 Get back on track here. I want to add an addition to the agenda. We would like to talk about, briefly, five minutes about a CLG grant for East Calis, and Scott, and David, and Mark Mahaly over here. Does everybody know everybody? Do we need to do any introductions? I'm Mark Mahaly. I know everybody on board. I'm Sharon Lynn. I don't know Mark. No, I don't. OK, and that's Tom Brady Vance. Hi. Hi. No, no, no. Oh, we don't need to do an attendance. Oh, I have my clipboard. OK. Katie, our recording secretary, got sick at the last minute, so she's not able to join us. I'm going to pass around an attendance sheet, and I'll do everybody can just put their name on it. All right, so David, quickly. Thank you for allowing us to present to you. We're under a timeline that calls for a 2020 Calis Certified Local Government grant to be applied for by the 19th of this month. And the Calis Historic Preservation Commission met recently. We went through three different ideas for grants in the coming year, and overwhelmingly, and completely in agreement, every member of the commission, want to submit a grant application to help resurrect the East Calis General Store. So there's much talk, of course, of what's going on here in West Calis with the Maple Corner Store, but there is also a small group of people that is gathering on the east side of town to do essentially the same thing, but with a very different strategy. In this case, this is a building that is historic. In the case of Maple Corner, not so much. So this is the perfect example of a gathering place in the community, as well as a commercial necessity for the residents on the east side of town, particularly in view of the fact that Woodbury no longer has its general store. North Montpelier no longer has its store. So in the Route 14 corridor, the East Calis General Store is vital to all of our residents on that side of town. So the Preservation Trust of Vermont got involved with this group, which, as I understand it, includes you, Denise, as well as Scott Bassage, and Scott will bring you. Scott Ruby is the best person to bring you up to date on where that effort stands. But basically, we're concerned about the building, so we want to do an assessment of the building that would allow them, this group, to go forward, knowing exactly what the needs of the building are, and basically putting together a capital budget for that project to continue and to make progress. And this grant is due on the 19th. That's a little bit like creating a sculpture. It's a little bit unformed right at the moment. Not all the details are done. But we've got a good idea of what the budget will be and the basics. We're going to hire consultants to help us with co-compliance in the building. We'll have our consultant walk through with a fire marshal. Labor industry also go through there. We'll create some fairly basic plans that we can then use to apply for big grants. This is the last time that this group will come to the select board asking for money. And you can put that in the minutes. You mean the ECC people? Yeah. This is the last time that the East Calist doer. The Calist Historic Preservation Commission will be back. Oh, yes. Will we be back? We'll be back. What is ECC, East Calist Community Trust? It's a nonprofit. And the mission is to save the building and buy that method to save the store. If you want to learn more about it, I'll give you later. Yeah, so I'm sorry because I'm trying to look at this, which I completely doesn't have anything to do with the work. That's the history of our CLG grants. OK, so what? The first CLG grant we got for the town hall, for example, was an engineering study. And that was the basis for all the work that we did from then on. And that's kind of what we're going to do with this grant, except instead of asking the town for money, we're going to be asking lenders. Funders and lenders for money. Donators. Donators. But we do need this basic engineering. So the idea is that in order to file this grant, the town has to sign off on supporting it. The funding for the town's share, which some of it's in kind, some of it's not historically, right? That's right. If there's any payout of funds, it would come out of the East Calist Community Trust. So literally the request is for us to support the effort, Wahoo sign-off. It's just basically, it has to come, because of the nature of the grant, it has to come, if you will, through the government. We will not undertake work when we don't have the money to do the match. So the town won't be on the vote. Our fundraising goal is to have enough funds to purchase the building end of April, beginning of May. And you said the grant is awarded in April. April, yeah, we've got a year and a half to spend. The timing is perfect. Yeah, right. So if we don't, the match potentially could be $12,000. All the other grants that we've done is the Historic Preservation Commission have had the great majority of the match met by in-kind labor. For example, that's why I passed this year around last year, the town was out $472. That was what we missed in the match. Because we've spent so much time on the town hall for many years, one grant after another, that was really a bit of an anomaly for commissions like ours, which have a general purview of what's good for the town in terms of historic preservation. What are the types of projects that we want to support that are going to make sure that an historic general store in East Calus can survive? So this is more typical of what we do rather than necessarily concerning ourselves with town-owned properties like the town hall. So because this was an addition to the agenda, the goal here tonight is to see if the board will support it. And then it needs to be filed on the 17th. So somebody from the board will need to sign this document. So we are meeting on the 14th. And since this wasn't warned, does the board want to officially vote on this when we meet on Saturday so that we can officially warn it, which still gives us enough time. And then the board can then, and you wouldn't need to come back. And then the board could authorize one of us to sign the grant application. I think that's procedurally, I think that's the way we should do it. You guys have a consent agenda. Do you do that? Or are you just a consent agenda? No. Yeah, we have our own agenda. Yeah, we have our own agenda. No, you don't do it. What? OK, we can talk about that. Your answer to this question is no. You can explain that to me later when she checks in. She checks in with us on each agenda. That sounds great. OK, can we not talk about this right now? That's great. Thank you. Thank you. And I will report back to you on that. Sounds good. Thanks. On the 12th, it will be almost done. Thanks a lot. I'm still working on this one for the report for the time and part. Thanks very much. Thank you. Sorry, guys. You're next. When I get up, I will. I have one, too. Basically, we're, can you know anybody? No. Maybe you guys can swim. You can see that maybe you guys can come in first. Yep. I am Ann Marie. I'm proud. I'm Ann Marie. I'm Jim Clark. I think we've been in that a long time, like all this. I work at the store. And you're friends with Jennifer Whitman. I am my friend. Yeah. Darren, that's it. So basically, we're just here to see if you guys will approve a liquor license for us. It's not anything different than, I didn't say where I was from, the Maple Corner store in the whammy bar. It's not any different than the licenses that the previous owners have on hopefully next Tuesday. So a week from tomorrow, we're going to be closing on buying, purchasing the store. Congratulations. Thank you. And we're trying to have our licenses in place so that we can continue selling at that time. And my understanding is we give, there's a sheet on the application for you guys to fill out. And I spoke with the licensing director of the Vermont Department of Liquor. And he said, we can hand him the application after you guys approve it. No. And just a little backstory. Artie and Nancy didn't renew everything because they knew this closing was coming up, so they haven't been able to sell some of the spirits that they were selling. Because licenses are not transferable. And it was like a matter of weeks from when they needed to re-file that would have lost like 500 bucks, which didn't make any sense. So that's why we waited until now because you're doing the closing. Did you bring a check? Yeah. For you guys. And I mean, I have a check for the Department of Liquor. Right, but I think it's, I forget how much it is for the town. It's 185. It's 115 for the first class license and 70 for the second. Right, because it's one, there's one longer license for beer and wine and then another you have to have if you're going to serve hard alcohol. Can we approve, what are the technicalities around approving tonight for the organ, are we approving for the organization, even though you don't own anything to serve through? But they exist as an organization. They exist as an organization. And I think we can put on there the effective date. Would be the date of your closing, which is, I thought it was the 16th, is it the 17th? It's going to be the morning of the 17th. The morning of the 17th. So we can make it effective on the 17th. And the town has to approve it before the state will. Right. And the state won't approve it until we are legal owners. So if we want to actually be able to sell alcohol right when the changeover happens, then something has to happen before we actually go down for it. Then it's the chicken or the chicken on the other end, right? Yeah. Would somebody like to make a motion to approve the class? What is it? Class? There's a first class, second class, and a third class, license. And that's what you're asking for. You're selling all three classes. Effective. License. December 17th. State applicant in the motion. Yeah, I need to know. It's the Maple Corner Community Store. Here's the new name of the corporation. New entity. Is it a corner? Is there an ink or a? It's incorporated. Maple Corner Community Store, LLC? No, INC. INC. Who made the motion? I did. Oh. Is there a second? I'll second. Is there any further discussion or questions? I mean, we've done these routinely, anyways, because everybody that does anything like this has to apply every year, I think. Every April, 30th, every place. Are you going to have to do this again in April? We will, but it'll be a renewal rather than a. An application renewal. I'm not 100%. Yeah, you guys have to approve it every year, as far as I know. Yeah, we do. Yeah, this is the sheet that you guys fill out, and that is the check. I'm going to just keep this all together, and let's give it all back to you. Well, I think you're going to have to come back tomorrow so that Judy can give you a photo copy. It's really fun. And I think that the full, I remember, right? The full board. Yes, the full board has to sign this. So I'm going to. Meet the vote. Yes, all those in favor of approving this effective. What month are we in? December 17th. Along with the CLG grant, we'll just make everything the seven. Great. Hi. Hi. Okay, all good. The town of Calis today is the 9th, and I will send this around for circulation. And if need be, do we want to say, I think we can say on here effective 12, 17, 19, or on closing. