regulatory aspect of forest and parks, which is the heavy cut log. And when I was a state lands forester for many years, I worked with towns, doing Tree Warden training. Worked with a lot of communities on tree planting. I've had quite a bit of experience with the Berlin Elementary School. I had two daughters that went there, planted a lot of trees around the school. I just actually came from there. The apple trees look really good. There's an elm tree that's dead. Supposedly it was given to us by Walmart, I believe, years ago, and it was supposed to be disease-resistant, which it isn't an elm tree. It's a warranty ran out, so that's probably the first order of businesses to get that completely dead elm tree grid gone, which is right between the school park driveway and the fire station, if you can't miss it. I'm all around it all the time. So, yeah, so I feel like I have a lot of experience and I live in Riverton on McCarty Road, at the old, I call it the old Bouchard Farm. Most people recognize that name, but yeah, happy to be able to help, and I don't know what exactly the tree warden job entails for the town of Berlin. I think every town is a little bit different. I know the guys in the road crew, and there has been a new tree warden statute that was, the old tree warden statute changed a year or two ago, and it's clarified that the tree warden has responsibility for trees that are planted by the town on public property. It does not include all shade trees, like it did, unless the town, well, and the alternative is the town create a tree ordinance that describes better than just saying all shade trees because a seedling this talk creates shade, just like a giant maple tree. So a lot of towns have chosen to create their own town ordinance which describes those trees that are under the purview of the tree warden. So, but without an ordinance like that, it goes to the state ordinance, or the, I'm sorry, the state statute, which says the tree warden is responsible for trees in the public right away that were planted by the town, not all trees in the public way, just those that were planted. So, I think if you were to ask me what the biggest issue is relative to the trees in the town of Berlin, I would clearly say, I'm a lash boy. We're gonna see widespread mortality of ash trees. It could be as close as two years away. It could be six years away. It's probably somewhere in the middle, but when it hits, it's gonna be stark and surprising. Even though we've been hearing about it, when it happens, it's an impact. Has there been any effort or any progress made in any kind of control? So, there's no way to control the insect in terms of eradicating it, like spraying for it. The only real way to combat EAB is you can treat single trees. The best thing to do is before it's infested, you know, when you see the insect getting closer, start to treat it with a systemic insecticide, or pesticide, that when the insect bores into the tree, it doesn't like it, kills it, and then the tree doesn't have as much damage. Because what it is, the insect lays its eggs, the larvae feed into the tree, they make the galleries, they kill the cambium in that area, it overwinters, and then in about almost this time of year, the adult pupates into an adult, and it chews its way out and flies away, and goes and lays more eggs. And so it's that gallery creation and the cambium damage that when you get enough of those, they coalesce around the tree and the tree dies. So they start by the top down, you see the insects in the top of the tree, and you see some flagging and tree branches dying and leaves defoliation, and then you see the woodpeckers getting after the insects, and they start pulling the bark off, and then pretty soon the tree just can't keep up. Are they exclusive to ash? All species of ash, but only ash. So white ash, which are native ash trees, green ash, which is a very common ornamental tree, and then black and brown ash, which are native, but live mostly in wet areas, and those are all susceptible to EAB. But it doesn't go over to Maple or other things. I know some towns have gone out and done surveys on the roadside, and then your travels from here to home, are you seeing a need for that? Well, Rowan actually has had a comprehensive, pretty comprehensive ash tree survey that Beth Dought initiated with the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation who I work for. They have a program that is the Urban and Community Forestry Program that helps communities in all sorts of aspects of urban forestry. It could be anything from helping a town with a town forest or recreation on a town forest to tiny little pocket parks to tree planting in the school and the right tree in the right place, and for years we had a grants program where we would help communities plant trees. That's the apple trees at the school were planted through a grant through the UCF program. And so they have, they actually have an ash tree inventory app that you get on your phone. And I dealt with Beth with a couple of other folks with forest and parks, and we inventoryed a lot of the roads. So I would say we have 75 to 80% of the roads already surveyed for ash trees, not EAB, just ash trees. And the power company who I've spoken to, they left a door hanger for me and I talked to the fellow, but they've taken down a lot of trees along the power lines. I mean, everybody's seen that. And they're trying to be proactive because once EAB hits, it's like a storm. You know, it's worse than a storm. So, because the trees get brittle and they could fall anytime, you know, a little bit of wind can cause a whole lot of problems. So they're trying to get rid of the trees. And I think it depends on how, you know, everything costs money. You know, how do you proactively reduce the ash component without, you know, spending all your resources on it. And I think we're very lucky, GMP has, in my opinion, done a great job of trying to be proactive. What about Washington Electric? I don't know much about Washington Electric, to be honest with you. I can certainly find out. A lot of their lines are through the woods and I have this one on the roadside. That's a big issue. In many ways, not just EAB, but when they, all the road, the power lines from up along West Hill Road were probably put in the 40s and they went through the fields and now it's all woods. So they're off-road lines that's exact, nowhere near the road, and the guys have a bunch of trouble trying to maintain. So, yeah. To the extent that that's, in my opinion, the biggest issue, I'm happy to try to work towards making it as small an impact as possible, but it is gonna be an impact. There's gonna be, you know, and then when the trees come down, what do you do with the wood? Vermont has pretty much accepted the fact that EAB is gonna be everywhere soon. We were lucky. It stayed away for a while. We didn't find it for a long, long time and now that we found it, the areas where it is infested is getting much bigger very quickly and instead of trying to regulate the insect, we're just trying to slow the spread and make people aware of what's gonna happen. I've been, you know, as a forester and only my own land, I've been proactively trying to reduce the ash component just because if I'm there and I can get it, I'm gonna take it now and kind of presale this type of thing. I don't cut all of them, but I really, you know, it's not gonna be too long before we see a lot of dead ashtrays. What's the percent of ash in that forest? They say it's about 5% to 8% maybe, but that might be an average. You know, there's areas where it's 20%. There's areas where it's 1%. You know, ash likes good sites. It grows along the sugar maple and yellow birch and basswood on really good sites and it loves hedgerows. All along our fields up there is just ash trees. You know, happy to, I know all the players with the state and when the time comes or however we decide or select board decides to approach it, happy to, you know, lead that charge. But it is gonna be a bummer. So based on what survey you do have, how many of those trees are probably in town right away and how many are, I guess, maybe not currently infected? Well, the survey used the right-of-way distance to determine if the tree was in or out of the right-of-way. So we only surveyed trees that were in the right-of-way. We actually measured from centerline to the tree and if it was outside of the, I think we used 25 feet which is pretty much 50-foot right-of-way, 25 feet from centerline. If it was farther than that, we didn't count it. There's a lot that are close to being in but we didn't count them and at the time we did it, there were no infested trees. And I shouldn't know this but honestly I don't. If there are any infested trees in the town of Berlin right now, I don't know. I know there are in Montpelier and I know there are in like Plainfield and East Montpelier, I don't know of any in Northfield. Williams down there, Williams down there are. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised because the closest infestation or the start of the infestation that we knew about, first EAB infected tree that was found in Vermont was found in Plainfield, just on the Groton mountain, side of the Groton mountain range, just north east of Plainfield. And the insect flies theoretically two miles a year so you can make a ring every two years but it mostly moves to 55 miles an hour in the back of the pickup truck is how it gets replaced in place. People have a tree that falls down, they don't know. They cut it up, they put it in their truck, they take a camp, the insect climbs out and it's in the orchards. That's how it got from Michigan to East. Ash is a hardwood, right? Oh, yeah. It's not even good for camping, like your nice tribe pine, right? A little snap, a little, yeah. But I know it's not a bad firewood, it's not as dense as sugar maple or anything but it's a great, it's a commercial species. It's great for lumber and the price of ash, believe it or not, in the last 10 years the price of ash has not dropped. It's only gone up because it just hit the, it hit the market so that people are demanding it as the amount of it went up. So it's luckily stayed high price for ash. That's one of the few positive things that you can find out in the timber industry right now. The price of fuel, but the price of delivered logs is pretty good, so. I think H1P here actually has a active cutting program right now on their roadways because we're doing a project over there and they're taking everything within that 25 feet. Yeah, sometimes, I mean roadside management, absent of EAB is still important. There's still hazard trees and trees that die and create risk for the town. That's a whole other thing. It doesn't have to be EAB that creates the risk. It can be all sorts of things. There are dead trees along the roadside that create a liability for the town. Have you looked at, since ash grows more than 60 feet, have you looked at anything back from the right-of-ways? No, yeah, no we haven't. I'm just trying to think, I mean, if a tree were to fall and it's out of the right-of-way, it can still reach the road. Oh, absolutely, yep. And the town has the ability to cut trees that are over that right-of-way, but until they are, it's the landowner's responsibility. And that's just, it's the time you walk in the woods, there's a danger, so. From a very practical financial level, would there be a value for a timber, lumber, or firewood harvester to harvest our right-of-way trees in town? Would that be a cost to the town, or would them just being able to keep what they harvested be worth it for them? In some towns, I know Limla, clearing in Pulp Wood in Totsam, has done roadside tree removal at a wash for the town, for towns and selected areas. And because of the state statute, the trees belong to the landowner, so they have to offer the trees, even though Limla cuts them, they have to offer those trees to the landowner, but they give them like two weeks and if it's not gone, they just chip it, or process it. Most of them, most of the roadside trees, because of the sunlight, they have limbs that they're not great log quality trees because of the openness. So a lot of them just get chipped, or processed into like firewood or pulp, or lower quality, but higher than chips. And they should be, that's, should go to the highest and best use, not just chipped, so. It would be, I would say, it would be a cost in many places. I had a curiosity here. How's the bungalow going through the chipper? So it doesn't like it, I would assume, but the idea is if you chip the wood to smaller than, I think it's two inches by two inches, and they're never that thick. It's like a match book size, they say. That drives the wood out, and renders that fiber clean of the insect. So when you harvest a tree, during the flight season for the insect, there was not so much of the more, because DAB is already everywhere, but when we tried to keep it from spreading, there were rules where you couldn't ship logs during a certain period of time, or you could only ship it to an area that was infested. And all of the waste had to be treated, like either a kiln dried or chipped. So chipping is one of the ways to get rid of the insect, or make the forest product safe, so to speak. I was just wondering, you were saying, processing in the firewood, and then the only trouble with that, of the asshole, was being shipped around. Right, right, and sometimes have created like a wood yard, where all the ash trees go to that yard, and maybe the town hired a processor and sold the wood, or gave the wood away to income eligible people. I mean, there's all sorts of different ways to do that, but the idea is to do it as close to the stump as possible so that the material's not spreading the insect, which is, you know, it's logistics, and where do you put the wood yard, that's what we do. And I was gonna make a map of the trees that have already been, or the roads, that have already been inventory, but I wasn't able to do it. But I will, I can produce that, and if you want more information on it, I'd be happy to either through email, or, you know, whatever, if people are interested. Maybe something on the town website, everybody could look at, not just, maybe ideas outside the select board Anything else, Dave? No, no, I don't know if, you know, so when I worked with tree wardens, when I was a state lands forester, and was the urban community forester, that was my title, so to speak, when I did this sort of thing, we talked a lot about hazard trees, and obviously EAB is a great creator of, gonna be a creator of hazard trees, but there are others out there, and I didn't know, sometimes, tree warden works with the road crew and identifies trees that should come down. I know some road crews, they don't get rid of them until they hit the road, but they're, you know, it's not a bad idea to be proactive on those trees that are the most hazardous, and dead trees especially, because there really isn't any justification for keeping a dead tree around on a busy road, so I didn't know how that was treated before in Berlin. Maybe it was the road foreman. I think every time though, do we know? I think that every time though is a tree that we're in question, they get a hold of the tree warden, and they go out and inspect. I don't know if you wanna be proactive, Tim, for a couple of rides around and discuss it? Well, I think it's worth chatting with him, and I know Tim pretty well. I think he does, I honestly think he does a great job as our road foreman. I don't have any complaints. I live on the end of a dead-end road, so you're never gonna hear me complain. But yeah, I would be interested in chatting with him. I mean, I also realize it's a make-work project for the road foreman and the road crew. But I think there's a compromise of not, certainly not gonna go out and mark a bunch of hazard trees, because that just is a liability flag, but seeing the most obvious ones and approaching those and seeing if that's too much I think Tim would look forward to some of that to be quite frank. He doesn't appreciate the 2 a.m. call-outs for trees across the road. And I think if we could, you know, convince him it's gonna cut down on that, I think he'd be all for it. I think he will, definitely. Well, you couple that with like ditching, a ditching project. You're there in the area, sure. Very proactive. But yeah, that's all I could would have and says my