 Alright, so let's get started. We'll call the meeting order in a 7-0-1 or 2, depending on what clock probably you look at. Is there any public comment for items not on the agenda? Additions are changed just to the agenda. Alright. The warrants are circulating, and there's cookies over here. Cookies and apples. Oh good, we like cookies. There's a bear over here. You've already had some of those. I know, they melt their mouth right. Oh good. Oh yeah, here's an apple. No, we're not allowed to leave any crumbs. How do you use those cookies and apples? To be possible. I know. Let's go clean this up. Inhale. Alright, so let's get started on the treasurer's report. Sandra, can you hear us today? Sandra? Yeah, I can hear you. Okay, very good. Okay, there we go. Take it away, Sandra. Hi there, everyone. Happy holidays. Nice to see you all. New Year's coming. It'll be interesting. Thank you. I have spent around the November treasurer's report. Two or three weeks ago for your review. We look in good shape. The tax collection effort. Was consistent with collections over the past three years. We ended the. Effort with, let's see, roughly $186,000 and delinquent taxes, which are. Coming in and we don't have any agreements back, but we have received a number of full payments this month. And we're still at a brisk pace. Otherwise, everything is on track in terms of expenditures and revenues. The highway department is about to make a request for reimbursement on a relatively small grant. Roughly, I think $7,000. And we expect that in, in the next couple of weeks. We, we voted to send that one delinquent. Property to tax collection. Right. I don't. I don't think so. You, what we were waiting on is to see if she responded. If she paid her 20, 21 taxes, she has not. And nor has she responded to the. Initial delinquent tax. Correspondence asking for her to contact the office to pay in full or to create. A payment plan and an agreement was sent to her to sign. So she currently owes roughly $9,000 at this point. And she has paid $2,000 of almost $2,100 from 2020. And let's say 73 50. Of 2021 taxes. So her total. The total taxes out on this parcel are $9,436 and 98 cents. And interest will continue to accrue. At 0.5% until it's paid in full. I think the board has done everything to satisfy itself that. This person is. Alive and well, and simply not paying taxes. So typically what we do in this. Situation. Is send. Is send this tax, this parcel to collection. At which point the town is. At which point the town is outside of the negotiating process. And taxes have to be paid in full to the attorney. And if not the attorney will. Post it for. Tax it. But I need a motion on that. I guess I thought we already did that. I thought we already did that. I'll have to go back and look at the minute. I think we can do it again. Yeah, I thought we did. Did you motion that. Did you motion the 20, 21 taxes as well? I'm just looking at the. Gloria will want that. Well, I guess we can do it again. I haven't. But let's just do it again. So we make a motion to. Send the 2019 or 2020. 2021. 2021 delinquent tax property to. Identify the parcel needs to be some identification of the property. Yeah. Do you have the parcel number handy? Yes, it's 510905. Personal number 510905. Delinquent taxes for 2020 and 2021 to. Do we call it collections? To the town's tax attorney. Tax attorney for collection. Okay, so that's the motion. Is there a second? Second. All right. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right. So that's done. Did anybody else review the Chargers report? Have any questions? I looked at it today. I didn't have any questions this time. Can you believe it? Yeah. Any other highlights? Sandra, you want to make us aware of? No, things are steady. As she goes. Good. Good. Okay. So. Town office. I see Jeremy said he didn't really have anything for the agenda today. Tonight. All right. So we have a. Right away. Request from the East Cal community trust. Mark and I are recusing ourselves from. Voting on this. Rob Richard is here as the Woodbury Mountain site works. He's going to be doing the work on the project. Here is. So. Maybe you can explain what's gone wrong. Yeah. So what's gone wrong is we had. This is me speaking with my. We had a. There's only tenants in unit one all the other. The other two units are vacant. And about. Two weeks week and a half ago. They contacted us saying that their sink was backing up. So I had our handyman. Come out several times. I had to run a snake through it from. The apartment. Under the through the pipe and from the. Sceptic system side of it through the pipe. Couldn't get it to couldn't get anything to move. It just kept hitting like a dead end. So hard against now called. River. Came out and did a pressure test. And trying to run a snake through it. They couldn't get anywhere and they determined that the. Line is broken. From 12 feet from. The side of the store by the porch. Along back street. Back street is on the side of the store there. And there's. And I can let Rob also jump in because he was. You were on site when hard against was there. No, I went there last Sunday. And got healthy to come and check it out. With me just to see the way of it. And then I. Marked out for days eight. Right. And just check out the way. Where the old cast iron left the building. And you said it's a clay plate. It's cast iron leave in the building. Then it probably changes to plastic. Coming out under the porch under the road. And then it takes a 45 where the. Elected breaker separation is. And then. At some point. Goes to a six inch clay. Where crosses root 14 to the. Scepticism across the road. Right. So what we decided is, you know, there was two options for the fix. There's this. Initial fix. And then we've learned that we probably have to do a bigger fix. When we begin renovations and we have to. Tell our project manager. About this newest situation because it sounds like from. What Rob is saying that we need to what we really need to do is to. Put in new lines, put in new lines. But we can do that when we do the renovations. Right now we just need to get this fixed with the plumbing working. The tenants have been temporarily relocated because of. Health and safety regulations. So they're out. And I told them like. A week. And maybe you can describe what working need to do. And when you can start. Well, and also. How are you. As you're doing that. Can you relate it to. The right of way permit. Application itself like. Yeah, so the. The biggest hurdle. It was the frost. Is because it's getting deeper every day. It's probably not too bad. Hopefully we can just dig right down through it. We're going to have to detour. Backstreet for the duration of. Just to keep track traffic off. It's roughly in the center line. So it doesn't look like we're going to be able to do like a lane change. So it will be like the whole road. Close for it. It's under the paper and that was done 2 years ago. So we're going to have to remove part of that. And it won't be able to get repaid until. Next year. And then. One of the questions is if that work is going to be done to. Directionally more under route 14. We probably wouldn't want to put the payment back in. Until after that was done. So in the permit. We might want to have some literature on. A contingency of that decision. Later if it's made for the time. You know that same apron replacement. It was. I just want to add that. You know we have this one family. In the three bedroom apartment. And. At Christmas time. When we were decorating the tree. We discovered this puddle of sort of a noxious puddle. In the store. And we thought it was leaking it from the outside. It wasn't. It was bubbling up. Yeah, it was. So we had this problem. And this is really destructive. The family is kind of living there and just sort of. Trying not to let the toilet too much stuff. But it's bad. It was. So we really had to work to convince them to get out. And we're paying them a certain amount per day. To be living with. You know, a relative and. So how long. I mean, I forgot you said to take two days. Maybe to do. Yeah, that's a safe bet. Hopefully it doesn't take. Too long. The process. I do have like a ground heater. So if it's really frozen. I could thought I have to set that up and leave the road. Close for the day. Warm it up. Is there a formal application. Yeah. And the permit. The application number is. 2021-10. Yeah. 12. No, 2021-10. 2021. Yeah. So it's the 10 right away permit for 2021. So this is. I'm a little confused. So it's coming out. On the backside. Backstreet. It's just. Backstreet. I got you. So that's. So it's just a direction change. Thank you. It's just. The entry. Backstreet. It's like. Right now. You think that we just. Repairs all on the backstreet. Well, ideally. If I were to like say what would be the. Like most efficient and cost effective solution. If it wasn't better. I would recommend doing it all at once. Yeah. It's in the location where you have to dig the hole to set the directional. Boring. Machine. With that. But from what you described that, you know. There'd be a hole on the other side of report team. They figure out the direction of it. There's. The water service through there. That's fairly close. And. Underground link utilities. It's above ground power. So it's basically just water and sewer. And I did notify the East Calis fire district. Okay. I left him a message. I didn't hear back. I sent him an email with a copy of the. application. Great. It's just. It's just the back street. It's just. You're fixing the break for the. Yeah, it's the immediate. Just to get. I think we have to do a little more investigation. We did have the whole thing. Videoed. And we had a report and there was no indication of a problem. Under root 14. So it's it's more than anything. Just a feeling like it's an old pipe. And it's time. But. For the great we want the grants. To pay for this as much as possible. And so that's why. And we want that family. Back in there. So we just decided. To do the minimal amount of work and just fix this one. And we'll. And we'll deal with the bigger issue. When we do the renovation. So we'll probably have to come back and get another. Another. Right now we just need to fix it. So Mark a second ago you said it'll probably have to wait. You're talking with the bigger piece. The bigger piece. From the fact that you've got a family dislocated. This piece of it can't wait. No, it's got to go. I'd like it to be done this week. Okay. So, so this is the application and the select board improves on this. Is that there a pair? Okay. But you probably want to hear from Albert and see what. No, I do. I want to hear Rob articulated a. A possible. Condition. Which really, I think we want to hear from you about. Which is great. Thank you, Rob. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So a couple things that I am concerned about. First of all, it's a really bad time of year to be digging up the road. It's only going to. Be a thorn in everybody's back for the rest of the year. And into the spring. Beyond the spring. It's going to be what? It's going to be a problem for the road from now. Until. We can grade it. So that's one concern. Second concern is the black top. And I mean, we did just barely put that down. And the taxpayers paid a lot of money for that black top. So. In a condition. I definitely want that to be replaced. Properly. Comes spring or summer. Would have to be. Right. You definitely can't do it. But they would, if they're going to be doing. Larger repairs. That could be coordinated with that. That consumer rather. Right. Well, again, sooner rather than later, but I don't want going on a summer. And dealing with the dirt road. You know, I mean a dirt roughed up road. That is. Very difficult to smooth up. Yeah. You know. So that's. Another concern. The next one is road closure. I know that. It's probably going to be a short term. But in that short term, there's going to be a lot of inconveniences. People that are coming down off the hill. With a bigger truck or with whatever has to now go out. Church Street. And meet with 14. Where it has proven to be a lot of inconveniences. People that are coming down off the hill. With a bigger truck or with whatever has to now go out. And meet with 14. Where it has proven to be a. Data situation. So that's definitely something that we need to consider. Should we have someone directing traffic? One. That's one solution. Of course. Could have very warm. Yeah. I mean, I think that you're going to have to slow the traffic down. Coming into. Coming into. We know it's 35 miles an hour. And those are not doing 35 miles an hour. It's boring. Another issue, have we. Have we notified the state. That we might be working in their right way. Or might be. Close to their right away. I didn't think we were going to be in there right away. It's. It's right on the edge. What's that on 14. It's going to be three. Yeah, it's like three. I mean, I've done a little bit of research. Myself on that, which is actually in your favor. The right way is. Further. To the septic system side of the road. Okay. So I think it's 16 feet from the center of the road. Headed towards the school to the store. So that's like four feet off the white line. But again, depending on where the break is. Which I don't think we're real clear of. In the, in the conversations. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. In the, in the conversations I've heard. We're not real clear where this break is. And. I also want to. Understand what the. What if we dig down out to the state right away? We don't find the leak. We don't find the problem. What are we going to do that? Cool. Rob. Yeah, generally. Like that happened to me on camp street and Barry. And you just go till you're in the main road. And then you stop and you fill it back in. And then, you know, you get everything out of the way. And you reconvene. And then it's a bigger project at that point. And you go through the motions of, you know. And then it's a V trans. Is it typical that sometimes you wouldn't know. Until you get in a kind of like exploratory surgery. Yeah. The camera helps. Because it gives you an idea of the length. And the angles where it exits the building. So nowadays. You can have a little bit better idea. With that. But it is kind of a. You know, there's surprises. A lot of times it's deeper than you think. And you have to bench it back. I mean, VOSHA requirements. Or trench box it. It was estimated like six or seven feet. When it left the building. So as it pitches down and only gets deeper. At that 12 feet. And was there like some kind of an elbow or something. That they think is where it came from. 22 or 45. It comes out and it just turns a little bit. And that's where it's separated. So. Okay. So. Okay. So. Number of concerns from. Alfred. If, if. If we were to address the traffic concerns. Then there's a state. Coordination. Coordination. There, right? Anything you're doing to slow traffic on. 14 involves the state, right? What I don't know that process. I think, I think even if you're not working in the right way. They should be notified. Because you're going to have a truck sitting in the, in the store parking lot. You're going to have a trailer, perhaps you're going to have. Smaller. It's just going to, there's. Activity that's going to be there. You're going to have an open ditch with pilot right next to it. No, it's not in their right way. But you've got people that are driving 50 miles an hour. What are they? Right. Share. Well, that's not. But I just feel like we should notify them. Yeah. I mean, I try to notify them when I'm moving south. In the wintertime. And it's just a bucket loader in the road. Is there, is there. Is there a scenario where, you know, given the location and given, you know, roof 14's proximity to the project, and the traffic issue you're mentioning, mentioning that we would do a traffic slowing thing just like what the state would, like maybe directing traffic into one lane on 14 just to get totally around. I mean, is that, is that crazy? Or is that a normal thing to do? Even though it's a town road you're working on. The implications. Well, anytime you see the state working beside the road, they've got a traffic. They do. But it's a state road. They're like, so is it possible, have we ever done it, is it possible to do that sort of traffic management, even though it's not a state project? Yes, it is possible. You could do a shoulder closure, which is a lot less. You put a sign that says construction ahead, or what do you do? Yeah, there's like a MUTCD basically like a temporary traffic control manual that is site specific for site distance and if you do a shoulder closure, you need like approach signs and just have to put some temporary signs before and it just notifies people that there's something going on off to the sign. It is. That's a good idea. Is that sufficient in that area? It's sufficient for me and what I would like for safety, but my bottom line is I think we need to notify the state. Rob can do that. Yeah, Rob can do that. He's taking care of big safe and if he knows who to contact. Yeah, I mean the district that's great. Well, there's a right way. There's a person that is obligated to look at right away stuff. I think it is named. They deal with a lot of signage. This is a sign job really, I think. I mean that definitely has to happen in there. I don't know who's running that now, but the district would be able to steer you to the right person. And they would need to under, I mean this is sort of an emergency situation. Yeah. Yeah. The other concern about the road and it's conditioned in the winter, because of the frost and how blocky it is, one option is instead of reusing the material that comes out of the road because there's such a high moisture content it's hard to get a compaction. We could bring in new material. It would be a little bit more costly but then we could compact it and fix it. Yeah. Yeah. We just need to get this fixed. So the bottom line question for me tonight is whether we can describe, I think we can describe the condition of notifying the state of the project and securing whatever approval. Yeah. Fresh material. Fresh sand. The biggest thing there is no frost goes back in because you can't compact frost. Right. So fresh sand. Sand or gravel. Sand or gravel. You worked that out. If there's a condition of some specificity of the language if we're going to have some base of dense gravel like what the state term would be for sand is a little bit you know, not perfect. I can't hear what you're saying. It just call it like some base of dense gravel as a descriptor for the material going back in and then you know, say you know, removable frost penetrating soil and replaced with dense gravel. Is there going to be I don't know how much frost is in the ground now probably not a whole lot. I want to say it. Yeah. Well, when this requires a lot of require once that fall happens that's going to have to be kind of rebranded. I'm looking for a higher level description because basically what I'm hearing from you is the town just invested a lot of money and resource into a thorough repair of Backstreet and so whatever the language is, what we're looking for is for the town for Backstreet to be left as good as or better than you found it is the very non road way of saying it. So we need to replace the apron to existing conditions. Replace the apron, what's the apron? The apron is the black top that was done a couple years ago. The apron to existing conditions. I'll just address that. There's a transition asphalt transition from the dirt road of Backstreet to that. And the sub base is the stuff that's underneath the line including replacing sub base to its pre-project condition. And we would want to make sure that Alfred checks things out as we progress. So you could put that in there as well. Do you have Alfred in that? Generally I don't see that deep. Especially in a pipe that's that deep. And then we put in new material. So that's going to heave differently in the future. I mean, generally the roadway we always did a tapered transition. Because that's not going to heave as much as probably what's under Backstreet. What's all sand there anyway? I don't know what that is. It's all grain, it's not an issue. That store sits on a pile of sand. So that's the good thing. This is sandy. I can attest to that. I've dug water lines all through that pillar. So I know it is sandy. So I don't think that the difference in material will be as crucial. What I am worried about is when it gets back filled that no frost gets back filled. Any chunks of frozen dirt that's frozen doesn't go down in the hole. I think Rob agrees to that. It'll be expanded. So the other question I have is going to collapse. The other question I have is that this sounds like a temporary fix of Band-Aid, so to speak. Are we going to have to go through this whole discussion again? Probably. When we do the full-on probably. If we do if we do it. If we have to do what's right to make it. What's the alternative? They've got tenants, they've got to put a subject system and they need to deal with the emergency. So this is triage next year. Althea, I do want to say that I'm not convinced yet that we're going to have to do the work under 14. I'm not saying we won't. I'm just saying that's an expensive major operation and it's going to take more than given that we had prior reports that it was fine. It's going to take more to convince me at least in my vote on the board to spend the money. It's going to take more than someone's saying, well it's all you ought to think about. He hasn't opened up. He's going to run somewhere. So we'll know more. But we don't know now in my view enough to be sure. I'm just wondering about the process. Are we going to have this conversation when you determine that you do have to repair the whole thing? Yes. We'll have to get a permit from the state. We'll do everything we were supposed to do. And Althea, that's what you want. Because we don't want to repeat this conversation. We'll have more information. We'll know exactly. So the answer that we all want is yes. So let me read what I've written down as conditions to make sure that we're capturing everything. So number one, contractor will notify state of the month the project can secure necessary approval which may be verbal. I don't know how that works. Two, contractor develop an implemented traffic calming approach in coordination with the state and town. Three, contractor will replace Backstreet apron to its existing condition including replacing the sub base to its pre-project condition for contractor will permit regular inspections by the town road commissioner. Anything else? The material that's going to go back in is going to be will not contain frost. It will be replaced with fresh material. With fresh what do we say? With fresh replace the sub base material. I said replace sub base material to its pre-project replace with fresh sub base material to its pre-project condition. Good thing I've written that one down here. So I've got four conditions. You guys just heard me Alfred, did I capture everything? Yes. Did I capture everything you're concerned about? Yes. It's just the time of year. It's a bad time of year to dig up the road. Not anything we wanted to have happened. So say more about that. What is the implication to the town beyond everything you've said? It's a bad time of year. It will be more expensive. It might take longer. It's a very cold look at the project. What is there something about time of year that we haven't captured in the conditions? Probably if there's a snow storm this doesn't happen until long after that's cleaned up, right? Well, yeah, no, the road's closed. So we're not going to be able to clean it up any more. The road will be closed through this process. Okay. Yeah, I guess that's it. Is there we're going to allow two days, three days, five days? I'm just, I'm not trying to fight this job at all. I'm just trying to protect the town's interest of, you know, and prevent you guys from being hammered with phone calls. Absolutely. I know one person is definitely going to call. Yeah, absolutely. That's what, you know, I don't even know the language to use. So 150% we are relying on you to articulate concerns and figure out how to address them. Right. So, Rob, can you do this in two days, do you think? Is it a one-day thing? Is it an afternoon? I mean, yeah, it's a few days. It's reasonable. Two days is reasonable? It's reasonable for the taxpayers that are going to be just to be... Two days is reasonable. I don't think it's good to hams. We don't know what's going to happen. We could have a green storm and things collapse. So I think the job is done. We anticipate it will take no more in two days, but we can't bind them. We don't want to close in the ditch and reopening it. We have to revisit this a month later. If it's two days worth of work, it could take five to get it done if we have a snowstorm. Yeah. Well, I thought I was saying if it's going to storm... So we can write, we can say that the town, that the applicant anticipates this is a two-day project and that's the expectation of the select board without making it a condition. We can say... No commissioner makes the call of weather conditions and if the stargate is appropriate. So he could say looks like snow we're going to plow here in freezing rain, let's wait. Do you go out or... Today's a good day. As long as he's like... No one hurricane comes down the tornado. It's all his fault. It's your fault. It's all his fault. You want it to be your fault. Or you want it to be your fault. If something happens and this is going to take longer than somebody needs to let me know because I have to let the tenants know so they can stay with mom a few more days. Right. And also we should put something on the front porch for them. It's a road closure. We'll have to do it when I'm just putting a call. And