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I'm not sure what to do by the board of control. Oh, I guess this is, must be where they sign it. Judy signs it. So I will send this around for the board to sign. And if you want to come back in or call Judy. Oh, maybe in the morning. Yeah, maybe she can just scan it and email it to you. Great. Thank you. It does stay on there for you guys to mail it, but I asked if it was okay if we bring it because it's quicker. Mm-hmm, great. He said that was fun. Okay. See you in the morning, Judy. Yes, thank you. All right. Thank you. Congratulations again on the live. Thank you. Take care. All right. I want to go to the library. Join us. So does everyone remember Carolyn Brennan from this morning? I remember if everybody was here or not, I wasn't sure. Maybe you weren't clear. Anyway, Carolyn is one of the new, new hostels since July 1, co-directors of the library. I'm just gonna let you take it away. All right. Well, I'm a newbie at this, so forgive me if I do something wrong. So we're here to be put on the warning for town meeting. We are asking for the same amount of money that we requested for prior two years, and that's $27,132. And so I sent out on Friday some copies of the one page report that ends up going in the town report, but I did bring extra copies if anybody needs one or would like one. And then I have this index of statistics which has some general library statistics at the top and some Calis specific stats at the bottom. And so, and I sent that around as well. So I think everybody also got that, but I've got more copies of that. Yeah, I think it's in the folder, right? I see the cover of the email and I'm looking for the document that's on the screen. You know, I got an email Saturday from Richard Maisel and he didn't intend to send it to me and it said, I'll put these in the folder. Oh yeah, I actually didn't get quite a see that too. Yeah, so I don't know what happened, but. He doesn't put stuff in our folder. No, you wouldn't put stuff in our folder. Katie, his, the water. Yeah, the cover email's here, but the document. Okay, well, regardless. Yeah, so our statistics at the library in general are, we had a really great year last year. Yeah, we topped 300,000 total circulations. We had like 302,000 circulations, including e-book and audio book and online database use. So we are seeing that our number that goes up the most every year is digital downloads. And the great thing about those is you can access that material from any internet connected computer anywhere. So it's one of those services that the library can offer even when we're not actually open to the public. Do you get any monetary benefit from that anywhere? From having a digital downloads? No, I mean, it goes into our overall circulation statistics. So we were, you know, we reported back to you guys and the two are member towns and we reported to the department of libraries, but we pay for that service. It's part of the Green Mountain Library Consortium. So we, there's a group of libraries in Vermont that subscribe to this service because individually, for an individual library, downloadable content, digital content is generally, it's anywhere from twice as expensive or 10 times to 10 times as expensive as it's analog counterpart. So for individual libraries, even one of our size, it becomes cost prohibitive really quickly to have online content. So we subscribe to the Green Mountain Library Consortium. And last year we paid, well we pay based on our library size or our overall, how many patrons that we have, active patrons. And then we pay based on downloads. So it's a set number for our number of patrons and it's 10 cents per use. And so it cost us, I think, $5,700 for that to subscribe to that service last year. To provide to this Green Mountain? Yeah, that we provide to Green Mountain Library Consortium. We just got the invoice for this year and it was about $1,000 over that because our use went up from 16,000 to 22,000 users. So what kinds of stuff can you download? What are you talking about? So it's e-books and audio books for mobile devices. And we've had this service for a decade now at this point and it's just one of those things that goes up exponentially every year. So it's a service where we're always looking to see what the turning point is for digital resources and when we should spend more of our budget on things like that and whatnot. And it's free for members? It's free for members. So it's an alternative to buy and look on Kindles when I'm here. That's exactly right. That's precisely it. Yeah, it's too bad you don't talk about that a little more. I know, yeah, exactly. It's a really great service. It is. And the thing is, we have an awful lot of services that I couldn't possibly fit in the annual program. But this is a really great one that I've got a lot of people or maybe our members don't know about and they might become a member if they did. That's true. And one of the things that we are seeing, so I don't want to get super technical, but I'm a, computers and systems and the technical aspects of the library are my kind of first love. So I can get very computer-y very quickly. So apologize me ever. I apologize if I do that. But what did I want to say about that? Oh, so with these digital downloads, one of the things that we did in our past year was we upgraded our cataloging system. So we went from a cataloging system that was called Fall at Destiny and it's primarily used for K through 12 school applications. And we changed over to a company called Autographics Verso. And Autographics has a bunch of benefits to our patrons. It was a little bit of a bumpy road getting people adjusted to a new system because you have to create a new login and you login differently and it looks different. And so you have to learn a new computer system. But it connects dynamically to our ebook and audiobook download service so that if a patron has a library card number but they haven't been into the library in five years, it, the systems can talk to each other and say, well, this person hasn't borrowed their cards when expired for four years and then they have to call us and they have to read up their card. So it's going to give us even more accurate patron numbers and patron counts than we've had previously because it's, it's a- That's kind of always been a question. How many years in really? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, and we've done a lot of work on that in the past, well, since I've been there. So for the past three years, we've worked really hard on making sure that our patron counts are accurate by town. And, but this is another way that we'll bring some of the folks that were you maybe using some of these services but not coming into the library, they at least have to give us a call and say, hey, I still want to use my library card and we have to give them, make sure that they- Re-up it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, have to re-up it. Yeah. So that's one thing. We, we got out into the communities a lot this summer. I did mention that we marched in the Black Flag Parade. That was- Oh, did you? That was such- In that way. I painted my- Good photos of it. Yeah, we do some good photos of it. I painted my wheelbarrow gold and pink and we all put on costumes and we filled the wheelbarrow full of giveaway books and so at the end of the parade, we gave away children's books. Oh, great. A whole new thing to do. Yeah, it was wonderful. And that was not my idea. I can't take credit for it, but I did get to participate. It was our outreach coordinator's idea. So we're always looking for other ways that we can get out and be- Active in the community. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. And we're in the prices and going up, which is even better. The prices and going up. Yeah, we changed our administrative model this year as you know with Tom's retirement and so that because we didn't hire another top executive at the library, instead we hired staff level positions and we moved work around and changed some people's job descriptions a little bit, but that's one of the things- I like it. See, it was an internal rear of things. I like it. We did. Yeah, yeah. I think what you say there was one person whose job didn't change. That's right. So we have 16 full and part-time staff members of the library and 15 of us were either doing new work or had a job title change or job description change. Does that feel good though? You know, it really does. And that's the thing is all of this has been, there's been a lot of change to manage, but it's all really positive. We have professionals- If you do it the right way, it can be rewarding. That's exactly it. A lot of empowerment. If you do it the wrong way, it's really awful. Carolyn and Jesse sat down with every staff member and said, this is what we're thinking. What do you think? And what ideas do you have? And, you know, without exception, the staff was behind all these changes. So everybody's happy. Everybody's right. Yeah, yeah, no, it's been really exciting. It's definitely, it's all going out, but it's been really fun. Tom's doing well? Tom's doing well. We just, I just saw him on Saturday. We had our annual Gallup fundraiser evening at the library. And so Tom attended that. It was six months to the day since his last day of work. Yeah. And I said, how's your first six months of retirement, Ben? Second retirement. Yeah, second retirement. Exactly right, yeah. And he said it was wonderful. He traveled to Italy. He's been spending time with his grandkids and his parents that lived down in Connecticut. So he's having a blast. Oh, good, Paul. Good. I was thinking, as you asked about him, I would be remiss if I didn't say at least one last time or one more time. Things turned around so much once Tom took over as director. Yes, they certainly did. And I came on the board right when he started as interim director and always felt really lucky that I had a clean slate. Things were not so good at the library for a long time. And it had to do with the previous administrator. And Tom was just so on top of so many different aspects of the library's management and structure and PR. And I felt like whatever he told us, I believed him. Yeah, that was pretty true. And that was really important. And these two are just poised to continue and expand on so much of that. It's