contact info, so if anybody has questions, let me know. Are the yells for Dave will is here? Thanks for lucky to have somebody with your experience and knowledge. Thank you, Dave. You're welcome. Thank you. I'm glad to be able to help. Now that everybody knows you, the questions will start up. Yeah. Well, we got a treat for you. I've been fortunate in my career. I love what I do and I do it on the weekends at my own place. So I'm happy to share my interest and experience. I know the Confiscation Commission is listening in and they're pretty happy to have the job done as well. I'm sure they're gonna come forward with some questions. Yep. Managing the Town Forest and the Emerald Dashboard too with what the next steps might be for that. Yeah. That's gonna come. The Berlin Town Forest has a really nice site and has a lot of asterisks. Okay, thank you very much, Dave. Yep, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Dave. Okay, Town Clerk and Assistant Clerk Discussion, our decision, I should say. This is a follow on from the previous meeting, right? This is to try to make a decision on what we wanna do for the soon to be vacant Town Clerk's position. We wanna proceed or not proceed with regards to that. And currently the Town Clerk's job duties is also an assistant treasurer and you're looking to drop that as well. Yeah. So right now, what's before us is to either a point or have the Assistant Town Clerk move into the Town Clerk's position. That would be one of the options, right? Or do we wanna have the Assistant Town Clerk in effective July 1st move into that role until the next election in March? So you're gonna be appointing the Assistant? I'm not, but you're the one. Well, we would offer the Assistant Town Clerk, right? Okay. The option. Right, okay. And then along with that, obviously, right, they'll wanna be a salary discussion. Is it gonna remain the same or is it gonna be something different? All those things need to be decided on how we wanna proceed with that. Since? Just to complicate it a little bit more. Oh, do we? Okay. Another decision that will need to be taken is do we authorize the appointed position to backfill the Assistant position as well going forward until the election? So those are all the things that really need to be decided in the very near future. Well, I would have my thoughts only, but my thoughts would be to take in, would be to take and move the Assistant into the Town Clerk's position. The voters had already appropriated the money. Then the, if on the Assistant's side that money has already been appropriated also. Though it's really not up to the Board to decide how that, those funds are distributed within the Town Clerk's office. And then take in, hopefully we can get through the march. Then we can do a, they can, if the Town Clerk or the acting Town Clerk wants to run again, by the dandy, not. So the Assistant Town Clerk, the money that was voted on for the Assistant Town Clerk, you're saying could be, you could increase the hourly rate but decrease the hours needed to make that. Again, by state statute, we don't have anything to do with that. Okay. So there's a lot, let me just understand this and I think I kind of would like to hear from Karen on what her expectations are, is if we were to appoint her as the Town Clerk, what her expectations would be. I think that'd be very helpful going forward. There's a certain amount of money that my understanding is it's allotted to that thing. Some of it is for the Town Clerk, some is for the Assistant. Last time Karen was here, she voiced, to me, if I understand it correctly, voice that bringing somebody on as Assistant and a livable wage. So I guess I would like to hear from Karen of what her thoughts and what she thinks, things that she thinks that things would look like if she was to accept an appointment from the Board. I'd like to piggyback onto that if we're gonna turn it over and ask, what do you see the anticipated office, open office hours being identical to now? So just, again, it's not, it's just a question at this point. Was that a question to me? It was for me, it was for me. That's what I would like to hear. What Carl just asked as far as the public hours, I really don't know at the moment until you actually have it staffed with two people, I certainly couldn't say it would stay exactly the same because if I didn't get a second person in there right away, I don't know that I could do that. Do you foresee, I just don't know. Do you foresee that you have an individual that may be in line for that position? I did talk to somebody during my vacation and all, but everybody's looking at this as a big unknown. As I mentioned at the last meeting, if you weren't able to say that the person you appointed would get the line item as approved by the voters for the town clerk, you certainly weren't able to say that as far as the assistant town clerk either. And if you don't know how much you can, you can say somebody will make, it's really hard to get them to become interested. I understand that. And here's kind of my thoughts, and I just wanted to understand what you were thinking is this a line item that was voted by the voters, if you were to increase to that amount as a town clerk, you would express having somebody come on at a wage that maybe you're currently making that that may not be enough for that individual. I can't say for sure, but what I said was, I felt it needed to be at least what was there on the line item. I mean, and you can't- For both positions? Right, I mean, I know it would be unfair during the middle of a budget season to ask for any increases, but budget season to discuss next year is around the corner. And I think that's certainly something that needs to be looked at. I was here during budget season last time and expressed my views, not just for the clerk's office, but for everybody that works for the town that everybody should be making a livable wage. Okay, so I guess my question to you is, the line item that has been approved by the voters, if you were offered that position, do you foresee that you would take that position and do you foresee that the amount that was line item for the assistant that you would be able to fill that assistant position for that line item number? I did. That's the question I had. Well, what do you think? Not at this moment, my ad as we go forward. Well, I don't think we're going to go forward too much further. This is a decision one, right? Maybe I get a decision. I'll throw my opinion out is, I think we need to get the work done. It's an election year. We have an experienced assistant clerk that's willing to step in at the current town clerks voted upon salary. Discussion on that would really probably lead to potential hard feelings and potential issues with our town attorneys, which we're probably better off not dealing with with only 20 days. And I can, I spoke to Rosemary and I was concerned just to be respectful to her and she was totally fine with her successor receiving the voted upon town clerks, current town clerks amount. So I'm kind of urging that we do offer current position at Rosemary's current salary and move forward with this. And as far as in the prems, which we haven't talked about dropping the assistant treasurer, I would prefer to table that to another meeting and just discuss that and not decide that, I guess, because we're not quite sure who it would be, right? At this point, that's a question. I only comment to that is we have the job that most of them are interviewing candidates for the assistant position as we get them, obviously. I could be wrong, but I thought that Rosemary being appointed as the assistant town clerk was something that she specifically was appointed to do to be able to find checks and stuff, right? It wasn't, it didn't become part of the town clerk's job. It was Rosemary was specifically appointed as the assistant treasurer to close time checks. As I say, I'm not 100% positive about that. But something else I'd like to add just since you're having this discussion is that when the clerk's salary was righted a little bit, a budget or two ago, part of that came from, it was pointed out that in the news that the very town clerk was retiring in that the very select board