maybe call that and again up on the hill with the big trucks and make sure they know what's going on. Swanson? Big Bowen? Bowen Construction. They don't move. All their trailers are covered in plastic but that won't stop her from calling. After you said somebody... Let's just do the letter no. After you said somebody should put this on the front porch for them. Is that an East Calis community trust? That's one question. Is that an East Calis or... I think we should do it. We can do it. ECCT can do it. A condition of the permit would be that ECCT posts on the front porch for them the events to happen. Start date. Potential end date. I have one thing in this. Now you're going to camera this as soon as he opens that break up. No, that was never... I couldn't find it through those emails. Someone has a recording of it and maybe it was just because I was looking at it. Maybe it was Bruce? Yeah, it could have been because I was on my phone. I couldn't look at it. The question I had was because that's the time we had that line up across the remaining section. That's the time to look at that. Because that determines whether you're going to do this big project or not. That's not really our jurisdiction. That's all. They want to do that. That's not our... Let me get to my problem. And that is if it turns out that there is another project needed. At that point this can't be repaved until you've got 50 degree weather anyway. That apron essentially. Do you repave that or do you hold that as gravel until... However if you're repaving it you're breaking it back up again. What I think we'd handle that is if we find out let's say one, we find out we need to do that under the big project. Two, we know we're going to do construction. Then I think we come back into the town and say we'd like to... we want to do the whole thing and so we want to delay repaving until X. And either the town says no. In which case we have to pay it twice. Or the town says yes because the construction is coming along. I mean I think it depends on the timing, which we don't know yet. The question is you got your line open. Is this the time to run? If you want a camera, if you don't have it. It's already been cameraed. You can do it from the back side. And it just adds another complication and a scheduling problem for me to try to do it. Let me just ask you the question. I appreciate you looking out for us. Thank you. We'll be back. I think, you know this is going to be a big project. I don't need a little to line. Okay, so we've got now five conditions. The contractor notifying the state about the project and security necessary approval developing and implementing a traffic column approach to the state of the town which means Alford. So the town road commissioner contractor will replace backstreet apron to its existing condition including replacing the first sub-base material to its pre-private condition for permitting regular inflection by the town road commissioner. Five announcing in perfect front porch form. Six contractable contacts from E.T. transportation. I'm talking the state twice so far. Okay. On the project generally and on traffic calling. Okay. And the state is mentions I didn't say VTrans. So the only thing that we have an address is the detour signage on the town roads. And I had asked Alford if the town would be willing to let me borrow the signs to keep the cops down and then I would set them up. So did you say traffic calming in or detour? Okay. I'll just put that right in here. Because depending on the types of the signs they could be acceptable for in the VTrans shoulder closure towns have like a lower grade of signs that are acceptable or special reflected I think. No, I think we all have to follow the Mootsie. Okay. Well, the speeds are so it's a federal guideline that any construction site uses the Mootsie book and design to for any closure so that opens up another question and I'm absolutely happy to lend the signs and help them set them up but does that invite the town as liability? It's their signage. When I put a water line across my road that when John Singleton was commissioner doesn't Singleton write though Tony? I'm just saying that there's precedent for that. Okay, so you know what? We'll run to our home signs. No problem. Okay, so we have five conditions two involving notification to the state one relating to replacing the road back to its condition. I'd like the town to provide the signs if needed. You're not going to get signs this is going to be private. But listen guys we need to discuss at the select board whether the town, isn't it within Alfred's purview to decide whether we're going to load Alfred was concerned about why we're leaving the town, that's our purview. That is our purview. I've said this many times contractors coming in and doing a site job asking for a permit you have to provide your own sign. Right. But this is a small community store that we have been supporting grants for that we're holding the money for that the town is supporting I'm trying to limit and we would do this I would hope for any resident. John, I agree with you in small projects it would be lovely however Alfred makes a valid point that many times we require and secondly we have two members sitting at our table we do not need any appearance none none none none none. Denise is offering we can do our own sign we stay above reproach if we just let them do it. I want to do everything above board I just want to say I don't want this to be a precedent for like so the folks who bought David Morse's and Katherine Morse's place they're going to be putting waterline in that spring does she have to go out and rent signs and blow in Cody in order to put her bloody waterline I would hope that we're not going to get to that point. So let's have a different conversation to me is reason enough that there are two members of the slide board who are very active in this project to say not this project we'll do our own signs we want no favors and what the precedent we're setting is where we have any perceived conflict we are being way above reproach and I really respect that I appreciate that it's a different conversation when it's we just want to do everything above board no favors I don't see it as favor it's a responsibility I appreciate it John I'm not doing you a favor I'm just saying I don't want to become so damn litigious that we can't do anything for our citizens anymore it's just a litigation minded but we're going to do it right rocking the signs I'm sorry it's not that you're not that explaining it's I think we have I don't disagree with you John or Denise we can have this conversation when all it is there might be there's reasons to think about it differently we are right on route 14 so we want to make sure everything is good five conditions I've said them a couple of times Alfred, anything you want to add Rob, anything we're not thinking about ECT folks anything else you guys want to add however you want us to do it we are happy to do it are we ready for a motion which I assume is I move that we approve this right away encourage and permit whatever you call it right away use permit with the conditions as stated okay any other discussion questions all in favor so you say aye aye I'm abstaining you guys are recused you're not abstaining you're just playing all recused whatever that word is okay so we are issuing this work approval today Katie did you get all the conditions Katie I'll I'll literally type them up and email them to you I might get myself another well I might get myself another I might get myself another but you could have this is just a suggestion you could have give those conditions to Katie type them up and then you could attach it you could attach it then to the that's a good idea because I got little cares and things going on it has to get recorded in a land record so we want it to be clear all right oh they're taking a picture what over the corner they're hiding out we always do that did you sign it no we're just sending the conditions to Katie yeah Katie you're going to still struggle with the all of the little and so we know too yeah I will type them up yeah okay are we done with this okay thank you thank you Rob thank you moving on my mom made these this the topic that is bloom free egg free there's a third wow all my sisters can't have because they're all very good my sisters are really good okay alright so moving on Alfred Do you have any other updates on the road crew? I worked in this week. He's committed to 24 hours of leave for us. Good. Our full-time guide is scheduled to start January 17. Yes. So I have to say thank you to the road crew for their work on Christmas Day. I know they were out twice. Did you see compliments? There was a compliment on the front porch forum. I haven't seen the front porch forum yet. I literally got off the road an hour before I came. So compliments to the road crew, thank you. I did stop at the garage on, is it Friday? I forget, the day's caravan melted together. Just because I'm out of state don't mean I don't know what's going on. No, we're not going to talk to you too. So it was nice to see Dana there. Yes. And I think they did a good job. I mean you can't, if it's sand down on freezing rain, and then it freezes over the top, and then you have to sand down it freezes over the top. They got done sanding at 12 o'clock, and then at 2 o'clock they were iced right over again. Yup. Like that, just iced. And it doesn't take much. I don't believe they ever got about freezing. I don't think they did. You know, so that was the challenge. And yesterday morning I was delighted to hear that we got some snow on top of it. The snow actually sticks to the ice. And a lot of it. But it's great that, I mean, my road, I slid down my driveway and stopped just because of the road. Really well sanded. Yes. The grounds are amazing. I'd rather have almonds. So we're going to supposedly get another rainstorm on the weekend again, I heard. Requirements. So where did my people go? There it is. So anyways, I think they did a great job. Sorry they had to do it all Christmas day. But it's much appreciated. Even though it's their job and I get paid, it's still appreciated. I'll be sure to pass it on. Yeah. Anyways, how are you guys coming with reviewing the operations, winter operations plan and what we might do going forward to provide? Well, you know, I've actually got all the help. What we've got, we've got it down there a couple of sentences basically. I'm going to type that out so we can relax it. Intentancy plan? Yeah, a lot of contingency plan. We talked about this before, keeping it really basic. Right. Alfred and Tony and I got, I've got to just type it out and give it to them. And we've talked about having it kind of as an attachment to the winter operations plan. Yeah. Right. Well, I think what we will try to do is it will be in the end of the operation. So it should be able to stand alone. But essentially, I think it's not going to set a time limit because we can't. Depending on, you know, it all varies from, you know, the plan B would be... Right. You know, essentially, we're going to be saying in the event that we have an extreme event and the day of the event, we're now, for example, to determine what that rodeo time is going to be, we will, you know, post that, though that will be posted, we'll inform the select board chair or power will be going to do that. Okay. And make that determination of what the B, the, you've got your primary groups and then the... Yeah. Well, I know you guys have been working on budget and stuff, but just don't forget this release. And I know we have the holidays and then we've had weather. So I just don't want to lose it on the radar. Right. We set that for, what, three hours? Now we're through. He and Tony and I. Okay. We're going to bring it back to us. Okay. I'm just going to leave it on the agenda. Okay. Right. Yeah. Anything else offer? For us? Got a few updates on the trucks. I don't know if you want to work by that. If it's quick. Because you have an agenda. Yeah. Do we need them? No. Just thought you cared. That's all I do. I do. I do. Okay. So we are borrowing a truck from Charlie boys. I asked them if they had anything. He pulled some trends. And we have one of his trucks in our shop right now. It's not our color, but it works really well. It's blue. It's going to break for days. For miles. That's absolutely free. They're lending it to us. Wow. They gave us a dealer plate. Insurance is all covered under that plate. They're just lending it to us. Wow. Because we buy trucks from them. We're going to buy more trucks from them. So that's bailed us out greatly. Huge. Our spare truck is back in the fleet. That's along with the clutch blowed out. He was good. He was good. Cost us a little more than what he thought. Because there was extras in there that, you know. Pressured the weight down. Well, the truck weight was able to turn it. And so it really cost us much more for that. That was included in his