really a great time to be there. Well, we thank you for your time. And thank you for your work. I do think you should put out more about this. Digital stuff, digital download. Yeah, just about everything we offer is on our website. And that's another thing that's new we rebuilt it about a year ago, more than a year ago. Yeah, and we've got all kinds of plans for next year as well. I bet you do, so very good. So think about maybe not this time meeting, but the next time meeting. We're now at Cal's Elementary School. We have a greater capability through, what is it called, projections or presentations. You guys could do a quick walkthrough on how this new program works. Am I allowed to do that? We could invite. You could ask, and we could invite you to do it. Yeah, I'd love to give a presentation. Why do I do this? We could put it under this agenda item. We could put it on this year. If you want a few time to do that. I don't know where. I mean, I don't know what part of the meeting we would do it at, maybe we would do it during lunch. Yeah, I was going to say there. People could get their lunch, and go and sit and watch the presentation. We'll get one when we discuss this budget item. Might be a good opportunity. Two or three minutes, really quick. I mean, we let our state reps and senators come in all of a sudden. Oh, here we are. We put everything on hold. Your town meeting is actually on town meeting today. Oh yeah, at the Cal's Elementary School. That would be great. And Greg's always there. I need the education. Well, they would rather do it at lunchtime, so you might have a little bit longer Q&A. But you could give the update at town meeting, when we're discussing the article. You could say there would be this presentation at lunchtime, blah, blah, blah. If you think it's realistic, because we're also we're in all the other towns in Montpelier. So people are out front of City Hall in Montpelier, just urging support. That's true, too. Right. If there's something on a website or on YouTube that you downloaded, then we're good enough. We can call it YouTube. Let me think about what that would look like. And before I overcommit myself, let me make sure I don't have to be in about four places of right now. Let's get back to us. And yeah, that's a good idea. That's wonderful, and I appreciate it. And I think it would open up people's eyes a little bit more to it's not just the library. Oh yeah, no, we do so many, so many other things. And Orca can video it for you. I'm off right now, right? Orca will be there videoing our town meeting. Jerome is in our pocket. I was going to say, Orca does most of our programs. Anyway, there's definitely a handle. And then, if we made a video of that, I couldn't go to all of the towns simultaneously. Yeah, right. That's right. That's right. That's what I said. You should come on YouTube and sign the letters. See you come to Calis and we find more work for you. That's all right. I want to say, we are always looking for other ways to reach out. If any of you or other people have ideas for programs in town or anything like that, we definitely want to hear it. And our outgoing board president, Steve Gold, is always saying, we've got to do more. We've got to do more for the towns. And so people don't even really have to think about, hmm, am I going to vote for this? It's like, well, of course I'm going to vote for this. And I think we are close to that in most of all the towns. I would say Calis always supports that. Yeah, I know. There's a few questions here, but it always passes. And I'd love to quote a certain resident who suggested that, really, why do we need that? All we need is Siri. We have Siri. And why do we need a library? People are like, hmm. Anyway, his name shall remain nameless. Nameless. Talk to me. Infamous. I don't know what Siri is. I don't know what Siri is. And also, I'll just mention quickly, as I mentioned, Steve Gold is outgoing. I am also outgoing as vice president, because we have term limits for officers. So I've been vice president for four years. So I'll be stepping back from that role. But I will be re-upping on the board for one more three-year term. We have a nine-year maximum tenure on the board. So I'm thinking about who wants to take my place in three years. OK. Probably Dave Daly. He does, right? You know, it's totally enjoyable. It truly is. Is there anything else you guys need for me? No, we're all set. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Roads are slick, so be very careful. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Now we know how to do that. Isn't it? Digital downloads. Yeah. Newberry Fire Department. OK, Chance, I'm going to give you a little grief right out of the gate. I heard you tore the store down. You're working on it. It's half-down. You didn't suddenly take anything ahead of time. I wasn't sure you were coming. Yes, I've been fixing things. We got the budget approved by the department, but I had to go through and fix the spreadsheet. It got a little tweaked, but I got the people. OK, thank you. It was producing very odd numbers. Oh, oh, we can't have that. No, it was just the percentages that were off. The numbers were still right, but the percentages weren't going to be right. And what about the contracts? That gets renewed every year. OK, because it's the thing in the contract that when we do it this time, we need to change the timing of a payment. Yeah, we can only do that with one town, and you guys are going to be the town. Because the town of Woodbury actually gives permission to the select court to borrow money to pay for those types of things. Oh, OK. You guys don't. So you guys win. Right, because we had that issue this year with the timing of the amount of money it was due and tax collection and all that. So that's not tonight. This is just budget tonight. Yeah, this is just budget. And then once we deal with that, we sign the contract. When do we sign the contract this and what? It's after town meeting, daddy. Does it begin July 1st? Yes, the bonus. Yes. Well, that's on our agenda. fiscal year July 1 to June 30th? Yeah, we sign it right after town meeting. Right. Once we have the approval, then we sign the contract. And I didn't notice that in the contract or it did cause a little bit of heartburn on both sides. But we figured it out. You figured it out? Yeah. We generally do, I guess. Yeah, we do. For the most part. So the bottom line is the 2021 budget is a little less than last year's budget. Why is that? Well, it's essentially maintenance costs on trucks. We're not spending as much to fix trucks because we're buying newer trucks. So once again, that was one of the benefits of looking into buying newer trucks was we could stop dumping all this money into fixing the ones to try to keep them on the road. Right, so it's going from 12, 6, 8. 12, 6, 5, 5 for truck maintenance to 8. But you're not asking for a new truck right now, right? Nope. Well, we got the approval from both towns to do the capital replacement plans, which we've started doing. And we found another truck to purchase to replace the two really old ones that were on that spreadsheet that I brought last year. And that one cost $245 for a rescue pulver. So we got about a $400,000 truck for $245. So we're working on almost free. Well, it really is almost free, for a fire truck anyway. It's not a place to ride on. Well, you know what you said? They drew the red paint. Well, that's the funny thing, it was a white truck. And I went, oh, we can't buy a white truck. It's going to look like a snow bank. I mean, you know, a snow bank moving down the road. But this truck was completely outfitted. It had all the drawers and trays and everything else. Just like our old, the last one we bought, we bought a demo model. Saved us a ton of money, but it's giving us all the new stuff and nice trucks. And it's going to continue to show in the maintenance lines, because we bought that Rosenbauer. And then we bought the pickup, and now we're buying this. So hopefully we'll keep wood on that maintenance fee right out of here, hopefully. But so yeah, we were looking at, it went down overall 0.7%. Of course, you got the insurance and airpacks and things that we just can't get rid of. Those were the biggest changes. One was $239, because last year, we only budgeted $117. So it looks like 239% increase in a mine item, but it was really $300. Oh, the airpacks? Yes. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah. Other than that, the biggest change is just insurance and that dispatching, which we have no way to deal with. Yeah, we have the same problem in Eastland. Yeah. EMA fees. And it's just crazy how much dispatching is going on. They tell us how much. And that's what it is. And you have no say so. No input, no nothing. It's so frustrating, that whole dispatching thing. I know it's so mandatory. I mean, you need it. You've got to have it. But it's like they've got you. Yeah. Well, that's it. Without it, we're never going to get to any of these calls. Right. Can you leave me an extra copy of this? Of course. I'm going to give it to you all. I've got a couple. I just didn't have three or four of them. One last thing. Thank you. So the one question we had at town meeting last year from the new lady that had just moved into town was why the percentages were different. She wanted to know. She came right out. She said, I don't know why I'm new here, but I noticed. And I'll use these numbers as an example. It's a 0.7% decrease. And Callis is having a 3.8 increase. And Woodbury is a negative 2.8. Why is that? And I explained to her that this was that three-year average thing that started 20 years ago, whatever it was. I keep my eye on that every year, hoping someday we're going to get it so close that we can get rid of that three-year average. But we're not quite there. I checked it this year. And if we went and get rid of the three-year average and went with you guys just doing a straight third of the budget, it would be an increase of 7.8% and $35,196.73. So we're not at that point where we can get rid of that ridiculous average thing. So unfortunately, I'm going to keep looking at it every year. And hopefully one of these years is just going to be a nice smooth and we'll be done with it. And then everybody will see a 0.7 negative increase or whatever the increase or decrease is. So it's a little easier to explain and understand. I'm all about transparency. And that just fogs things up. I understand why they did it all those years ago, but it just doesn't make any sense to me moving forward. So I'll keep looking at it. But so that's what we're looking at. The total budget for Calis would be $33,908.35, plus the truck fund of $17,850, and the capital replacement of $31,000. Those are down at the bottom. Oh, OK. I see. Yeah. So it's not any different than last year. As far as? Um, yeah, because