had decided that a new town clerk would make at least $55,000 even without experience. I mean, specific assistant town clerk or town clerk experience. And the person that they hired did not have any clerk or assistant town clerk experience and started out at 57.5 and then got an annual increase that put her up to 60,000. Of no, she is working sometimes 70 hours a week because without the experience at all, there is a lot to do, you know? And so even though I've been here for eight years and there's a lot that I do do, there is certainly going to be a learning curve on some things and so I would not be surprised if I'm spending more than 40 hours a week. So please keep that in mind as you're deciding this, that it's no longer an hourly thing where I'm gonna be beating out the door. It's like there is a job to do and it needs to be done. Yeah, and I feel that you're very capable and the right individual to have in that position. My only hopes being on this board I've got this saying that I'm gonna say I just kind of hope that they work with the current select board and them that this cloud that seems to be hung over the clerk's office and the select board if there was bad blood, that somehow we get that put aside and hopefully go forward in a constructive way. And I don't care where it started, I really don't. I mean, we're a new board. We really wanna just go forward and not have that kind of looking over the shoulder of what's being said or anything of that. We just wanna deal with you in a professional manner and move forward. The question I have, Vince, is can we, until the position is vacant, we can't apply, can we? Right, you have 10 days from the date of the vacancy to a point. Well, fortunately, the next day is Monday, the first of July. Actually, it's Friday. July 1st is a Friday. Was it? I believe so. July 1st is a Friday. Can we vote to render a conditional offer upon the current town clerk's official resignation and departure? Sure, I'm gonna wear. I'll second that. Let's have a motion first. All right. I make a motion that we offer our current assistant town clerk of the position of town clerk as of the resignation and vacation of the office by the current town clerk at the current town clerk's voted upon salary. Could something perhaps be added to that and that the assistant town clerk would receive the line item? We have it all together. As long as I don't have to say it again? Absolutely. So, I'll second that. I think I just need to clarify something that when we did do the budget, that was not in the budget. Okay, after the budget was approved is when they increased it to 55,000. No, that was the year before. In this budget. FY22, yeah, the one we're looking at right now. The one that starts on July 1st. Okay, you're talking July 1st of 2023. Yes, no, nothing would start until July 1st. Until July 1st. It's on, okay. You hear a second? I'll second that with the addition. With the addition as stated. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries. So then could I ask for clarification as far as what that means? As far as how that motion was worded as far as? Basically, you take over Rosemary's job at her salary and then you can appoint an assistant at your old salary. No, but what I mean as far as how it works time-wise as far as when Rosemary gets done on June 30th, that means that the motion just made takes effect and so it starts as of July 1st. And so as of July 1st, I would be able to go ahead and appoint an assistant. Right, that's the clarification I need. Yep, yes. In the arms? Yeah, thank you. Okay, thank you. Treasurer's, treasurer request. Yes. The treasurer's request. No, treasurer. Okay, a little typo there with Mike. Diane is our treasurer. Yes. Because we're co-signor for checks to be appointed approved by the board. It's right now Rosemary co-sends a check over $5,000 for me. I need to remove her name. I feel somebody else's name would thank me. It might make the most sense to have Vince in the interview. Yeah, he's in the office all the time. Most of the time. I make the motion to appoint Vince Conti to be the co-signer on the checks above $5,000. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Vince GMT update, questions for discussion? So there's a little paper in there, right? The appraisal study is basically completed. Our site, this is the update I got from them on the 19th of May, mid-May, was $115,000 more for our site versus the competing site down the road. So it was better. But they have a big concern over the access, the challenges for the access, right? Maplewood, as we heard months ago, may not have any interest in allowing a shared UDAC access to be put in over there due to the previous Act 250 issues that they had. They haven't given up on that yet. So I'll come back to that. The estimated cost that they have to develop an access at Maplewood is about $350,000. The question that they have for the town with regards to that is they would like to know if the town would be willing to cost share in that $350,000 if it goes that way. So that's the first question. The other concern, if they stay with the existing access on Crosstown, do they need to improve that access to accommodate the two homes at the entrance? And is there any other concerns that the board sees that need to be addressed for the use of that entrance? What is their estimated trip? They're looking at roughly 35 to 40 buses out in the morning before probably around 6 a.m. And then back in, obviously the same amount, after 5 p.m. How's their initial estimate? Are those staggered or is it one mass? It's pretty much one after the other in the morning. And the same thing, well, it's more staggered coming in in the evening, is their estimate, but it's. What's their time of service? Do you know when they mobilize in the morning? No, they expect the most, the majority, like I said, 35 to 40 to be out of here by no later than 6 a.m. And then in after 5 p.m. It's running to almost 8.39. What are we talking about, three-mountain transit? Yep, GMT. There isn't going to be a bus stop there. That's just their maintenance. That's just their garage shop. What they have over on Route 12 now would be they here. Well, and a lot of their routes are, let's say short routes that might only be an hour and a half or two and a half, so you have that through the day as well. You'll have some through the day. I don't have a good estimate from the long night yet. And they would have to be in agreement with Maplewood to develop access to their anyways. Right, they're looking at having further discussions with Maplewood, but they don't have my hopes. I don't feel that's going to go anywhere personally, but. Just a second, if you want, why don't you come up and sit in the chair, if you're a vaccine. Join the party. A little piece of this. There's one other question, so there's three questions in total that GMT would like me to get back to after the meeting with the board. And that is, does the town expect or desire a pilot payment for this property as well? So those are the three questions. Again, I'll just briefly, would be willing to cost share if they get the approval to put in a $350,000 access through Maplewood. Would the town be willing to cost share? Do they need to do any improvements to the access here or in Crosstown, where the two homes are at the end of the road? Fencing, landscaping to kill some of the noise, calm some of the noise, whatever. Those type of things, are there any other concerns for that, that they should be addressing as well. If that's the access that they have to use, should we be the selected site? And do we expect any pilot payments? So those are the three questions that I need to get back to them on, for them to move forward towards a final decision. So I remember sitting in on one of the meetings where they had the proposal of the access coming through Maplewood. Yep. And I know they did talk briefly about Shed Row. Yep. Did any of the town residents, the property owners down here, go to any of those meetings? The ones that they're talking about, you know, fencing or whatever. I think so. I don't think they were any either of the ones that were in the GMT. One of them's here tonight, though. All right. Wow. What was your