price. But the transmission lines were all rotted out. And then disintegrated, wanting him to take it apart. Yeah. So it's a little bit more than what he quoted. I don't read him off. He tried to charge me a thousand dollars for the tow. I said no. That's not what you were, but I was quoted. So I got him back to what he quoted me with $400. He forgot? Well, between the administration. He talked to me on the phone. Yeah. The normal rate is X. That's what they charged me. And I said, no. This is not what I was quoted. So I beat him down to what he actually quoted me. Okay. So that's back in action. And still no parts for the CV. Wow. That's the one time this model. The new expensive. But I do have. I talked to this guy and swung about availability parts. He said, we went through this a month ago. We had a truck sitting here for a month. And he's got a company in Canada that retrofits these lines. Okay. So he left me a message today. I wasn't able to hear it. Because today was a holiday for us. Tomorrow I'll get that message and see what he has to say about that. So I'm very hopeful that he can get those parts made for us and get that truck back online. Excellent. Excellent. So like I said, I'm hopeful, but it's been over a month now with that truck. But I'm not. So that's sort of where we are with the truck situation. Our personnel is tired after the weekend. They didn't have to go out today, did they? They did not. Okay, good. So they got a chance to know the rest. Good. Yeah. So we didn't go out at all today. But tomorrow, there's dark and snow tonight. So we'll be back out again tomorrow. Good. So if there's no one in question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to end it off. All right. Very good. All right. Thanks. Good job. You have a lot of movie presents. Oh, I do. Good job. Good job. Thank you. Good bro. Okay. See you after. See you after. Next up. I guess I didn't realize that these two things were the same. And why the timing was different for one letter of support and different letter of support. So Nick Emlin had contacted me and I think I send it, everything around to everybody. So anyways, you saw the letter that I signed for the capital investment program grant from April corner store. So that's just something that the timing, the way it happened was in between meetings. But ECCT apparently has the same letter. Is that in the folder? I have it here. Is it in the folder too? Did you give it to Katie to put in the folder? Oh, here it is. I made edits. So the one that, the edits that I made are minor. I moved commas. I moved commas. It is substantially the same. It is substantially the same. So Denise, are we going to ratify? Yeah. So yeah, so I would make a motion that we ratify the letter. We could do them together. So if you guys are not going to vote. So let's ratify the letter of December 23rd as requested by the maple corner community store board. And a letter of support, it doesn't commit a letter of support just so we're clear. On this one or the other one or any other letter of support, it commits the town to nothing. It's just saying we support this project doesn't commit us any staff time, any money. So I make a motion that we ratify the December 23rd letter of support from the maple corner community store for their grant request to Vermont Capital Investment Program. So moved. Second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Next up. Can I make a comment? This is Nick. I just jumped in. I just wanted to acknowledge Jeremy for having on very short notice put the letter together. He referenced the town Calstown plan and the select board is gracious in pushing this through for us. We want a very short time on this. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. We have a request from the East Cal's community trust for a letter of support. For a for a VVCP grant. Community investment capital investment grant application for ECCT to the agency of commerce and community development. And yeah, I have copies of the letter here for John and Rick and as a courtesy to Denise. So Rick and John, we need a motion to approve our support and then sign the letter. Yeah. How does this, does this get. Somebody's got to send it to Liz, I think. To Liz Curry? Yeah. Okay. I have an email from Liz about what she wants to do and what letters she wants to attach to it. Great. Okay. Okay. Yep. We have a motion. I seconded. John, do you have any questions? No. Great. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Can I just suggest one of the things that I would really love us to consider as a board is, is when we know there are projects like this going on in town, if we had a point person who what Denise said earlier, it literally is nothing except the town's support, supporting. So we could say as a, as a board, a project was happening. Love the project. Go team. If they need a signature on said letter, John is our guy. We'll sign it. And then John gets five minutes at every select board meeting to report on all the various things he's been working on, including, oh, by the way, I signed the letter. We usually want to vote on a select board. Right. Really? Plus. Every single time? Plus, I didn't even know that Maple Corner Community Store was applying for this. So there'd be no way to know. That's unusual. Well, it doesn't mean we wouldn't know. I mean, because, because we... You know what I'll do? Let me talk to Liz. If it isn't required, if they usually don't need to vote, I think that's a great change. If they need to vote, then my idea is... Right. But if they don't, I think your idea is a great idea. But if they don't need to vote, then we can do these, you know, things that are... Don't commit us to anything. Don't commit us to anything. And then we don't... And then we're also not pulling up a project, you know, because we've been enough having... Sure. Okay. And it's only the last minute. And then... It's only the last minute. Yeah. Here you go. Yeah. Can we take this? I think. Sure. Okay. Did you guys vote? We did. You did, because we... We voted 3-2. Yeah. We voted 3-2. We voted 3-2. Yes. We voted 3-2. That's important. That's important. That's important. That's important. No, it was unanimous for the three members of the board. Okay. So we have a lot more work to do, so let's move on. Just for a little back... John, I mean, Mark and Standard, I met two or three times. Mark and I met a couple times. Standard and Mark and I met two or three times. I forget. So what you have before you are two scenarios that we can look at. And these are our best ideas to put forth, I guess is what we'll call it. Mark did a spreadsheet with two tabs, can you see? So just a comment real quick on what these really are, guys. So essentially, we went through, as a group, all the line items except... We went through all of them. Then Rick, I'm just going to quickly summarize. Rick did a lot of work to double check the line... Highway. Highway wages, line 181. And it changed by 5K or something like that. Not a lot. Denise and I went through an exercise. Well, how the hell could we get ourselves down to below between percent income? And we realized, really, there was only one way to do it, which was to try to reduce... To keep the idea that we wanted to maintain capital funds, both for highway and for the buildings that we own. But this year, we couldn't quite get there. The full amount that we wanted. The full amount that we wanted. So we reduced the budget... The highway capital budget. And the highway capital budget. And the budget for this building and the other. You know, like two thirds of the buildings, but 50% for the highway. I will say with the highway, just one thing to clarify. Which line do you want me to go to? Line 283, 284. Essentially, point 279. Essentially, what we did was we realized, you know, in the past, as I understood it from Sandra, the payments, the 42,000 and the 3,000, they weren't budgeted. They came out of the capital fund, which is not good policy. So this year, we're putting it in the budget, which is an extra $45,000. So we said, well, this year let's not quite put aside. Let's aim for a larger set aside for capital, but this year let's not. Rick is hard at work on a whole systemic analysis of what it would take on the highway budget side to really have a really good capital fund. Including depreciation and everything. All those things. We don't have to get into all that tonight because that will take a lot of time. So in sum, we have what that yields for us is it keeps us just under 3%. So then, let's, wait, I want to stick a minute. But I was doing an exercise of saying what if we reduced our wage increases to 5% rather than 5.9%. But Mark, you're missing a piece that's important before you go to that. Is Rickett put in a $40,000 request for this capital? Rick, we said we'd put that to 20%. Okay, so it's 20,000 instead of 40,000. Okay, so that got us under 3%. I went through the exercise and Rick helped to do this exercise. What if we wanted to reduce it to 5% and the reason I wanted to do that was simply, wouldn't generate enough extra cash that maybe the select court could think about wanting to do that and not take so much out of the capital funds. Well, guess what? It yields almost no extra money. I mean, it yields, I think my calculation is less than $5,000. 0.9% of the total. Yeah, it's just not that much. So my, so the second option, the 5% option is almost identical to the 5.9%. Yeah. And we won't know what the CPI in December is until early part of January. Yeah. Well, and when you say that to these, what you're saying, to say it with more precision, we won't know the rolling 12 month CPI for the month ending in December. Right, until September. It's the 12th month. Yeah. And that's what we want. And that's what we want to look at. Well, to some degree. To some degree. And I think that either we, in a way either we do or we don't, because let's be honest, the only reason we want to look at that is because we've had this practice, we've had a documented practice that I've kept notes on over. Just like Mark's 1%. Like let's have some principles and what we're consuming on the highway. Trying to have some principles around salary. How does it work? Right. Right. But that was kept, that concept was kept at 3. Right. And so, so if I guess so, so in my mind, kept at 3. And we don't, we can anticipate that the CPI is going to be over that. Right. And so. Right. And so really the question is, if we wanted to cap at 3, we would cap at 3. But I think, I mean, I thought we'd already decided. We'd do it. And I would, not that I'd fully pot it in. I do. But I support that we're going to go to 5.9 or. I think we want to document for the record that our goal is and has been and going forward will continue to be that it's 3%. But these are difficult circumstances. These are difficult times. And this year is not what's the right word I'm looking for. This is not a precedent setting here. It's an exception. It's an exception. It's an exceptional situation. But that should be clear for our listening and viewing audience. This is not. Now, first off, we're putting money in a budget up to 5.9%. That could go that could be expended on salaries. Right. Right. Salary benefits or salaries, salaries. But it still remains within this question to select forward. If we expend that much and how much of that or how we allocate that. That's always been something we then will talk about later on in the spring. That's one. Number two. Number two. I just want to finish. But I have a question for you. And that is something we vote on in July, correct? For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For two. For one. So, if say staff were granted a CPI that came out for the month. The 12 months prior to January 2022, I would say, was 5.9%, average across those 12 months. And we granted a 5.5% increase to staff. a raise in pay that keeps people, it's a raise in dollar amount but essentially it's to keep our employees whole so they're not making less this year than they made last year. Inflation is just that, your dollar is worth 5.9% less so you add this to their existing salaries so they stay in the same place. Raises are another separate discussion. I just want to put that out there. Good point. Because people misunderstand that, they think it's a bonus or something. No, and I think that we need to say that when we, yeah, no, good point. Folks who collect Social Security understand that fully. Right. I do think though, it's important to emphasize something that was said last time we discussed this, which is the 3% policy is there because it is a policy. Well, it is a policy. No, it wasn't. It was not a written policy. It is a written policy. No, it's written. I wrote it down because we can never remember and so I wrote it down. It was there because we were trying to balance the interest in keeping our employees whole with the needs of the taxpayers to not have their taxes go up too much. Right. And some of them aren't in