we got that 3.8% then again for 2021 up at the top operating. Yeah, that's a percent higher this year. Yeah, from last year. Right. I mean, the overall budget went down by roughly $10,000. But our share of anything didn't go down. It went down $2,000. Where? $116,000 was last year's budget. $116,000. And then right next to that is $115,000, which is this year's proposed budget. But the Calis portion. The Calis get to enjoy some of that. That's at the top. Yeah, at the top. So we didn't, are the amount that we have to contribute? Right, but it's not the last. No, it's not. This is what I keep talking about. You guys have been on the losing side for the last four years. Before that, it was Woodbury who was always seeing the increase and you guys were always seeing the minus. Right, right. And that's why this is such a subject every year. Oh, of course it is. Of course, it comes up in Woodbury when they're on the losing side. And it's like, how are you going to stop that from happening? Well, I'm hoping at some point here, because when I figured out a third of the budget, which is the $115 minus that $10,000. So it's $105,000 is the actual budget. OK, the $10,000 being the fund raising. Right, right, because nobody pays for that. That's other income we have. So the budget being proposed is $105,590.19. So when you divide that into two thirds and one third, your one third would be $35,196.73. That's an even bigger increase than what we're doing with the three-year average. I'm hoping we're going to. But then how much is Woodbury's out of that amount that you just rattled off? $71,681.84 is theirs. They're still paying their two thirds. We've only got up by $1,300. Right, right. Less than that. The problem is, is that three-year average, you guys are still on the losing side of that three-year average. I'm hoping in the next year or two, it's going to get closer to 0,0 for everybody, and we can just get rid of that. And then when we have a 0.7 negative decrease, everybody will see a 0.7 negative percent decrease. Instead of having to have the same conversation every year, it decides which end of the town I have to have it in. Woodbury are here. And I keep having the same conversation. And you'll be having it again? I'll be having it again. And hopefully, like I said, another year or two, we'll get you guys close to it. So it'll be an even flush moving over, and then we'll get rid of this thing and be done with it. And again, it just adds to that transparency. I think it's good business. And this is all over some grant somebody got 20-something years ago. Right. And it's still haunting us now. It's still haunting us now. It probably sounded like a great idea at the time, I'm sure, but yeah. So that's it. That's the whole budget. OK. A lot easier than last year. Yeah. Yes. So the follow-up question is, do you guys want us presenting three different articles? Are you guys going to put it into your budget the way you did the year before? How do you guys want to do this? Last year, we put the regular budget in last year, but we warned a separate article because of the Capital Equipment Fund getting it started off. So I think it's a board decision. We're going to meet on Saturday, so we can decide then. Just let me know what you guys want to do. Because Paul's working on the report, which obviously the year's not done yet. But as soon as that's done, then I will put that together with the budget. And however you guys decide, if you guys decide you want articles, then I'll write up the articles for you. And so the big blip was last year, and that was a one-time thing. No, that happens every year. No, the blip was the creation of the Capital Fund. What you're talking about, the $31,000. That was the first year, so that's the blip you're talking about, right? But it's an ongoing item that they would like to continue to have funding for. So we don't run into, OK, we need to put an article on the warning for $100,000 for our share of a new truck. So that's so it's you're asking for, sorry, obviously a little slow on the uptake. So you're asking for $33,908.35 for operating and $31,000 for the capital. And the truck we're playing on, I think. And $17,850 for the truck. The truck fund right here, this is something we've been doing for a while, the $17,850. Right, so what you're saying is we last year put in the $17,850 and operating amount into our budget because it was the first year of creation of the Capital Fund, we put it on a warning. So now the board needs to decide whether it's going to keep putting it on as a warned item or put it into the budget. Correct. Yeah, so I guess I would want to go back and see how we've ordered that warning to see if it prevents us from putting it into the budget. So we'll take care of looking at that. True. Yeah. OK, all right. Thank you. Perfect. Anything else you want to give us an update on? On a side note, I've changed jobs a couple of times down at the state, but the biggest recent most thing I've been getting signed off as an instructor for a lot of different programs like ALICE, which is a hostile and active shooter training. So now I'm certified instructor for ALICE. I'm a certified instructor for Stop the Bleed, which is a big national movement. I'm also a CPR instructor now. So if the town or something would like, let me know, reach out to me, and we can try to set something up. There was something that you mentioned at one of our building committee meetings that Woodbury does, Fire Department does, that I didn't realize. Uh-oh. No, it was a good thing. And I was just like, wow, I didn't know you guys did that. It wasn't the water rescue thing, although that gets used a lot more, that boat gets used a lot more than I think what people realize, way more than I realized. But there was something else you were saying that you guys do. Oh, you're going to be not? First response? Yeah. Yep. Paul, Arlene, Tim, and myself are working on completing that license. We've got, we now have six EMTs. Tim is in EMR. James Dailey is in EMR. And then myself, Paul, Arlene, Jacob, Caleb, and my daughter, Olivia, all went through and got our EMT licenses. Which is more EMT or EMT? EMT is higher. EMT is higher. Yeah. So we have eight medical staff now on our fire department as well. And we're actually working on getting our District 6 license because right now we are District 4 because of hard to rescue. But Washington County is District 6. So does that mean you could coordinate more with EMT? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yes, that's the plan. I thought you couldn't cross out. Oh, no, because you won't be crossing over county lines or whatever that whole thing is. Right. Because Woodbury is part of District 6, and we can serve District 6 once our license is approved. That would be good to put in our notes, because we're meeting with, or, yeah. You're going to be meeting with the other guys soon? Yeah, well, and that's it. I mean, obviously, if we respond to a car accident on Route 14 and there's somebody hurt, I'm going to treat them regardless of the district because I have an old version to care. So how does that work, then? If a call, a 911 call goes in, somebody's requesting an ambulance, blah, blah, blah, will both Woodbury and East Montpelier hear the same call? Yeah, we'll both get told. So I guess the question is, then, how do we coordinate? You don't need maybe both departments showing up? Well, they're going to show up because they're in an ambulance. We don't have an ambulance. But we may get on scene. They may have already gotten there, and they're going to say, we don't need anybody. Or we may get there first. And start whatever. And start caring until the ambulance gets there, exactly. And that's what we do with hard-wick rescue as well for hard-wick. And then how does that get built? For us. Do you build insurance? EMTs don't get built. We don't build. We're a volunteer for hard-wick rescue. But you know how East Montpelier is always putting in? That's the ambulance. That's the ambulance. That's the ambulance. Correct. Yeah, that's the ambulance. And we don't have an ambulance, so. You guys have the jaws of life, whatever they call an ambulance. Oh, yeah, that's one of the things I didn't know you had. We have two hydraulic and one battery operated. We're looking at switching over to all battery operated as we consolidate our fleet down. Space becomes a premium. And those big hydraulic generators and hoses and everything else have a lot of space. And we broke our jaws out of training. East Montpelier decided to. Well, actually, the stove guys were trying to cut something out of training, and it blew the piston right off it. Insurance covered it. They paid for it. But they would only pay for a like object. Well, you can't find 25-year-old jaws. So they said, well, this is going to be a like object, because you need to have jaws. So they paid for the battery operated jaws to replace that. So we've got the battery operated cutter, but we don't have the battery operated spreader or RAM. So we're working on that through fundraisers, trying to get those all replaced, so we can get that completely. So yeah, we're definitely in all hazards response. We just, if anybody watches our Facebook, we just had a horse rescue. On a lake again? No, this one was up on a mountain. Oh, that one? Yeah, I would say that. The horse had been up there for three days. They paid a drone company to come in, and fortunately for them, the horse was wearing that big orange blanket. So they picked right up where he was, and we cut our way up and walked the horse down. Unbelievable. Getting back to what you were saying about trying to get this all straight in your mind. If you go back to the days before the Eastmont Pillar Fire Department had an ambulance service, when the tone went out, it said, Berry Tone Ambulance and Eastmont Pillar Fast Squad, please respond. It was such a sudden. No, but I'm saying that. But that's how you could think of it, is that the ambulance would come from Eastmont Pillar, but they would come like as a fast squad without an ambulance service. Yeah, medical college would just be fast squad. Right, right. Hopefully we'll be having that service real soon for all of us here. Well, you guys are going to work hard in the district. The license. The license is the... Yeah, all the paperwork stuff. Yeah. Huge. Yeah. Hopefully we're going to be able to be firefighters and EMPs again at some point here. Right. All this paperwork, yeah, let me... And then the building committee is continuing to meet. Yeah, well, we took the holiday season off until January. Right. So we're not doing anything for this town meeting? Nope, nope. My intention is to really start pushing some of this fundraising for the corporations and larger donation type items. Yeah. We do have bricks that we're going to sell, people who want to buy