question? Well, my question is, did you oppose it? I don't know how these meetings are run, so I don't want to speak out of turn, but if I'm allowed to. So my name's Jim Bingham. I own the house on the right. And I've owned it for six years, and I've spoken to the previous board, written to the previous board. And I don't know all you guys' events. And I'm actually shaking from what I'm hearing about this GMT proposal. I'm literally shaking. Because for six years, I've been dealing with these commercial vehicles that stage their equipment. Winters that's been here for three years, they told me they'd be up in two. And tonight I pull up when there's a bunch of massive equipment out there. My point is there's an industrial park up the street. Any of these people can go up there and rent from a variety of those businesses. The state has property up there. They're not even using. The argument I've heard in the past is, oh, well, so-and-so striking companies doing work for Berlin, or the winter set was doing work on the interstate in Berlin. Well, that's all well and good, but this is a residential, historic community. And every vehicle that comes in here has to go out. I heard about the buses. Don't forget about the personal vehicles of all those people. They got to come in, get in a bus, leave, come back once or twice, leave when. Guys, there's just way too much traffic on my little street. I want to have the ability to go out in the summer and do my gardening or work on my car without being inundated with the dust storm and the truck noise. We've already got so much traffic coming in and out on my little road. If any of you want to come by in August, I'll call you when the tractor trailers are coming in with the gravel, they shake my house, literally. They come within 12 feet of my desk's chair. This is not a commercial road. What's Green Mountain thinking? Or what is, and I just want to see if we can come up with a policy, maybe put Green Mountain aside. But as far as these other folks, these commercial entities that come in here and they get free rent. But that's all well and good, but they're going in and out. Well, that's the type of business that should be in the industrial park. It does not belong here. Winter set, for example, I looked up their contract. They were paid $34,000 to stage these two offices here. And they've paid the town of Berlin zero. So not even getting any rent. Guys, I've been dealing with this for six years and I just keep hoping that the summer, like now, that it's gonna end. But I see all these tractor trailers out here with asphalt equipment. We've got a tree company doing work for Green Mountain Power. Winter set is here. Oh, and there was people here for street sweeping and stuff. But this is not the industrial park. And I don't know why we're giving free rent. The rent is not even the issue for me. I live here and I got to deal with all this extra traffic. And I'm in a historic home in Berlin Corner's residential district. Please, and now the buses, what are you kidding me? Are you absolutely kidding me? We're gonna bring buses in and out a month closer. No way, no way. If I had known this tonight, I'd be over here with everyone in my neighbors I can find. And guys, if you wanna put an access in over there, we've talked about that for years. We thought that the police could go in and out that way and even our town trucks could go in and out that way. That would be awesome. This little corner down here, this little street, I mean, we just get so much traffic. Please, there's room in the industrial park. There's businesses down on Airport Road that have big parking lots. If any one of these people, they could go in there, talk to the owner, pay them a little rent. They don't belong on our town property in this community, guys. Please help me. I'm shaking. I don't wanna deal with this another summer. I mean, I'm all winter to come and go, too, of course, but summer is what I wanna be outside. The windows are open and I got dust storms and noise. So thank you for listening. And I'd like to know, maybe it's not tonight, but at some future point, if we have a policy in place, as far as those that come to us and want free rent or to stage some things here. But if that happens, it's gotta be really brief period of time, like a week or less. Just because they're doing paint and lines for the town of Berlin doesn't allow them free rent over here. We pay them, they deal with their own equipment, however they want to. We don't have to give free parking. Thank you for listening to me. I literally am shaking here in this green untrained, because I thought it was over. We had heard about it a few months ago. I thought that got killed. Oh, God, so now I'm shaking. I don't want more. Thank you. Although Tim didn't specifically say it, his house is the only house in Berlin that's truly designated as a historic home. It's his house and Lovers Lane Bridge. Those are the only two things that have historic, I don't know what it's called, designation. It's on the National Historic Registry. You can speak the words, Chauncey B Leonard House into your Google page. It'll show you pictures of my house in the red. I didn't do it, but it's kind of cool. Thank you. Thank you all. Please consider these issues very carefully, because we are affected. My neighbor have three boys. Their driveway is kind of a little up, and it's not without. It's pretty common for those balls to be kind of rolling across to my house. You know, stuff like that, of course. But anyway, Crosstown Road has turned into an 80 mile an hour freeway at times. Going blazing right past my house, because I'm at the bottom of two hills, you know? So that's another issue, but we do have, we as the community have control of our land. We don't have to. Oh, you're painting lines for us? Oh, please, go use our property. Use our bathrooms. Use our water. More trucking. Thanks for listening. Yep. Thank you. So on this, then, what was it that they were going to do? Green Mountain Transit? What are they proposing to do here? Yeah. Move their facility from Route 12 to where the town garage sits and then move, relocate or replace our town garage closer to this building. Reoriented and move it. And then build their new facility right here. One of my questions is gonna be how have we talked to the neighbors? So I'm glad you came in at the end of the road. I didn't know who you were actually until just now, so as far as the questions you asked, I would say I wouldn't feel comfortable having the buses here unless there was an alternative access and I wouldn't feel comfortable helping pay for it unless it was going to, the town was going to get that money back within a certain time period if it was gonna become profitable for the town to have that access. That access basically were offered was a new town garage. It's a new facility, yeah. So we could still get the new facility if we could take and get that, if we could take and get the access through Maplewood. And that's what I was just gonna say, that's the only way that I would be in favor of it is an access. I know the state was approached for access the other way. Out the other way and they basically said, no, the GMT on that and they told him not to come back and ask again. How about the Hilltop, or not Hilltop, but the, what's the hotel in front of you? The Comfort Inn has a separate owner now, a different owner, right? Is there an access potential for the Comfort Inn parking lot? I'm not sure. I'm not sure what the potential is for that based on where the Maplewood lines are and the Act 250 stuff, I think you'd have to look at that. I think there's always opportunity for further discussion and different ways of looking at it overall. Since Route 62 is a limited access highway, am I correct in that one? I believe you are, I am. If the town were to recrust access to it instead of GMT-A. Route 62 would have to be closer to the interstate from the fire department interception access. That's a divided highway there, isn't it? Well, they have an access onto it from the State Parking Garage. Yeah, exactly. It's a parking lot. Correct. And then they have one way in and one way out. They have to come on the interstate to get into a lot, so it's not