jobs that are inflation adjusted. Right. That's true. Okay. So what I think we're saying is that COVID, it's COVID, COVID has created such exceptional problems that this year we are going to use an inflation index. What I think someone said last time, we've always used an inflation index, but we, we kept it. Well, we never got to that point where we said, we had a conversation about where is there a limit to this. Yeah. And we could not have anticipated what Kentucky could anticipate the tornado. Right. Okay. So what I think, what I heard and it was a good idea is that next year, if we see a situation where high inflation is continuing, we're going to have to reevaluate the whole thing. That's right. You know, we're just going to have to, we're not committing either to some cutoff. We're not committing to high follow inflation, wherever it goes. Right. We're simply dealing with this year, which is a COVID year and we'll deal with next year. Right. Next year. I think that we have all said this in a different way. Well, I think it's there on the record. I want to add a comment though that some of the things that have found their way into the thinking and the framework this year, Mark, this is just not something I didn't know this. I've never worked in buildings. I don't know that 1% is a good, 1% of the value of the building is a, is a good benchmark or, you know, whatever for a capital reserve fund to maintain the building. Rick is bringing similar thinking around, around highway. My experience closest to this and budgeting is thinking about what are the parameters for personnel? You know, how do you think about that? So I see what I see congealing here is a set of budget principles that to me all belong in one, you know, thinking in one place. We have them in our notes, but what we're, what we are, I've articulated at different times is budgeting principles that we are starting to apply. And it's our responsibility. I do think whether we call it, it's not a policy, but it is principles. And, and I will, I will update that document that I've been managing to incorporate some of these other principles because, I mean, doesn't the work get so much easier when you have the principles and you're not trying to figure it out. You're not trying to figure it out every year of offended or you're just, this is what we, this is what we want. It's just, it's just, it's just good managing practices going forward. Exactly. And it's, it creates a stability and a predictability. That's what we want. That's so critical for everybody. I would actually, I don't know where this fits. I have, I want to steer a different direction. Okay. Are we going to go through this? Before we do that, I want to ask you guys, because a couple of things. I, I left the last meeting on the 13th of the expectation that we were all going to get the notes from that night in our inbox and, you know, in the Excel spreadsheet by the end of the week. And so, you know, I didn't have it printed out that night. I have my notes from the six, which is when I was at home and able to print it and I took good notes. I don't have notes from the 13th. So I would, so I was like earlier today, I was printing out what we got yesterday. Trying to compare it to, I can only compare it to the six because I don't have any notes from the 13th. And then what I understood from both from looking at this and, and from what you just said, Mark, is that I think you guys met between the 13th and now, I was expecting when I opened up the email from Denise yesterday, I was expecting to see something that was basically a capture of what we did on the 13th. I think this is. Well, it's, there's definitely some things where it goes beyond the difference just to clarify. This is absolutely identical to what you went over on the 13th, except, except the following. The one, the highway wage is slightly different because of Rick's work. It's refined. It's $5,000 well. Okay. Two, the highway contingency, or what do you mean, the highway capital fund instead of four reserve funds, instead of being 40 is 20. Three, the budget for. For the reasons you just said, as a principle, you said we're not going to be able to get to 3%. And that explains one of the things I was like, where did the, well, I found a couple one in one was we had 3000 on the town hall and you guys knocked it down to 1500. So now I totally understand where that came from. And the other was this building went from 12,000 to eight. I think what one is it would do eight. Town hall reserve fund 149 is six. That's right. Hang on. I've got to print it out though. So 149 town hall. Yeah, it went the town hall reserve fund was 12. Last year it was five. This year it was going to be 12. For FY 23. For FY 23. And we made it six. And reasoning being, we just can't, it's more than we did last year, but we can't get there. The thing is we can't eat the whole amount that we should be doing all at once. The same thing with the highway capital reserve fund. We know we need to do it. We have to take it in small bites. So I do want to add, although I have to copy up this with a brand new building or a building that's been just rehabilitated. It's a little less urgent that you absolutely put away every cent that you should. This is not something that we want to do as a practice continuously. Right. This is the answer to your question. Those are only changes. Well, so what I've heard is a broad principle is our principle is 1% value of the building. That's our principle. But if we can't meet our budget goals and do that, what you guys are proposing is that that 1% be knocked down to a half. And you did that across the board. And then you did some tinkering with highway stuff because Rick's been working on that, which is great. And then what was, wasn't there a third? No, that's it. That's it. Okay. Well, there was the final wage incorporation, the two exercises. Well, the five and the 5.9. So, okay, but yes, okay. So, I think my request is, and we're probably close to done, but I don't want to wish in six weeks that I've made this request tonight. If we make changes tonight, I don't know who's capturing them for everybody, but can we all get the same notes so that I know, so that I have an anchor for this conversation. That would have been helpful. This conversation, and then Denise, oh, Denise and Mark did some more work and now we've got a new, we've got a new thing. So you want us to take out the comments? No, I don't mean to add to that. The comics don't actually explain everything that Mark did with Purple. What I think we need to do is we need to put in the comments, which we can do. Yeah, we can do that. We can put in the comments those three changes explained. I can say our target, our target was 40,000, subject to much more refinement next budget year, but we had to cut it to 20. We can say our target was 1% or 12,000, but we cut it to six this year. We can put it in there. Is that what you want to do? Well, more specifically, or perhaps just plain on repeating myself, we're going to go through this tonight, just like we did on the 13th. There, I was expecting that we were all going to get the notes from the 13th, so that we would all have that level of playing field as a separate, as a different version than, oh, and Mark and Denise did some more work. So here's that version. Here's what we talked about on the 13th, but Mark and Denise sharpened the pencils and did some more. So what I was missing in trying to prepare for the meeting is that I'm looking at this, I'm like, wait a minute, this is not what we talked about on the 13th. I don't know where this came from. Now I'm confused. And it's hard enough to try to be on top of it. And I really did try and be no, and so I mean, look, you guys, I have four different versions of my notes and everything. I've really been trying to pay attention to this. Again, we left on the 13th with Sandra was going to boom, boom, boom, get this out to all of us that week, and I was kind of expecting that. And instead, we got something yesterday that was some version or something different. So I've said enough about that. The other thing then, so what I was going to ask you to do is go through and say, okay, where were we on the 13th? But I think you've mostly explained it. The one that I haven't heard an explanation for is the select board assistant inexplicably dropped from 22.5 down to 12.5. And that I just stand really, really firm. We need to hire a select board assistant to do various things, to do a lot of things that Denise is doing now. For a while, she was our paid select board assistant. Now she's an unpaid select board assistant. Katie took on several, several functions that I was doing. And now I think the workload has evened out because everybody has stepped up to the plate to take on projects. She was right. We did cut it. There's two possible approaches there. One is we see it as a new position that's an important one, but we don't know if it's full-time. And we don't know how much it's going to be. And we don't know whether or not it will be for the full fiscal year. So that was our thinking in reducing the amount. But it was driven, just like everything else, the others that we said. It was just driven by the desire to save some money. And also, I mean, I've been saying for probably two years, and Osandra has said it repeatedly, we need a grant coordinator. And we've had discussion about how important it is that we manage, maintain our grants. And they are, in some cases, at the town barrage, some of those houses. And I sent something to the town office to ask them to put it in a file. And it had to do with the grants. And the note I got back is, we have no grants administrator. So therefore, there's nobody to file this document, apparently. From our town office? Yep. So that's a problem. That doesn't sound very cooperative. This position, are you saying you think that grants disposition should be a grant? That, I mean, I see that as a huge deal. If we get audited, and we are getting more and more grants, thanks to Toby, ARCA money, all the stuff, we have to have these grants managed and maintained in a way that's going to be an audit, especially a federal audit. But why are they necessarily two different positions? We're just naming different, you know, I've sent things that were just plain old us to the town office. And similarly, got a phone call that said, I don't know what to do with it. And like, well, there's slick word files over there. I assume that most of the time, it was something that I was sitting as chair because he were recused. But that tells me that there's a Denise function. No, it's not. Well, it's not my portion. I'm not a grant. No, it wasn't my grant. It wasn't my grant. It's something that we signed during COVID. You know, I signed on behalf of the board and I sent it to the town office. So they would have the original with my signature on it. And I got, what am I supposed to do with this? Well, that's what's happened. Exactly. So, but grants related or not, there's some coordination of sled board record keeping. There's more we should be doing around framework for policies that we never look at. Us showing up being prepared for a meeting is enough for a volunteer board. Having somebody who who runs the machine around us so that, you know, somebody who knows it's time for us to be reviewing this policy. It's time to appoint for this position. It's, you know, somebody who's got a different vantage point on the whole framework is, is alluding us, I guess. I mean, we can get into the details of what we need, but right now we're just by the project. Anything, anything that you got back is similar to what I've got back only to deal with grants. That's all. That was eight or 10 months ago. I got a question. What I'm saying is we need a grants person now. Okay, I have a question here, folks. But the FY22 budget, we allocated 22.5 toward a sled board assistant if we could get one. We did not hire into that position, but there was some duties that were paid for. He took on some additional responsibility. So how much of that 22.5 was expended? Do we know? None. Well, how did we find Katie? It was coming out of a different audience. It was coming, Katie, we upped her hourly rate. Remember? And she took on additional duties. She's given us notice. So I think. So in terms of this 22.5, we have a 22.5 surplus in theory from for this fiscal year. That's not yet. We will, I hope, if we're not expending that and we don't anticipate that we'll hire someone many years. This is a conversation now. You know what happened? You know what happened? Yeah, so at any extent we don't. We might go to find the balance of that 12.5 already halfway through the year. The missing part of the full line item 22.5, we're going up 12.5. So 10 to 10,000 has been reduced from that line item for FY23. We might go to fill in that gap with surplus in terms of what the taxpayers feel. Not in terms of. And I think we were on track and then COVID here