bricks for like a Memorial Park around the flagpole or whatever, if you want to buy one for your dad or your mom or yourself, whatever. We are going to do that eventually as well, but starting out... And they're trying to keep the budget to a more reasonable... Oh, it's definitely more reasonable than the last time anybody heard about a fire station in Woodbury because the last one was 3.6 or 3.7 million. This one is even coughed on that. This one's about 1.1. And this one will be in the downtown. It'll be right in the downtown, right beside that store there to be down. I thought they were trying to keep it below 1.1. Well, that's where it's at right now. Hopefully once we get... We've gotten a few other numbers that have kind of dropped it down, because it was up to 1.3. Oh, I know. After all those numbers came in. So we've been working on finding some closer to the truth numbers, really solid numbers on the different materials. And we're sitting about 1.2 right now. I think we're going to be able to probably get it down to at least 1.1 once we finish looking at all the numbers. And then it's going to be a serious plug for we're working on a fundraising letter to send out to the bigger corporations. See what we can pull in, get that number. And I gotta say, as part of the building committee, working with you guys is very good. I really appreciate the atmosphere. Well, we all have to work together. We're a lot easier that way. Right. And everybody hopefully gets what they need. Well, that's it. It's not about wants anymore. It's really about needs. That's why we've been discussing with Denise and the rest of the committee. We did invite a few members from Calis. One select board member and a member and the community. And then from Woodbury, we asked for a select board member and then a member of the community. And Barry's come to some of the meetings with me, but he's out of town a lot. Yeah, he's out of town a lot. But he's been pretty valuable when he was there. And even outside, he still sends emails that are pretty productive. So he's been a great add to the system. So it's nice. Anything else from the board? Any questions? Huge thank you and shout out to all the great work guys do. We're going to review it. Were there every Tuesday night? Come on over. I keep trying to do something for you. No, they're me. Well, you know. And not many holidays to all of you. Oh, thank you. And you guys as well. Enjoy. Thank you. Stay and try to stay out of trouble. If you need anything, just give me any thanks for that. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. We appreciate it. Good night. David Healy. How are you? Good evening. Pretty good. Good. I think I've been here in a while. Has it been a while? I think so. But anyway, I have been busy. We know how many months everybody loved the town as a positive select word. Yeah, I should be doing more just to publicize the efforts that are ongoing. But we started this thing from town meeting 18 and the first meeting was in May of 18. And I have to tell you, for some reason, about a third of the towns didn't reappoint the same person the second year, which really made it. Oh, that makes it hard. Because we had a lot of presentations. And so the same questions get asked. Was it due to disinterest by the prior appointees? Different interests? I don't know. I mean, the city of Barrie changed. The Barrie town changed. Northfield changed. Roxbury dropped in and dropped out. They still allowed them. Sometimes some consistency and some mystery is really important on any sort. The good news, I mean, to start with, I am the co-chair of the Business Development Committee. So I've been pretty active. And so between the one meeting a month on the five board itself, the Business Development Committee has been meeting at least another one or two meetings a month. Because we're trying to get money. And so in any event, the town of Moortown voted, I guess, last week or two weeks ago to join the district. I think we're just going to be backing up. That's a good thing. Oh, that's. Yes, probably. Well, I'm of two opinions. Yeah, I just slid back in my chair and happened to. Well, the roads are pretty bad right now. Highland? Yeah. I mean, the hill is solid ice. I hope I can get back up it. So anyway, I have two opinions about the size of the district. I mean, the larger it is, the longer it's going to take to build it out. Who gets first, who gets first? It's going to be a pretty interesting thing. First and first get built out. Well, so in any event, the Business Development Committee has been pretty adamant about, let's look at it realistically, because we have to borrow money and pay it back. So we better be building out where we have a good take rate. Right. So the money we've raised this year, we've got to think from one grant for $12,500, which we have a match one-to-one. We've got a rural development. You have to come up with the money. $12,500. You can't do in kind. Oh, that one, no. That one had to be cash. So we're still fundraising for that. There's money passed by NH153. I'll let me get through it. So then we applied for a rural development planning grant, which was $25,000, which has a match that's going to be in kind. There'll be some cash, but it'll be in kind, too. But that had to be match one-to-one, too. So I think we're going to probably do some cash and some, mostly me. In kind. Yeah. And I'm charging my billing rate, in terms of the in-kind. Yeah, yeah, we should. And then the last one is we, mostly myself, wrote the grant application for the Broadband Innovation Grant. This is the state legislation, which I was really happy to be passed. I mean, there's a lot of people who put a lot of time in the legislature to get that thing through, including the folks in EC Fiverr, the people down in southern Vermont, which are really feeling put upon in terms of having no service in the mountain area. So they passed this bill, where they were going to give out so much money. But the public service department decided to only give out three grants this round. And we got one of them for $60,000. And that's the one I heard of on the news. Right. So that just happened this month. That was great, because now we have enough money to actually get the consultant in and do the amount of work that needs to be done. So we put our RFP on November 3rd. We got eight proposals in last week. I just finished reviewing all eight of them this morning. And I'm sure there's going to be some consternation in the group to pick one of them. Two of them. I mean, what was a really great proposal was $200,000. I think we can do it between $60,000 and $100,000. Will there be any consensus in the board? Probably not. One of the issues that we have, and I am not a big fan of this, is actually just letting Dolly net. And what's the request of the RFP? To do a feasibility study first, and then from the feasibility. This is because of the way the legislation is worded. And in order to be able to borrow money from Vita, which they've authorized up to $4 million at three point. I figure I've found out $4 million. You have to show that it's feasible. So that's why it's split into two. So the second part of the project is a business plan to actually go out and do it. And that business plan, if the public service department approves it, is good enough to go to Vita to get money. So what $4 million would do would allow us to build out the first 120 miles. And we're hoping the feasibility study shows us where should that 120 miles be, so that we can pay back to Vita loan. And that's in the whole town. It's 17 towns. Most likely it'll be either one whole town or a consolidated area. And if I look at the response rate on the survey that we've put out that I've pretty much managed to, for some reason, the town of Middlesex, 21% filled in that survey right away of the residents. We thought that was huge. Calus is at about 10%, which is still a pretty good turnout. I mean, in my opinion, just from email from you and my posting in Front Forge Forum, it's not bad, but for some reason, Worcester and Middlesex, like, both of them are in the 20s, near to 20%. I guess we're not desperate enough. That's what I'm saying. But in terms of the survey, in terms of Calus, I ran the numbers today on the 94 people who filled it in. And I think there's like 680 households in Calus. The majority of them do have internet. Now, Front Forge Forum is on the internet, so it's hard to tell you, but the reason it is, it's almost all of them are unconsolidated. There's very few, there's less than 100% on Comcast. And nobody filled out the survey from Charter, and I thought Charter was in East Calus. They could be, I don't really know. I think they are, but I don't know. But nobody filled out the survey on Charter, so that's pretty funny. I mean, I don't know why. But in any event, the reason that we have, we have a high use, internet usage, but crappy service. Consolidated is what the town uses. Right. And so, there's a good interest in that. The other interest that came out in Calus that I thought was pretty good. 42, 45% said they would definitely subscribe if they had it. Probably would was another 42%. So, in looking at what they were gonna look at in this feasibility study is, what's the take rate proposed in Calus? Right, so you know how much income you might get. Correct. So that's gonna drive a lot of things. So the higher that number is in each town, I think it'll be a factor in terms of who goes first. The other good news, in my opinion, and we've been working pretty hard with Washington Electric Co-op to partner with them and whatever they end up doing. And you probably haven't heard this, but WEK is about to sign an agreement with VELCO, the Vermont Electric Power Group, which has fiber going to most of the substations in Vermont. They don't have it going to Maple Corner. Okay. Got some VELCO substation? No, it's a WEK substation. So what VELCO is trying to do is make sure it's managing all the loads. Oh, right. And know when something is out. Yeah, okay. So it's a whole, it's a pretty nice concept. And so Washington Electric's got a plan over the next two years of connecting the unconnected WEK substations to the VELCO fiber. Which is, would be Maple Corner. Which is Maple Corner. And then there's one in North Montpelio too, which is pretty close to Calis. Yeah. If that happened, then we have an access point to fiber, which would reduce, would be having to pay, if it was subscribing, it would pay some sort of fee to VELCO to use it. But right now we don't even have that fiber network. So that's the other thing that makes central Vermont difficult. There's no state fiber in central Vermont. It went to the Nazis kingdom, and down by White River Junction, and Randolph. Oh right, so the state fiber actually ends in Harburg. Of course. Of course. And it was an economic