gonna happen. What would GMT-A? No, not even 100 yards from 60 mile an hour offering. No, correct. You know? Not a doable scenario. Well, that one. There's always been troubles with that speed coming off the throughway. Are we conjecturing or is that truthful what the state looks like? Well, what GMT said that they've approached them twice on that, and the second time they said, don't come back and ask again. The answer is no, and it will always be no for additional access on there. Was that for one way access or was that for access to go left and to go right? It was one way in, one way out. You see, GMT-A is, even though it's public, it's still not a municipal. I'm just trying to think how we can still get that garage, get the new garage. Got any leverage with Maple to open the discussions up? You know, that would be a real good alternative for everybody. I mean, even for the town trucks, right? They can just swing in, fuel up, and they're on the road. And the police as well. I mean, it'd be great. And where's the other place they were looking at? I'm not exactly sure. I didn't, it's down near the state police barracks somewhere in that vicinity, I believe. Is GMT-A, are they a tax exempt, property tax exempt? I believe they are. That's why they're asking if we would be expecting a pilot payment. There's an empty state of Vermont property right up there at the corner of whatever the industrial road that goes around by, which is sitting there, it's right on the edge of the airport. It's maintenance or aviation, and aviation doesn't want to give anything up. They don't even like the state of Vermont district maintenance using. Well, we own them. We own them. In anticipation, well, the feds kind of give them the money so they own them, unfortunately, but yeah. And so the question they're asking them on the pilot payments, that's kind of a, of course we do. I don't have, well, other than not allowing them in at all, there's not much we can do to restrict the use of the shed road, but that's public through-affair. I think they're concerned with that. Is, as they expressed it, the two homeowners on both sides of the road, what would they need to do? And for the town satisfaction as well, what would they need to do to make these home owners not happy, but sort of happy to have them coming through? Do they need to put up fences, or do they need to? Well, there's no room to put up fences. They're looking for mitigation. Something, right? So their question is, do they need to improve this access to accommodate the two homes at the entrance? I think my personal opinion of the answer is, yes, they need to do something and they need to figure out what that is and they need to speak to the homeowners to reach that agreement. It's not up to the board. And I kind of said that to them when I was talking on the phone. It's really not up to the board to decide. It's up to the homeowners to decide what would satisfy them. Well, that conversation was had over a year ago. Yeah, pretty close. Same conversation that they would have to approach the landowners. Looks like they never do. The only mitigation I see is they buy me out and bulldoze the house. Because there's no room now. There's not enough room there now. And from the town's perspective, putting in money into that 350,000. If that was to go to Maplewood, I don't know that I would agree to that. I guess if that was a last case, the best case scenario, I mean, there would be some kind, maybe we'd participate somehow to get the access as long as the town trucks and police department and everything went out that way. The only thing I can see is if we took in, if we're putting money into it, we'd have to have an easement from the town property right to... Through all the way to the main road. And turn it into an access for... Elm Street or something, you pick your name, I don't care. Well, I think it would be just for municipal services and for the police department and town trucks and the GMTA, I don't think it'd be open to the public. Yeah, you'd have to have an easement, though. You'd have to have ownership somehow from... And is it worth 350,000? And actually, I don't even think that 350,000 covers it because you've still got a lot of earthwork to do before you can get a roadbed from here to there. Right. The other thing you got to do is think about what this new town garage, what would it cost to put that new town garage and the benefits and rewards of that versus what you're spending on the other end? Yeah. Well, I would say throw it back into the GMTAs, ball firing, I haven't talked to the landowners. See what they can do. Because I don't see any of this that really... I mean, this is something they want to do. They want to take and buy our... Basically, they're buying our land with a new town garage. Not that that one over there doesn't deserve to come down and just been up there for a long time has its problems. I'll chat with them and let them know. I'll leave in... I'll ask them for a timeline as well when they think they'll do that and then maybe ask them to come into a board meeting so they can... If they want to move this forward one way or the other, they need to come in and be able to answer the questions and talk to details at that point. If they meet with the landowners and talk to... The thing of it is, on the pilot part of it, Diane would expect a payment either from here or from there. No matter where they go and how. Right. Am I correct in saying that? Okay. Got that one? Anything more on this? Okay. Letter of support. Requested from Montelia for Dog River, Junction Road, Scoping Study Decision. There's a draft in your folders. When I drafted for that, there's also some documents. This is for a bicycle and a pedestrian grant, Scoping Study. I think there should be a map in there that shows you as well where they're looking down on the Junction Road for that. And there's another letter from Montpelier City Council with regards to that grant as well in your package. Again, it's just a letter of support from Montpelier saying, you know, as a neighboring property owner that we support their application for approval. That's for the line in red? Yes. But that's already in. Yeah, but they're doing an additional Scoping Study on top of that. What they're looking to do? I think, let's see, it says the western end of the rec path, the Dog River Park and Ride, the Dog River Rec Area, and the Amtrak Station. Looks like the study would specifically examine bicycle and pedestrian connectivity. Western end of Montpelier's rec path from there all the way through. Got you. And then the study will take into account public concerns, input, surrounding land use, right away, natural, cultural resources, permitting requirements, utilities, or long and short term improvements. Okay. So again, I just submitted a draft. If you approve the draft, I can sign it on behalf of the board and send it out. If not, that's fine too. Motion on this? Are you in favor of this? I make a motion to approve these letters as they're presented to the project manager and to the city of Montpelier. Is that what that is, sir? It's just this one. Just the one? Give me a second. What is it that they want to do? To extend the bike and then path and then jump to the Amtrak. Down to Amtrak? To Berlin. You're here. I mean, people already do it. I'm not sure what you're studying. Well, I think what they want to do is alternatives to improve bicycle and pedestrian connectivity to this area. So they're probably going to do something to widen that from where it gets off at the underpass down to the junction. They want to make a bike path and walking from where it ends now. You know, right at where you turn. Right where it goes under the bridge. That's how they're going to do it. Once you cross the bridge, you're going to drill in. Exactly. They go down by the plant to the ball fields as well. Oh, and get them off the road. Right, that's where... Yeah, because everybody's on the road from that point on. Years ago, across Vermont, wanted to designate Junction Road as part of their official trail. And a whole lot of residents turned out and said, no, because there's already enough traffic and as you go down Junction Road, there's some turns and all where people just do not feel safe and so I just find it interesting though that Montpelier is looking at Berlin land. That's... They're just... No, they're not really looking at the Berlin side. You're looking at still on the Montpelier property and they're just looking to do a study to see if there's a way to... Is there a way to... Is there a way to make it safer for pedestrian and bike traffic through that area? It's not that they're doing anything. They're just studying it, trying to figure out a way to make it safer. Part of that is talking with the public as well. Let's see if they're... Are they requesting any money from us as part of their... I didn't read into that, but I wanted to be clear. Yes. Okay. Have they done anything about the issue of the sewage plant as far as how everything greets and has unhelpfully done it? We haven't heard any more on that. That's like the exact same area. Yeah, we haven't heard anything more. We had something a couple of while back but nothing ever transpired that I remember. Okay. Any further discussion? No, no. Yeah. Do I send the letter or not? We're about to vote. Letter or support. Okay. Send the letter. So we have a motion. We have a motion to accept the letter. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe just... I'm trying to figure out why they... All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Before we go on to the... Before we go any further, two vents. I forgot to do the RFP for Community Services Facilities janitorial. Yes, sir. Thank you. That was both a two-item. Sorry about that. This was a single bid, too. Yes. This is a single bid. The response is to the request for the cleaning proposal. It's from Lamb Company Cleaning Services, LLC. They're located at PO Box 75, Plainfield, Vermont. They did a site visit, and that's included in their response. Site visit was conducted on Wednesday, May 4th at 1 p.m. with Vince Conti and me, Jean Lameca. I brought up a cleaning concern not listed in Attachment D. There's much detail here, including a proposed summary profile on the proposing firm. Their work plan schedule as cleaning can be performed by a two-to-four-person crew with one supervisor. The supervisor's been in the business's employ since February 2021. They propose that the cleaning services can be performed Monday and Thursday evenings, and that they understand that we seek cleaning two times per week, or they could provide cleaning services by one employee who's been in their employ since August 2020. And it may be the same two evenings or two different other evenings if we go that route. They say that Lamb Co. is a part-time job, need to check employee availability, etc. They go into, like I said, a great deal of detail. I'm looking to see what their proposed cost is. They've attached exhibits. They have references. I still don't see a cost yet, so bear with me. Okay, their exhibit five, attachment E, cost proposal bid form, monthly service price of $1,170, a total yearly price of $14,040, and proposal total for the first year, the $14,040. They've included their certificate of liability insurance, and they have two in here for us to pass around and review. I did entertain a motion to have Vince investigate this company a little bit. I didn't hear anything about vulnerability for working in the police department. I'm looking to see if there's anything included there, but I would concur with doing more research into this bid to give us additional information or allowing us more time to review the submission. Good. If they're not bondable, if their employees are, you can't have a problem. You can't have them in the police department. A motion to have Vince take due diligence on this contract. So moved. You hear a second? Second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion carries. What else did you have up there? The call replacement that we added. Well, let's say you can get Dian taking care of here. Okay. We'll go after that. Okay. FY22 Reserve's discussion and decision, Dian? Okay, yeah. I sent information to you. I've got extra copies here. And this is the reserves I'm going to discuss because last year we reserved some money and we spent some of it this year. And I want to reserve money from the current budget for the next year for projects. So the first two items on the top or the 10-crooks office replaced the wall in that office which cost $30,000. We get $23,000 from the insurance company which I put in reserves. And then because obviously this are going to cover the $30,000, we had reserve and bond building renovation of $6,012. So with those two together is slightly under $30,000 so it'd be like $500 short. So I'd like to use the reserves for that. Then we have $100 that we get for donation from the police department or for the term from the Elks Club so we need to put that into the PD fund. The recreation board spent money for ice rink and swim lessons so we need to take that out of the reserve for them. On the capital budget we had reserved money for the new police vehicle and we spent almost $42,000 for that. We still have to think of like I think more than $5,000 left in that. And then the computer upgrade our new server is going to exceed what we have in the reserve for $17,300. We did get quarterly payments from the state for a total of $12,999 for future road work. It's kind of a grant that they did like last year. Like if you look at the one above it it says highway payment attire. We had a grant last year from the state that $30,215 of it. I think that's like the pennies of what we received. So we spent all of that money but then this year they gave us almost $13,000. We haven't spent that money yet so we want to reserve it into next year if we can. Then in going through the budget with and actual expenses with the road foreman and events we have found many categories that we under spent in for a total of $86,500 that I'd like to roll over into the reserves for next year. And it has to do with summer equipment repairs sand that we didn't use. We didn't use all of our sand. Salt for the winter roads, winter equipment repairs, guardrails, energy improvements, trash removal. So I'd like to roll that all over like I say for a total of $86,500. The bridge maintenance I did, we did use up that money that we had set aside for the Fisher Road Culvert Plus for all of that reserve, which is $246,097.14. And then we had money for the Culvert Loan in two payments scheduled for FY22 the Culvert didn't get done in time. So I want to roll over one of the payments to FY23, which is $20,500. We have reserves in the police department of $4265 that have to do with longevity payments and longevity education which because the union contract hasn't passed for the new year, I want to take that money and roll it over into next year because I will definitely be paying that. It's actually FY22 payments but we won't be making payments until FY23. And then we had money in the planning commission with $12,000 that we had not spent in the planning commission. $8,000 that should be the match that we have for our grant for the town center that has to do to see a bike path. And I think that and all is $32,000 but we have to we'll get $32,000 from the grant but we have to have a match of $8,000 so we're going to take that out of the planning commission. I need to roll over that money because that project is still underway that has not been approved or hasn't been finished yet, I should say. And then $4,000 for future projects for the planning commission because we can roll over that money and then the conservation commission will spend $16,353 for signs and watershed association fees so I'd like to have all those changes reserved for next year when we have them. So on the highway in the reserves, $86,000 is any of that an inventory? No. No, it's just that we didn't buy as much as we had anticipated and we did have inventory and we were able to use a lot of that money. I make the motion to approve the FY22 reserves as discussed tonight with us by Diane and it seems reasonable and easily explainable and I appreciate that overview. Second that motion. Any further discussion? Hearing none, those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Okay, now your culvert. The culvert. So we have a new package to be signed as well. There's a request to a resident over on Pine Hill to replace an existing culvert. I believe it's a 37 foot culvert with a 40 foot culvert. I believe it's an 18 inch culvert going in and the only comment I had from my own woman was he thought that there was a 15 inch in there he didn't confirm it but he said his only concern would be if you're putting an 18 inch in was there enough depth but the property owner has said that it's an 18 inch that's existing in there now so replacing it with the same. My knowledge it's an 18 inch in there now. If I find that to be different I will opt to use it. I wouldn't downsize it. 37 foot culvert in there now 240. 