and everything kind of. Yeah. So, but anyways, I mean, I don't know that tonight's the night to have this discussion. We need to finish. Well, I just want to make sure I'm comfortable with this number. Yeah, right. I'm talking about that. You're talking about a grants administrator. And if the grants administrator is going to come out of the line item for a select board assistant, I would rather see a portion of the select. If the select board assistant, as we envision that individual, if they were hired tomorrow, one of their major duties would be grant administration. Right. Right. Well, and you would mind somebody. Right, right, right. But let me hear me out. And I'm going to. So to the extent that we are not, we don't hire a select board assistant, but we may hire a grant coordinator as it's termed here. That doesn't fit under the line support assistance. So I would suggest that we break that line into two pieces and we zero out select board assistant. If that's what we want to do or split the dollars or however you want to do it. But I think there's dual roles here because we may not be fully outfitting this like board assistant position, but only a portion of the roles responsibilities. I think it could be two positions. But it could also be depending on the person. It could be one person doing both. No, I understand. I don't know yet. So I would like to leave that opportunity open. You could do that. It's like Sandra is our treasurer, but she also does tax collection. So we have two line items, but they combine into her larger total salary. And I'd like to see the function split and have the other do this like board assistant on one and we can allocate in that way. It's easy. I don't want someone being hired to do grant coordinator and then there, but we don't, we don't anticipate those like board assistant. Maybe they lack some functions that we're seeking and we want to continue to seek. I don't want that person to be offended. I don't want that person that cert rights to a position that they don't hold. So I just think it's important. So what you're asking is this, we add another line item. And I think Sandra can do that. She can add another straighter, slack board assistant. I don't know how we want to do it up. Do it up the spoils there. Maybe we zero the slack board assistant. I don't know how you want to do that. I don't think we should zero it. I would want to split it in half. I would want to take the 225 and split it in half. Go back to our number that we've been carrying. Split that in half and define it as two different lines and two different positions. That works. And I like that approach because even if you have the same person, you retain the integrity of two different functions so that you're able to have accountability to two different functions. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, well, that works. So that's going to bump it up a little bit. Right. So, Sam, I'm calculating it right. But, you know, in reality, it's not going to increase it to the taxpayers. And then your turn because we're going to, we have a surplus. Right. We anticipate a surplus. Right. Yeah. So, Sam, can you chain and make two separate lines? You got to take yourself off mute. We can't. Yep. Do you want each line 11, 250? Yes. 12. No, 11, 250. When each line 11, 250, that is 225 and a half. Yes. Yep, please. Yep. Okay, so if we do that. Well, and if you have the, and let me just throw this out too, if you have the right, if you have the right administrative assistant, they would be doing what Katie's doing. At the cost of 4750. So, I'm just throwing that out there. Because a select board assistant should be doing what Katie's doing. Well, right. So, there's the 4750. Right. There comes 4750. It's already part of, right, right. So, because of that, because what she's doing, the pieces she's doing are subsumed within a broader select board assistant role. Right. And then, okay. I just want to throw that out there. Right. So, we'll have a separate line out of them. And the total will be 22, right? 22, yeah, okay. 25, 25. 11, 250 and 11, 250. Okay, so if you add that in. I think we're just, we're going to be north of 3%. Not a whole hell of a lot. Right. But people come from within. So, so, so, well, that's if, well, that's, I am gathering true at 5% or at 5.9. And then the only thing that saves us is that the 12 year rolling CPI is 2.9. And we feel 2.9. Right. Well, it's making things up. Oh, okay. I don't know what you're doing. Make, that's why I do why I make things up. That's her dream. So, no, I'm saying that the only thing that could change that, we've said we're waiting. Right. Oh, yeah. The CPI is lower. If the CPI is lower for some reason than we're anticipating and we get more comfortable with 3.5 or 4 instead of 5. Okay. But I think we can hopefully finish up the budget except for that piece. So, so, so bottom line is even though we retired a big debt which created in another time and space would have created room in the budget. The pressures of COVID are absorbing that. So, but we can also flip that back and say, oh, thank goodness we have, we had that retired debt because it's really helping us to absorb these. And the other thing we're doing, which is you ever doing something else, which is just as important, which you mentioned before, which is we are really trying to come to terms with depreciation of our buildings and our, because just, just the decision to, we spent 60,000 bucks in here. Right. Just with highway stuff that last year we didn't do and last year we didn't budget. Right. And this year, and this year we're budgeting for those. And so we're being more honest. Well, again, it's allowing us, it's allowing us to get ourselves on farmer footing. It's creating that sort of buy head that we needed to change some of our practice and put some of these principles. And the fact that we didn't budget for that amount last year I think was an oversight, it was not intentional, the payment of the, the payment of the truck. We just had to come. It just, it just, I don't know how we did it. We had a surplus, we had a surplus. Yeah, but we, we didn't, we didn't budget for it. I think it was not intentional. I think it was an oversight. So, man, Rick. Two things. One is okay. I've done the wage calculator on this and that really can improve that. That's really cool. I'm halfway through the equipment depreciation schedule that'll be annualized, which should take a lot of the voodoo out of this. It's going to, and you'll see it would be very clear. That's really come of way. I already know when our depreciation is for all of our equipment on an annualized basis, but it does include things like the refunds, which it will, I mean not the refunds, but the resale value when we did it. It'll actually get that level and tell us what we have to say annual. Now that, when I'm done with that calculator, I'll go on to do the billings. I mean, I've got those levels like I've already, so I just have to plug in. And they will be perfect, but they'll capture all the things like routes and painting and your major mechanicals and they'll life cycle those too. So we'll have an idea of what we, a lot better than 1%, because those averages are based on, and that's, I've seen it was as high as 7%, so, and I work in that world. So yeah, and they're based on big models. We've got like $3 or $4, 3, 4, but the statistics gets to be really dangerous when you've got that small pool. So we can do it on a real basis based on our equipment. So I'll work on that and that. So I'll get the tracks done first. Well, whatever that's for, then that's kind of just like. And then maybe we can get the state to do the same things. Oh, I would love it. I've been trying for years. All on hard buildings. I try, believe me. No, this is, they didn't account for the legislature. What just if, you know, our vehicle building was what, 200 million dollars. That's crazy. That's crazy. Well, there's, let me tell you, there's one thing, and this, this is related to what Sharon's talking about on the confusion on these drafts. I would suggest Sandra's sending us these, you know, she sends us, she compiles the budget. Instead of, let's do this all in one spreadsheet. And we work, we do it. We save that, we copy that worksheet from a night. And we correct, and we just copy it right in the excel. And they have your second worksheet. We'll date it. Then all the iterations will be, right? All the tabs. Yeah, all the new tabs. In the new tab. And everything's right there. We can do that, so it's all in the same place. It's all in a, that's right. Then you've got tabs for every, and every single one. So we could label this one tonight, 12, 27, 21. It's called 12, 27. Well, that's the market. Mark sent us one with two different tabs. Right, right. But we can do this again with tonight's, right? Version. And if there is, if there exists a version that, that, that Sandra sent you guys from the 13th, then you could add that in. It doesn't have that number. Aren't we adopting a budget tonight? I hope so. I hope so. Okay. I thought we were going to. I thought we were going to have a motion to do this. Well, I think we need to, we need to get clear that we're, we are making one, we've made one revision. Right. But that was on line one. But I mean, if you've looked at the rest, the rest are pretty much the same as they were on the 13th. Okay. So, can you guys walk us through what changes were made? Okay. So what changes were made from the last time was? We've covered line three. Right. And the only, the other one was the town office, town hall, capital reserve fund. And what is line four and five highlighted? Those are salaries. But anything that was salary. Salaries. I, I dance for my character. I just want to start our patients. Hang on, Denise. So before we get to town hall, I, again, I don't have the 13th. As a data point, but the, from the six, and then what we had in preparation for the 13th, we had election expenses at $2,500 at 1500 before. On the 13th, did we take those at this? Yes. We reduce them. We reduce them because we don't have any big elections coming up. No. What I have here, we're, you have a line number? Or are you? No, that's what I don't have. I have. Okay. Election expenses. We went from, oh, I know. We went from 1500 to 2500 because we do have elections coming up. And did we do that on the 13th? Yes. Okay. And we. Line numbers, guys. I'm not. Okay. This is election expenses. Line number 57. Is there, if, hey, Sandra, this is a question for you. It doesn't have to be answered now. It could be answered in an email. What I print an Excel spreadsheet, is there a way to print line numbers? Just a, just a, maybe. Okay. Looks, look at your, I never do. So maybe you can look and view or. Maybe under when you go to print options, you have a print option to print grid lines. Your option is just create a column. I think we need to create a number column. Yeah, yeah, I think. I think what we're going to want to do is, is add a column for line numbers. Yeah. Just, just to honor that. Because, because when you print it out, Excel doesn't give you line numbers. No, it doesn't. The other. I do not actually know how to do line numbers. If somebody could tell me what they're called. I would say just, just do a simple math function, right click on column A, it's insert column. And then put in, you put in the number one on the first line. And then the next line you put a formula equals A1 plus 1. And then drag it down. And then that formula will repeat down as far as you can. That's all you have to do. Yeah, simple. Okay, so can we, are you ready to? Yes. Okay. Yes. Well, don't forget, don't forget when I was being. Okay, we don't. Hard. So listed your wages we changed from 12 to 8, remember? Yeah. I know. I like. And we did that. 35. That we did on the six, I think. Yeah. Well, that was, I know it's from the six. Um, and I would like us to briefly, if that's possible, talk about increasing the delinquent tax collector wages from 10,000 to 12. That's $1,000 a month. And 53. 