development thing that they did that. So I'm sort of encouraged by things that are going, but it's certainly not fast. I mean, people expecting high speed into that next. For Calis, I'd say it's five years, to be honest. I think there's going to be some shuffle. Who knows? I mean, if somebody was to dump a lot of money into Calis and say, listen, if you bring it to Calis first, I'll do it. So that was the other thing. The number of people who said they were either presubscribing Calis was really high. It was almost 50% of the people who filled out the survey in Calis said they'd presubscribe. And then the way the question is where we do presubscribe for two years, which is a chunk of change. Yeah. Well, it's an income. And then 12% said they'd loan money to the district. And 7% said they'd gift money to the district. So we're doing a fundraising letter now to the people who said they would give gifts to Calis. There you go. So we've been seeing season, right? Right, right. The other part is we meet every second Tuesday of the month, the public meeting. And does Jared go to all those meetings? Jared goes to probably half of them. And he goes to ones I can't go to. Right, so he's active. He's very active. He's also in the business development committee. Right, good. And he's the one that's done the website. So Calis has contributed quite a bit to this conversation. Let's not forget that. Which is really good. Well, yeah, he's put up the website the minutes. We've had a really hard time with minutes because the clerk resigned who was doing the minutes. And I haven't seen minutes about meetings in the last four months. So it's just really bad. Yeah, it is bad. The agendas get posted anyway. And they get noticed. You posted on from which form, your agendas? No, but I think I should be doing that. Yeah, make a little bit double duty there. Well, because people might really start paying attention to it. This is going on. I think people, if they don't see something, they don't. It's like, see the Piper Nell, let me see what we got. But if you've posted on from which form, even if they don't go, it's still there. It's there every once in a month anyway, yeah. So that'll be doing. What was the speed of the service you're going to? 100, 100. So it's, if you actually hire you than that, but. I'm looking at your loan eligibility under. Oh, yeah, 25, 3. No, the grant money was 25, 3. The loan money is 100, 100, yeah. Which is, you know, five, and so Comcast can't meet that. And in Consolidated can't meet that. Consolidated, if Consolidated was truly interested, they could do it. I mean, I don't know if you've noticed, anytime you see a tall phone pole, you see an orange, where the wire goes across the pole, you see orange, that's fiber. There's a lot of fiber in town. I mean, Comcast has said fiber, and Com, yeah, all county roads fiber. So is the orange thing up at the very, like at the top? It's where the wire goes across the pole. There's a little opening, you can see orange. I don't know, I'll have to look. Yeah. So that's how to do my story. I don't know, I'd like, you know, support. I mean, I'll get my report to Barbara tomorrow morning. Yeah. And yeah, no, it's been good. We sent out a budget and a report only because under statute we have to do that every year. The budget is basically, I would say, almost a fabrication, because we don't have any money. Right, but I mean, we'll print your report. Yes, yeah, but you're not required to have us print your budget in the town, right? No, we just have to make sure every town that's a member has seen it and has looked at it, reviewed it. So we hope to have some money, but we don't. I mean, I think we're fundraised in the year and a half, a total of $8,500, which is not a lot. A lot of it came from our members. Right. Usually the way it works. Yeah. So anyway, the other thing I ask support is, if you see people and you can talk it up, is filling out the survey. The other one is trying to get in touch with all the businesses in Calis. I don't have an address list of businesses. You might check with Barbara. On that. Or Judy, they might have an idea. I don't know. You don't have a business license, do we? No, no, or else the listers might be able to tell you. Who's got a business in their home? Because it would be on a list of cards. OK. Good. But you might start with Judy and Barbara and ask them, and then they might refer it over if they don't know. But that would be my suggestion, the list of cards. So I mean, also because I'm working so much in GI state, I don't know if you knew this, but the household mapping, the Calis is now online to the state, but the whole state is up now. You can look at any town, VTrans. I don't know if it's going to continue in the town of Calis. Got all the details on that if you want to talk about it. So anyway, that's my report. And you're sticking to it. Wonderful. I'm sticking to it. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Like I said, post stuff on front porch. Yeah. I think if people don't see anything, they don't even register that anything's going on. I put paper surveys out in the hallway here and that they had them in Co-op. Yeah. It's out in Co-op. East Calis store of the East Calis Direct Center in the Maple Corner store for those people going out of internet. I haven't seen too many of them get mailed back to me though. No. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you, David. Anybody have any questions for David before he takes off? I'm going to sit here and listen to the next. Walter, this is BCGI. So they're going to use this now. Oh, thank you. Thanks. OK, next up. Hey. Hi. How are you? I'm good. It's past my bedtime, but I'm happy to be here. Oh, no. Not in my mind. I get up early in the morning and everything comes to bed. It's bed time. So thanks for coming and you're going to update. Yes, thanks for having us. We have two things to talk about tonight. The first is talking about getting a question on town meeting to exam to Memorial Hall from taxes, from property taxes. The second is the update of kind of where we are with the agreement with the town as far as helping what terms and conditions we've met so far to meet whatever the letter of agreement that we're selling to. So I think it'll be pretty quick. This is just a formal request to request property tax exemption for Title 32, Section 3840. We are a qualified charitable organization under that statute. I sent you a draft question. Yeah, you sent me a draft question. The term is adjustable by you. It can be maximum up to 10 years for the first request. And then after that, 10 years expires, it adjusts down to five years. OK, I wondered about that because we're only five years. And it can be five years if people are more comfortable seeing that. That is our backup plan. I know you have some other plans going on. Our primary plan is back in 1888. Oh, I thought it was 1878. Because the hall was built in 1885, 1886. Memorial Hall was exempted per state active legislature from paying taxes. Yeah, it was in the Hoon Kates book. And we are going to see if we can reactivate that statute or ensure that that statute transfers to the new organization. It could be as simple as a few name changes in the statute. But I need to talk with Legislative Council. I did reach out with Representative Ansel and Senator Cummings. They're both on the taxation committees in the State House. So they're well-prepared to initiate something like this. But with any actual legislature, there's no predicting what's going to happen. And this is the second year of the biennium. Yeah, yeah. But every year there is a miscellaneous tax bill. And that's probably the likely vehicle for something like this to slip into these provisions. But I haven't had a chance to talk with them in January. And I was like, I've talked to her before. So let's just talk in January. So I don't know anything about what her plans are to make this happen. I do know I have their support. So how does that work, though, if it's exempted by the legislature? Does the state send the school or the town? So Memorial Hall's never paid taxes. So it does have a value on the list of car. And I'm not a lawyer, and I haven't researched this. But my presumption is I think it's valued at $132,000 something current. That's the current valuation. So everybody in the state pays that. And that's the advantage of this statutory approach is because the cost of that parcel is spread out through all taxpayers. Whereas the local exemption option, only callous residents tax pay that difference. And so that's our preference. And that's the route that we'd like to go. Because we do have well-placed committee chairs who represent this district in our support of, I'm hopeful. But I just don't know. And we are a nonprofit organization. She's string like everybody else. The work of the Hall Association and the use of the building has not changed. And it's still going to be public use. And it's still going to be seasonal only. And the part of the year are limited right now, right? But the public will still have access to the beach. There will certainly be access to the property. So that hasn't changed. And so that's our basic argument. Like, well, ownership has changed. The public intent of the organization remains the same. We still have, in fact, a legal agreement with the sons of the Union soldiers that they have access to the property. So I have a question. You own the property. You purchased the property. It was the purchase. You didn't purchase the property. You haven't purchased it yet. We received transfer of ownership. And we paid to cover the closing costs of the women's relief floor. So there's no greed upon purchase price? We did that. Because that's going to affect the valuation, right? So the hall was. It was transferred to the new association. We did pay for the parking area, which is the triangle next to the fish access. So the hall was conveyed without one dollar? Not even a dollar. Usually it's one dollar, other consideration. So you didn't pay anything for the purchase price? Well, we paid for the parking area. There's a triangle area, which is, and we paid, I think, $14,000 for that. There was an interest in splitting that out. The parking's necessary to support the hall and the swimming area, so we wanted to keep that. So we had to buy that. The terms of the agreement were proof of us that you can raise the money to put the hall back together again, and the intent was the interest. We had to raise a certain amount by December of 2018. Oh, I thought it was the purchase, the building. It was to show that money to show. We would stabilize the building. I see. That was kind of an interesting deal. But that really goes with the historical legacy of the building was what started this way with these three groups, and it was just conveying it to someone who could carry