220. Motion. So moved. Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Any abstentions? I don't think. Okay approval of hiring bonus for police. We'll carry over from the meeting with the last meeting that we had with the chief where it was discussed but since it was not a specific agenda item for decision the board couldn't vote on it. I think the general consensus was it was okay. The chiefs moved forward based on that and we do have a new officer so this is kind of the tail ahead of it you know the horses that's the opportunity to make the official motion to approve that hiring bonus. I'd make a motion to approve the hiring bonus as discussed previously for the new hire on the police department. Second. Any further discussion? Those in favor? Motion carries. Approvals of licenses, permits, vouchers and applications. Before you move forward I also just want to point out that there is a liquor license for approval as well of signature and that is because of the sale the change of ownership. Who was the what business was sold and what was have you got the document right there? Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut, thank you. So I'm going to start with making the motion to approve the liquor license for approval and signatures for Pizza Hut at 1480 US Route 302 it's a first class under new ownership. Second. Any discussion? Is it still going to be Pizza Hut or is it changing names? It's still going to be Pizza Hut. Any other questions? All those in favor? Aye. Motion carries. I make the motion to approve payroll warrant 22-24 for payroll from May 8th 2022 to May 21st of this year paid on May 25th of 2022 in the amount of $45,602 and 56 cents. Also payroll warrant 22-25 for payroll from May 22nd this year to June 4th this year to be paid on June 8th 2022 in the amount of $49,488 and 64 cents. Payable warrant 22G23 with checks 22019 to 22065 in the total amount of $423,241 and 64 cents. The May general journal entries the May budget status report and the trial balance report also the May delinquent tax report reconciled May bank statements for the general funding sewer water divisions and the May general journal entries. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Motion carries. Roll table David. Well I just wanted to bring something up. I had a few residents with you know the stuff that's going on down in Texas and these mass shootings and stuff they were asking about which I had no information on and I had actually reached out to events we had a resource officer at the school and who that individual was and then if there's any if we know as a board of what if there was an incident here a national blue cross blue shield CVA or anything like that who's going to be the responding officers and if there's any plan put in effect in a small community like Berlin and I'd just like to have some information on that if something was to happen who's going to respond and who we depend upon I know we have the chief is our emergency management individual that I can't remember who that individual was at this point but where's he headed? I just think that we need to be more vigilant and start to open our eyes up a little bit that we're not secluded from the possibilities you know we have the mall here the hospital and that I think you know it'd be nice to know what the plan is if something was to happen in Berlin did we help? Yeah I have a couple number one I think and it's easy for me to say and I don't know what the current process is but I was a little disappointed to see only one bid for every potential item so maybe we need to put an item on our agenda to think of different methods using technology using better outreach I don't know what to do but it would be better to get more bids than one each we tried I'm sure you did I even blind invited people from the Burlington area on a couple of these to try to get some bids and I do too but I just wanted to throw that out I would certainly like more bids as well I think there's three out of the four bids that have gone out I'd set to more than five or more to try to get responses two of them I followed up with calls they're not doing business anymore apparently because the mail was returned their phone numbers were no longer being answered the number has changed or no longer used messages as well so it's a challenge I forgot to ask this and I know we've already voted on it but was the public work staff position voted on it in the previous budget? no forgot to ask that and the other thing is my final thing and it may be just me knocking on the town clerks or the new town clerk store at some point is I'd love information about the new voting machines we got you know who bought them what the contract was what brand they are there's been a lot of controversy in the last two years about elections and there's a lot of information and news coming out now about people being indicted for improprieties and crimes in the last couple election cycles so I think as a leadership administration of the town it would be good to have answers if people ask questions and it's our responsibility obviously the town clerk is number one it's our responsibility to make sure the citizens of Berlin feel good about their elections I'd love any information so maybe I'll knock on your door come on in Rosemary and I did have a training I mean we went to a training and then somebody came in and specifically walked us through stuff and all and we're wonderful with it it's good we don't anticipate there being that there could be any problem with it at all I do not have anything tonight thank you I don't have anything but to answer the the whole school in mass casualty type situations emergency management meets on the second Thursday of the month this Thursday you're invited I'll be there let's talk about it like I said I was asked by a couple of residents and I couldn't answer the questions I just feel that you know with the way things are going in the country it'd be better off to be prepared to know who's responding to what there is an ICS training available to select board who's done it in the past not all of them but like three of them but I rise it down to Drew so nobody then on this current board has been through that specific training Joe's probably got more than enough training but I mean as a select board member yeah that's just my round table item if you're going to ask me oh yeah I was wondering what to do in the back of my pack so my round table item is to inform you that working with Diane as well we've put together a request for a proposal for the grand list 2024 townwide appraisal talking with other towns as well we need to get this out very soon because they are booked they're struggling to find people to do the townwide appraisals so we've drafted this up and it's basically ready to go I will send it to you guys all to the board this week and I will ask probably for the next meeting for approval on this to put this out just to prepare you for it because we need to get it out there and find some bidders Carl for what the assessors are telling us because we spoke with them as well once we do have the approval and we send it out after that is when we contact the state and say look we've got people that can do this on this date and then we begin the process with them but we have to have all of our ducks in the room that's how the process works anything else anything for executive session yes I make the motion to exit the regularly scheduled select board meeting this evening and enter into executive session second path