53. I think Sandra has proven it. She has come through on collecting delinquent taxes. Far better than anybody else going back has done. She's done an excellent job of working with folks, coming up with a routine by which they enter into a plan. If you remember, well, some will, John will remember. We had a delinquent tax collector once. We were almost $200,000 or something delinquent in taxes. Then we had another delinquent tax collector that took over and did a great job as well. Sandra's nailed it. So I would like us to consider this line item being up. I don't remember the last time it was that we upped it, but obviously it hasn't been since. Oh, right. That hasn't gone up with the salaries. No, it's never gone up with the salaries. I was going to ask about that. It's more, it's like a monthly amount. That makes sense. Right. It makes sense to me because when the salaries increase for the other positions, this has not, right? Which is odd. Well, it should be. No, Sandra's not. She has said, but I'll remember a couple of years now. She said, I don't need an increase for this. No, I know what I'm saying. Generically speaking, it's an odd way to do it. Yes, it is. I don't have a problem with increasing it. I do have a problem with 2000, that's 20%. If we're going to treat it as a salary, you know, in that way, then. We can do that. Then, you know, 20% is, I mean, maybe, maybe 5% to acknowledge it's been. But that might even, but the COVID increase, let's just say. Yeah. That there was a 5.9% increase to all the other salaries, I would say. Yeah. Then this will be coming up behind. But we're working, she does a great job. Sandra, nothing I'm going to say is personal. You do a great job. I'm fine, but you speak away. Thank you. We don't know how much time it takes. It's, we haven't treated it as a salary position before. Yeah, I just think if we're thinking of it more as a salary position than a 20% up is too much. That's really, that's the principle. We haven't changed in 40 years. Right, it hasn't changed in, it hasn't changed. But we also don't know where it fits in terms of time, you know. Well, it saves us a lot. It's, I mean, she's got $127,000, right? But typically we still, we have the agencies of $190,000 then this year. I mean, you have one delinquency from 2020 of $2,000. So what I understand in the past is that is not your experience that you were carrying delinquencies for more than one year and they were a couple of $100,000 on the books. You don't have, you guys don't do, I don't do that. We don't do that with the way I do it. All I'm saying, absolutely, Sandra's doing a great job. Absolutely, this is the right move to make it a town employee function. I mean, a lot has changed, Mark. The tax factor used to be paid. My upper side, definitely not. The signage is in the penalties and, you know, it was like this whole little standalone process that was stood outside of our town. Yeah, it was. And we brought it in and all of the money comes to the town now and Sandra gets paid. A salary or a stipend to do the work and that was that she does a great job and that's a really good move. I 20, when we're thinking about it that way, 20% is a lot. And we started with a 10% just 10,000 just had to always it went. I think we made that up because we made it up. We asked Sandra what it would take. I can tell you what happened. Tell us. So the Dean Martin was your delinquent tax collector before me. And I think she ended up on a salary because in the past there was a change in your delinquent tax rate on exactly what that story was. But I think the senior members of this board remember that. I'm not going to be able to prompt your memory. I wasn't here. It was a couple of years before I came. So Nadine, I definitely was on a salary at that point. And when she resigned, this either was her salary or the salary she recommended to the board to budget for the next delinquent tax collector. That's what I was offered at the time. What happened was the delinquent tax collector used to get paid whatever the percentage was. Now we're down to 0.5. The penalty. The penalty. Yeah. The penalty. And now we're down to 0.3% in your penalty. Yeah. Right. That's the... You're talking about interest. I'm talking about interest. So just to be clear for a listening audience, there was a perverse incentive. And let's say that that's what happened, but there is a perverse incentive to allow delinquencies to bill theoretically. So you could... If one were interested in increasing their income because the penalties increased. Right. No, no, no. Yes, they did. No, the penalty was a one-time penalty. The interest increased. No. The... Okay. We can take this out. And also... It was permanent penalty. And also this is... It was permanent penalty. This $12,000... I'm sorry. Wait, I'm sorry. I'm throwing out an increase of $2,000. You know, I'm not going to fall in the start over. I made my point. It's 20%... So next year, if we try to 20% again... This thing is locked in time. It's at least four years ago. I think it's a lot more than that. And so just to update it, I would suggest we raise it to $11,000, which... And then you... To account the recent $5.9 ballpark. And then it also recognizes this has been fixed for a number of years. It needs to be brought into two years. All right. So really what we're saying is we're shifting from... We had this conversation two years ago. And we kind of started recognizing... We have stipending positions where it's thank you money. It's not pay. It's thank you money. This is us. This is thank you money. Exactly. This is not thank you money. That's what I'm saying. This is not that. So to the extent that it's been caught in that... It's not. So we're going to $11,000. And we're saying to ourselves, this is not thank you money. It gets increased. Okay. And just to be clear, I just threw out $2,000. I should have... Maybe I should have thrown out any amount. And then we could have... We should have put John to $2,000. Support supporting... I just made up the number two. All right. Yeah. $11,000 works for me. Okay. What meant... So did we want this started with you guys wanting to know... I just want to clarify something. At least for my part, I just assumed you delegated to us the preparation of a budget we could bring to you. We came to you with an interim. And you made a lot of comments, all of which were included in the next budget. And then we met two more or three more times to iterate it. And I think I'm sorry that you got it at the last minute. But in terms of if I... What I'm hearing is you need to know two things. One is the base budget from which we made four changes. Was that base budget a budget that was changed to reflect the discussion of the 13th? It was. Yes. It wasn't. Two. What are the changes we made since the 13th? Exactly. And they are now line one. Yeah. Line 53. Line 53. We need to work. Line 53 is delinquent tax collector, delinquent tax collector of wages. It's after audit is now going to be $11,000. It's $10,000. Yeah. Okay. And then you got the election expenses one. We've gone over. But that was changed as a result of the 13th. Right. And same with the Lister wage on line 35. But the... Since the 13th, the only other changes are the ones that we just discussed. Right. That is... And we've already discussed them at one point. In other words, those are the ones where we changed by $5,000. We refined the salary of the line 181 highway wages. We refined that. It sort of went down about $5,000. Right. And we changed the reserve for town hall, the reserve for offices. And the capital highway. Capital highway. And that's it. And that's it. Nothing else is any different. Those are the only changes that we made. So I believe that we approve the budget with those changes. I'm first there with... I've got a question. Well, we can have a conversation. I'm looking for a second. Second. Second. Okay. Now I've got the conversation. Okay. Yeah. I mean, and this is the operations manager wages. 24. We're at one point. 24. I'm 184. 184. So now I see that's the jump of 16,000 budget 22 to 20,000. Right. And that's how I agree with... Is that... I mean, I don't... That position hasn't had an agency for a long time. It hasn't. And we've had... I think that's telling me, right? Yes. He's brought in a million dollars worth of grants. So why are we bringing it up? Are you not happy with that amount? Well, I don't know. The question is, is that a... I mean, that's a... That is an increase, correct? On that line I have for... Yes. And also, if we get a grants administrator, we may save money with Toby's position because he won't be doing so much grants in the industry. So it was just like, right? Yeah. Right? That's your point. No, that's really good. I just want to make sure that was all we got. You got it. Thank you. All right. So I think there's no emotion in a second. All of us... Well, no, no, no, hang on. Destruction. No, it's okay. Wait. What are you suggesting? To approve the budget as amended tonight? Well, hang on though. Hang on. What I don't understand is where we are... We can't approve... Is this like approving it forever and forever or just for tonight? No, forever and forever. But we haven't got the wages locked down. We're waiting for the CPI. I think we approve it tonight. Contingent upon the wages, checking the CPI for end of December. Do we have that time? I don't know. I thought we didn't have that time to go to January. Well, so let's lay down our parameter. So I thought we were going to approve it with 5.9. And if the CPI is left, then we have a surplus in our budget. And we don't apply that. This goes to the printers. That's why I said earlier that we're not... This is not a pay increase. January 3rd, we have to do the final budget. So that's why I said earlier, we approve this at 5.9. It doesn't mean there's going to be a 5.9 pay increase, cost of living increase, as I would call it, necessarily because, one, it may not be as much comes January 13th. And two, we may decide not to increase it that much, but we're allowing that's an outside number. And the money's there in the event. If it goes to 6.1, we're not going there. If it's 5.5, we'll go there. We might go 5.1 if it's 5.5. And embedded in your comment, are you embedding in it? And did your comment incorporate what I've said before, that between now where we've created our increased pot, here's the pot, is a select board process where we decide, you did say this earlier, how we're going to allocate the pot to individual people. Right. If it could be connected across the board, so we have a friendly amendment to your motion stating that this is the budget is approved pending the outcome of this is not budget, this is the number. This is the number. How we allocate our, that's separate. John is saying, that's a separate conversation. John is saying obviously if CPI is 6.5, we're not doing that period, just plain all not doing it. There's your comment. And John is saying also, don't forget, all we're doing is creating a budget. We are not awarding increases to any particular individuals right now. That is a select board discussion, select board process. Even if CPI is 3%, we've got 2.9, we could still, and I'm going to say this because it's true, even if CPI is 3, we could decide to award increases, whatever label you put on it, of something less than 3. That's right. But you have that authority. Right. This is a budget. That's a conversation at a later date. A budget is for planning purposes only. It doesn't bind us to any specific amount for any person. The only amount that it binds us is when the voters vote on the bottom line. Right. OK, so with all of that said, and another implication is, it doesn't, whatever the December numbers say will inform our thinking around increases for a later date. Yeah. But it doesn't have anything, but we're not going to be using our budget. OK. Wait, stop. You are you voting, you have to vote a number. We are. That will go into your warning. Are you voting a number tonight? Yes. The numbers at the bottom of our spreadsheet. No, no, John, because we've changed it. Are you going to use the 5.9% tax? Yes. Number one. All right. The way I can do that, you need a number. You want to take $11,000 back into that budget. Yes, correct. Also, can I add to this, if we did this a year ago or two years ago, we had to do it again, because we did the big fat global number. And then Jim said, no, you have to separately approve. Do you remember the cities? Yes, we had to separately approve each worn, well. We have to separately approve. I think what we can do is we can approve the bottom line, let's approve that, and then break it out. And then we can break it out into pieces, because we have these social services appropriation stuff. We have fire departments. So we'll approve the fat number tonight, and then next time we'll approve our pieces parts. Right. Okay. No. But we still need Denise, or Denise, Sandra, to tell us the only change we made in the end is the 11 and the only potassium after to 11,000 from 10. So is Sandra? So you added, let me summarize, you added 10,000 back in, because the leftward assistant was reduced by 10. So you put 10 back in. When the budget goes to press, it will show that 22.5, broken up over two cells. You also put a thousand dollars back into your delinquent tax collector cell. So your bottom line is $1,480,473. It says nine cents. You don't, you're not going to put the nine cents in. That came from a formula, right, that's embedded in this spreadsheet for you to work on. So you would, your total operating budget is $1,480,473. Wait a minute. That's what has to go in your warning. Is that the total GT and highway and special? Yes. Sandra, wait. It's just that window. That's what she gave us is the blue line. Wait, Sandra, the budget that you sent us, the most recent one, line 297, showed for this year before the changes of tonight. I