on. Who could care for it? I think that helps argue for the continuation of the exemption. Interesting. I've got that. I'm sorry to hear you say that, John. No, I'm joking. Yeah. That's good. So again, we would like to see this warned. We'll prepare materials, and happy to answer questions. I think the big thing is going to be for how long, and what is the town share, and what is the school share that the town is going to have to come up with. As you know, because of Act 46, all of our property taxes already went out. And it doesn't sound like from what I'm reading that there's any chance at any time that they're going to go down. They're just going to keep going up as a result of Act 46. They're never going to go down. So the impact on the taxes are not questions I can answer for you. The Listers are going to have to do that. And that should be part of the conversation. We should have that. But it's not unlike all the other. And we have several buildings that seek this exemption that provide a community benefit or service. And again, this hall has never paid taxes. And I think the nuance I think that will offer is we are pursuing a legislative strategy. And our hope is that will happen. But the timing of this is in March. Any tax bill, or any legislative action on a tax item, is at the very end of the session. So we're not going to know until May. So we just don't have, you know. And it may not even get anywhere this year. It might have to be the next biennium. Well, it's kind of catch my two, isn't it? If a town approves the exemption, then what incentive is there for the legislature to approve it? We do it one year. That is a fair point, so do it one for one year. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of putting it in for a year. What don'ts? Yeah, what don'ts are don'ts. Yeah, a don't's not what I would like. But if it was a don't, is there an opportunity to later we could do an abatement? Then I wonder, what is also the question of anything about this? But if we received ownership. Well, I think there is. July 10th, halfway through a year. North Galsham Whirl Hall. Is that what you guys should have ownership this year was July? So then what happens when? So it's the ownership as of last. We were told last March. We will have owned it for six months. Has to do with, we were told that it's the ownership as of, I think Sandra said this, last March, I think. Last March? We don't have, we don't have. She didn't own it. Then it was still, it was still owned by the buyer. So therefore, it wouldn't be taxed this year based on what Sandra told us when we brought that up. You didn't get a tax bill. So it might be next year, actually. Right, taxes are April 1, April 1, April 1. So that's why you didn't get a tax bill on May, June. It's not a flow rated thing. It's either, it's in for this year or it's not. So it sounds like, it sounds like, we thought the conveyance was last year. So it was just this summer. July 10th was one week. So it sounds like this year you're good. And then the warrant, so how do we confirm that though? Do you know? Talk to Sandra. Talk to Sandra, our treasurer. And she used to be a clerk in Worcester II. And she can run that down too. She's also our, yeah, she's our. So that would be, you know. That would give us a little breathing. If that's true, yeah, we can explore this option and not have the question. It might be able to put it off till the, you find out what happens with the legislature. And then we don't have to kind of open that Pandora's box of, well, if we exempt it this year, the legislature will say, well, then fine, let him keep doing it. So can we, can we make a decision contingent upon Sandra's? Well, we're, we're meeting on Saturday to talk about budgets. And she's going to be at our meeting so we can, she can fill us in on what she, what she tells you. Yeah, I think we're pretty clear that it, your tax status is, you know, we're all determined as of April 1st. So as of April 1st, 2019, the ownership was women's relief. Right. And so the tax year that ends on December 31. So it wouldn't be until April 1 of 2020. So that would still be tax exempt then for more data. If that's the case. Well, let's know, I would think for this current tax year. It's only this current calendar year. So it would be the next, if it, it would be as whatever the ownership is as of April 1st, 2020 for the current tax year because tax year is calendar. When you know, it's in the calendar year that you collect the taxes. Sometimes it doesn't become delinquent until the next calendar year. But that's another whole ball game. So I guess this isn't premature. So I mean, But they didn't get a bill. No, we won't get a bill for this year, but, Oh, you will. You will next year. We'll not, yeah. They will next year. We will if our legislative solution does not work. And then there we are back to kind of work. Oh, that bill. I think you meant a legislative bill. Yeah, I thought you were. Yeah, no. So I guess the question to ask is, and we would have to look at, we could look at the abatement criteria. That that's an option. If we don't, and I can, I'll pull out the abatement material. That would be a hardship thing. This case, and I think, and there is a hardship. Well, there is. Because they don't have any money. Yeah. And you just, if you're a non-profit. So I think there's criteria that an abatement request could fall under. So that might be the backup plan. Instead of a warning. Right, instead of putting it on the warning, which then, you know, that whole issue would be, if I like, you know, we said, if we abate it, I mean, if we don't, if we do the exemption, then they might say, well, then why should we bother? I would. You're presuming you're asking the question. Right, and I think you have more leverage to say the town didn't put it on the warning. Yeah. Well, you can ask them to say, we're your fruits. Right. I didn't throw them, what you're saying? Yeah. Well, that we said we wouldn't put it on the warning. Yeah. But you don't have to tell them why. Yeah. Right, and don't let it tell them they'll work out. Yeah. Right, and what night, and what time. And I think what we're not saying, and we've talked about here is, and so you guys may or may not know this, it was. Thank you, David. She's doing it. Careful out there. Good night. Perhaps I'll understand that, but nobody understands. But at the town, yeah, and you said it earlier, at the town level, right now the town isn't paying what's your taxes. And so, with your increased value, when I assumed it would be valued at, the valuation would be fair market value, and. I know. Well, the listers will give it the value. Well, so there's nothing's been changed on the property. There's no means of value to the property. No, there isn't any new value until you start doing it. No investment in it. So it's value is not important. But as you work, the value of the building will increase. Yeah, and as. And so the property tax value will be more, and as that happens, the other taxpayers in town, all of us included, have to come up with the difference. This is why we want to pursue. The legislative. I like the legislative. We like that idea a lot. We're shocked to hear that. Yeah, if you would like us to help you with that. We always like to come. I'll be sure to get you in the witness chair about the. So, I will reach out to the treasurer and confirm. It sounds like that's true, but it'd be good to know if you can confirm it. And then if, can you share a Bateman statute? Or do you want us to look that up? No, I can just send you the forms we use. It's all right there. Okay. Just making, yeah. And that will be our redundant plan in case things don't work in the legislature. And we're committed to pursuing this. We just don't control that process. Right. The governor does. I wish you guys did. I know. With a lot of things. Oh, sister, my life would be much easier. Of course, the trick is to get it into a budget bill. Not a standalone. Right. So you probably don't have a prayer. Well, yeah, I presume it would be in the miscellaneous tax. But I think you've got a really good history of, look, it's been this way for, since 1888, we're trying to save the building. It's historic. It was a lot. I mean, you guys got the whole show. Yeah, and it's, you know. And it's a very good story. The really important one. Use has not changed. Yeah. I mean, continuity is the. Right. You got the veteran memorial stuff there. I mean, you got a lot of compelling. It's open to the public. Right. You've got a lot of compelling stories out. All right. So that's that. And once I meet with Representative Ansel and have a little bit more information on what her strategy is, that should be in January. I'll circle back with you. OK. Give an email with that word. Share of ways and means you should be able to do this. Yeah. OK. So the next. The power comes great responsibility and attention to. So it related to an update on all things environmental minor. I like this. I see that you've got, you've got the Garborough sign. You've got the beach. We have a sign of the Blue Down. We have a sign of the Blue Down at the beach shore. And that storm ripped it off completely. That big storm that we still have. That's why we just have to put it back up there. And we have a backup sign to it at the beach. So this touches on a lot more things than you probably asked for, but just to put it all out there. So we did have the Natural Resources Inventory, which we invited CCC members to come to and Larry Bush and Stephanie were there, as I recall. Eric Swarmson did the survey. Eric Swarmson? Yeah, Eric Swarmson. We did develop an interim management plan, which was submitted to Karen Freeman at BHCB. And she approved it. That's great. You connected with Lydia, finally. She was wonderful. That was great. And then we talked with Maple Corner people about curse pond swimming area issues. We put up revegetation zone tape to keep people from areas that had started to get really trafficked and low down. We closed down the nude beach. Yeah, yeah. Really? Identified the public of what they could help on from porch form, put the sign up, which is listed there of all the things we're asking for. So no dogs, no all that stuff. You don't have no glass sign? No glass go up. Oh, you do, good. I mean, no dogs, you can't walk. Well, we don't want dogs on the swimming access area. Oh, it's a walk on the narrow road. We just don't want. We basically don't want VCs there where people are gathering and where it goes into the water. I think dogs well intended, but dogs mix. And then they fight with each other. Yeah, well, avoid dogs. There was an issue at Curtis pond where someone was swimming, and a dog swam out. And it was just the summer, like just clawed at her. What? Yeah. Well, there's something. And even if they're being playful, it can be bad, so. But