have one, four, six, eight, five, six, four. And she just added. You add 11,000 to that. You get one, four, seven, nine, five, six, four. Are we in agreement? No, your numbers are going to change because the pipe and the number will change. Okay. Thanks. So it's a bit of a cascade. So it's 1,408,473. Okay. And that does not include social service appropriations. And we don't, we don't do cemetery. And it doesn't include. Right. You wouldn't be, you wouldn't be approving any of anything below that. Because that goes to the voters. That can be voted up or down. Right. So those get voted on by the voters. So they're not included in our bottom line because we don't know if they're going to get approved. But we don't know if the other one can get approved either. But that's the way it works. So we're not in charge. And so, so we don't have to approve. I guess we only, the only thing we have to do is approve putting these are, these I unders on the warning, which is the social services, the fire department, cemeteries, their own thing. And so we are basically approving our, our proposed budget. Maybe that's the step we're taking. That is what we don't get to approve other people's proposed budgets. But we, right. So we don't get to approve the cemeteries. But we get to approve putting it in the, in the book. No, they, they're their own thing. They're elected. But we approve the warning. We approve the warning, yes. But we approve it. That's what I mean. We approve it going in the walk-in. Right. Just like the social services thing. Right. And the fire department. So that's totally separate. Okay. Sorry. So does that have a motion? We have a motion. Motion is to approve the budget as amended at one million four hundred eighty thousand four hundred seventy three dollars. Correct. I'll second that. Wait a minute. Okay. This discussion. I just want to bring this up. We, the last meeting here, we authorized to replace the foreign PECA. I mean that we've got because it's the limit. So we don't have numbers on that yet. But do we have to in any way? Yeah, you do. That's what I mean. I mean, we don't have the 23 rest west star numbers on that. Oh, we do have that. No, that's not a west star. This is not the truck that was bought. But what does that have to do with this budget? Because that will be. It's this fiscal year. That would be, that's starting July. But if we buy that. If we buy it this fiscal year, it comes out of this fiscal year. Oh, you're right. You're right. So and that's that truck's not alone. Well, I'm thinking. See if one law is going to be sunset or replaced with another one. And so that'll be some of the job. We can't. I was thinking when I was thinking that truck, I mean, we're not going to at least an eight month back home to get these things. So the purchase to me, I was thinking, okay, this is going to be in the next fiscal when that appears. So that's why. We told them to keep an eye on who knows what's going to happen. Right. Okay. So that's just sort of. Maybe the only bad thing on that truck mechanically are the bad lines. Yeah. What put these retrofitted adapters in it. It'll be cool. Okay. So usually. Okay. So all right. We're improving a budget of one million four hundred and eighty thousand dollars. Four hundred and three thousand. Four hundred. No, one million four hundred eighty thousand four hundred and seventy three. That's what that's one million four eighty four seventy three. Yeah. That's what Sandra gave us. That's what I just said. Right. Okay. And it's been moved seconded. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And the opposed hearing none. Thank you. And what is the just for just for fun. What is the breakdown? What is what is the percentage? 1.727 over last year. That's without all of these appropriations. No, that's just your general government and highway. 1.727. 1.727 is the is the your is the select board's proposed budget. If you if all the other articles are voted up as is it's a 3.6 increase over the last year. But that's not on us. No. And that's what I think voters never really understand is that we're proposing a town highway budget. Right. Everything else is stuff that they get to open or not. So there you go. And most of which we don't even develop. And can I ask a question? Yes, I am. Did you just say you're you're going to buy an additional a second purchase of a truck? No, never mind. That's not important. No, we're not. We're we're contemplating the new truck that's what I call the new truck of 2019 and whatever that thing is we're having issues with it despite its newness. And so we're we're thinking about maybe replacing it. And it might be a trade a high dollar trade for and it might not be that much difference. We'll have to figure that out. We may not do anything, Sandra. We don't know yet. So don't worry. I don't worry about that. No numbers. It's not enough to worry about this point. Okay. So here we are with the warning and you might have seen I sent everybody around the I don't know if this is the most current one. Katie, is this the most current warning? Yeah. Okay. You might have seen where I reached out to VLCT and they responded. It's pretty likely that the legislature in their first week of not a German recon meeting will approve towns having the ability to do town meeting like we did last year. If that's the case, then there's going to be a lot more warned items here. Because everything will be by Australian ballot. We would hold an informational meeting like we did last year, which we have under our belt because it worked very smoothly. So we won't know about the warning until after the legislature vote. So there's not really much to do, but I just want to make us aware. But Karen Horne said that first order for first item of business at the legislature is to take this issue up so she intends to space it will pass. Right. Because that's what she yes, I think that's what she responded to me this year. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there isn't really much to do here, but we should keep an eye on that. And I'm sure we'll know as soon as it happens. Next up, select board report. I went through that today and put I didn't I went through it again today too. Well, the problem Denise is what you sent is only it is an attachment and then attachments live all by themselves rather than being a Google document. Right. But I sent it to Katie who put it in the folder. It wasn't in the folder when I looked for it. So I don't know when you looked. Oh, yeah. I printed it as a warning. Well, I was working from 457 perfectly willing to go back into if it's in when you say the folder, you put it into night's folder. I put it in the town meaningful. Oh, I didn't put it there. I mean, I didn't think to have Katie put it there had it put into night's folder. So I will go through and incorporate my edits into what's in tonight's folder. Is that or should we just park it in the town meaningful there? So it doesn't have to keep moving across. Could you go in and make your edits but do it like in red or something? And then I would pose that I drafted this on maybe John and I after you knew your edits, get together, look at it again and then get it ready for the rest of the board to finalize. Is that satisfied? You're also set on the town report. This is the select board report that we put in the town. I think probably five people read it. Yeah. What is the what is it supposed to be? It's just an update. All the boards and commissions and committee put a document in the town report so that people know what they've been working on over the last year. This is our version of that. Okay. And is this something that is subject to the same July to January 4th deadline? Everything is. So in other words. This has to be done by okay. This was supposed to be done by December 15th. I was late getting it done. The office has given me an extension. Right. I'm with you. Okay. It just means that whatever you guys do. We will get it to you right away. You have no policy. You don't have to be. He just says, you know, Mark came to the meeting and did great work. Okay. So yeah. So it's look. It's not that big of a deal. No, I'm with you. So what I'm saying is we're just delegating to you guys to finish it. Right. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. Okay. Great. I'm perfectly happy. I trust you. Okay. Very good. Well, why don't I? Totally. Then why? If what? Denise is what's out there now. That's the latest version. It's but but so you didn't mark your changes. No, because I hadn't worked from anybody that even they even got my email with the attachment. So I just went in today and today or yesterday, I forget and made some more edits. So if you could put your edits in there, maybe do them in red or green or purple. I don't care. So we know or I know what's different than what I put in. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, the overall theme is tightening it up and taking out the stuff that felt boring to me. Just to say, you know, and we don't think it's boring. That's what I'm worried about, Denise, is that every all of my efforts going to be just wasted. And we're also, last year, you did a pie chart, which we don't, which I will do. I think the pie chart is really important. Maybe I'm the only one who cares about pie. I like the pie chart. What was the pie chart of? The pie chart is a is a is a visual, a visual that reminds everybody that the town's budget is, it's the biggest piece of pie, but the other pieces are significant and we have no control of them. Yeah, right. And the other piece that even though we're not We're not the biggest piece of school, but it's the biggest. I don't even put that in there though. No, it should be. I thought you should. Yeah, I thought you should. I don't think I have it. I thought you did. I thought every year I was not pretty sure I didn't put it in. I thought I have it. If, if I had it, if, if somebody can get me a school number, I'll put it in. But what it does show, Mark, what it does show is that of the town's budget by the, the high of, of all the things people vote on, the highway is half. Is the school in there? I don't remember. I didn't want school budget is in the, it's, it's in the town of Fort. Can you send me a school number? Do you know where to get one? Yeah, I know where to get one. I'm sure we'll get some services. Yeah, I don't know. No, it's not in there. I think it would be important. The highway is 45 percent or something. Right. But I think it would be good if we could get a number to put the school piece in there. I'll get, I'll, I'll be great. Thompson tomorrow morning, so. Okay, so, and what's my deadline for the pie? ASAP, everything that's January 4th, that's what it is. Yeah. It's okay to rush. Just don't burn your pie. Right. Right. Yeah. Can I, can I ask you a question? We got, this is probably, and that is, should we have, should, since we pulled, since we're pulling out the fire department this year for, we're separating that now it's an article. It's going to be, it's going to be a warm item. So should we, right, but no, I'm just for to inform, you know, the public, so that they have a way of comparing apples to oranges. Should we have some or give us a number, what that would look like. Since this is what it's always been in the past, if that number was actually in our kind of budget, what that increase was going to be. No, no, no, let's do, let's do, I mean, just to get from the fire. You can explain it on the floor if you want. The fire and safety, right? Well, I just, just want to make sure it's easy to do that. I don't, that means we have to have two budgets. We can't do that. Rick, Rick, and this actually goes to your, to your point in a more simple, in a, oh, perhaps there was a simplified way. Fire and safety is its own way to the pie. Right. And has been historically. So there's that point of comparison. Okay, no, I'm just, I'm just going to, I understand what you're saying, but that means we would have to put print to budgets and we can't do that. Why don't we know? I mean, just have another for us. So that'll be free budget, there's wood very slowly. It isn't, it actually isn't. Just, just draw up your, your talking points and you'll have the handy for the information viewing. Right. Because it's, when the final budget is done, it has the breakdown of the amount of fire and, fire and ambulance and the bottom line. So it's there. All right. Is there anything else that we need to talk about tonight? It is quite like for three minutes executive session. You promised. Personnel, just three minutes. I'm going to go to the bathroom while the camera packs up. Everybody, okay. Now while you're doing that, we have to move to go and do executive session. Right, but we're not doing that yet. Okay. You're moving. Okay. Or did you move? I moved. And you seconded? The personnel. Yes, the personnel matters. Makes sense. Thank you so much. Thank you, Sandra. Thanks, Katie. Thanks, Sandra. Recording stopped.