also just environmentally, ecologically, I have a dog, I know what they do. We're on air. And yeah, so we spent the summer sort of as it came up, or whatever, talking to people and showing them where they could park or not, and all that. And so then the actual specifics of the grant award additions, the first one involving reviewing the Eastman language, that for us has not yet been finalized. That's still sort of on hold. But I guess I should rewind and say so where we really are as we received ownership of the property in July 10th. And then we spent a very intense couple of months considering proposals from architects and trying to nail that down, hoping to get to work as soon as we could, and all those things take longer. So we finally settled and hired a really happy with it, a guy named Ryan Needle Edwards, who lives right in East Dallas. Yeah, the same as right now. We just appointed him to the DRB. But he said he was looking at that. He grew up in Vermont, and he and his wife just moved here. And it was like, fell into our laps like this guy. We considered some others too. And he just seemed like the right choice. He's doing an incredible job already. Good. And Bob Neald of Engineering Ventures, who's worked on all kinds of historic properties. He consults with the town hall. So he's the engineer. And then we hired Brian Clark as our project manager. And so we've had one meeting with all of those three people. And now they're all going to do in the week. They can't wait to do it until spring, right? So that's my point about part two here, is that we hope to begin the actual work in spring. So in terms of that $20,000 would be awarded at the commencement of phase one construction activities. That's what you can anticipate time-wise. Can I make a suggestion that you set up an appointment to go to a conservation commission meeting and give them an update? Just like you're doing with us? Yeah. We'll go a long ways. Yeah. Yeah, we have a, I mean, I'm not a board member. And our vision is to, I guess, ceiling in myself our advisors to the association. And we would like to broaden the group to include informal advisors to ensure that the parcel gets used in a way that everybody likes. So we envision including a veteran, a member from the Calis Conservation Commission, a member from the Historic Preservation Commission, a woman from, what's the? Well, we've already invited a few of these people to fill out all the facets of Historic Preservation Conservation, Veterans history. So yeah, Lydia, I've invited, and I'm not her back yet, Lydia Evermaier of the Conservancy. Eric Sorenson has already agreed. Agreed. And we have more people that we want to have. So you have to, so you need to get somebody from the conservation commission. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say, I'll send them a note. I think Stephanie's the chair, Larry's the vice chair. I'll let them know that you're going to set up a time to meet with them. OK. To give them an update. I can send you a copy of this and you can forward it. Yeah, that would be great. You want, yeah. Yeah, electronic copy would be great. Well, I've never seen the inside of the building. You had that thing in the fall? Yeah. Wow. Oh, you never know what's going on. It's surprising when you go upstairs. It's really big, isn't it? Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, it's huge upstairs, absolutely huge. And you know, Preservation Trust and Paul Ruin was huge in kind of getting us going, much like you guys at East Calus. And we were thrilled. Two weeks before he died, he was able to come upstairs and see the building. Oh, this is wonderful. It's really nice and special. Yeah. Yeah. We almost got him to see the town hall. Almost. Yeah. I saw that on the house tour day. It was amazing. Isn't it amazing? Amazing. No, it's not amazing. Never ran in an old building to fix Calus. Never, never. We always had to come up with them. Yeah. Find them all over the place. So then the third paragraph, IMP, Finch Room Management Plan, and the Natural Resources Laboratory, those have been done. And we have consulted at Eric Sorenson and remote river conservatory. And we're doing everything that was asked of us. But I think, to your point, to your point, yeah, we haven't circled back with them. But you've been busy. I get that. It takes a lot of energy. Well, it's sort of like, what step? What order do you do what? Well, like the priorities. First, we had to raise money to meet the pegs conditions. Then we had to close on the property. We can do one thing at once. And effectively, yes. So now we're circling back. Now that we have a men-up, the construction team, kind of getting a second or permitting set for this plan. Is that on here? It's just what we needed to do. Is Peg up? Do you advise your team? Or is she totally? No. She's done. Debbie's there. Debbie Hansons, yeah. And she was on. Yeah, Debbie Hansons. She wasn't on. She was not recently on. The one was really cool. All right. It's good to have. But now she's back because it has new ownership. That's great. There's continuity. Good. She was so excited at that tour. So excited. It was a great day. And it was, I wasn't expecting a ton of people to come. But I was speed. He was wrong. I was like, we're going to get 20 people out here. How many did you want to have? I think we had at least 50. At least 50. And yeah, Dot was coming to see the building. Dot was there. And I was leaving. And we didn't think we'd make much money or any. And there was a reasonable amount of checks donated. And then we got some part of it. The money was the least of it. I mean, there were people that were coming, and they were crying to see it again. And so many people like Gail Graham, who remember, they graduated eighth grade there. They had a ceremony there? That's what they always did before there was a Calis Elementary to E32. Eighth grade graduation happened there. What are you going to do with the hedges? To be determined. Improve something there. I haven't changed so. Yeah, landscaping comes after. The whole thing was that the veterans had, and I got various calls over the many years, they can't get to the monument to see it. I understood the hedges were, and this is just a story I was told. The hedges were planted because people had events out there, and the cars would come by, and the headlights would interrupt people's events, so they planted the hedges to provide some screening. And I heard that cars would just drive on the road and just circle around, unrelated to events. Oh, right, because it was a cool place to do it. It was a drinking road, I know that. It's one of the drinking roads. So Mary's right, the prior first priority is to get the building opened and landscaping later. Well, we just had, I don't know, do we see it in the Times Argus on Saturday? There was a little Jeb Wallace photo spread. Oh, no, no, they didn't send it to us. It's not, you know, I can't find it online. It's one of those little gallery things. Oh, because I don't subscribe to Times Argus. Maybe I can photocopy it. But he did photograph the basement, which shows what's wrong. Like people came to the open house, and they're like, oh, did you paint? It looks really nice, and no, you know? It's like there's the integrity of the understructures for the biggest problem. Well, yeah, that was the whole problem, right? It was the foundation. It's what you can't see. And you've got it ventilated now, right? Well, you know, it wasn't at all. They were sealed up. I mean, honestly, we haven't done anything. Well, you've cleared the cobwebs, Alice, and I appreciate that. Yeah, we swapped. We turned the electricity on, and within a week, we turned it off, because we thought. I was just like, it opened at some of the basement windows. They're open, and they've been open ever since, but I'm not sure that ventilation is actually doing anything. I don't know what it was. Mary, Jeff may be able to, for the time's sake, if they were published here, don't need to use some photos. Oh, yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, that's a good idea. So we're getting there, and the goal is spring to see some trucks and people working there. It'll be very nice to see. Nice. After what, three years? Two years? I think fall of August. No, not kind of. 2017. Yeah, but who's coming, right? You know what a leech field is? We do, yeah. Oh, yeah. We're not the truck trucks. And we were very happy to find out that the septic is in really good shape, though. Yeah, well, I haven't had any news. It said hammer's down, and that was really, I was happy to find that out. Yeah. Got some good news. Yeah. We do have some good news. So thank you for your support. Yeah. Thanks for the update. I learned a lot. Great. I mean, there's so many great projects going on in town, and this is one of the many that are making progress. That's great. I did a great chat with Mark, and I'll tell you more about it later, but he's got a whole checklist of things for the store. So I will talk with the treasurer and confirm our understanding that it seems logical to me. Yeah. And then you're gonna send me the abatement application. Yeah. And I'll update you in January once we've checked in with Janet, and Senator Cranes. And Mary's gonna send me this, and I'm gonna... I will update Stephanie. Yeah, Stephanie and Mary. And our other whole season. Yeah, I'm sure they would appreciate you coming to a meeting to give them the whole update, making it as well. I hope they don't, you know, we're just, there's no bad feelings. We're just... Oh, I don't think so. All right. You have a lot of good news to share. You do. Yeah. That's what happens when you haven't heard from us. Yeah. Yeah. All good. Well, also it was kind of interesting in terms of like we couldn't do anything until we did own it. And then it was July 10th and it was like summer. It was like, first thing, okay. Put up some re-vegetation, you know. Right. Let's get a sign. And, you know, just kind of so. Well, I love seeing the GA hours. Full summer. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was, I think that was great to get. Yeah, Alford got right on that. Yeah. Thank you again. And if there's more questions, you know how to reach all of us. Right. We do. We need to meet with us to... You're welcome. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. Have a great holiday. You too. Yeah. Say hi to Friday for these families. Did I ever tell you the Friday joke? About your husband's thing? Yeah. One day? Yeah. When Marcia was living with us, one of our special needs people, they were in the car and she said something about Friday's legs. Short legs. Short legs. And my husband says to her, well, if you think Friday's legs are short, you should seek Tuesdays or something. Shhh. Shhh. Shhh. So short at the end of the week, how short would you be at the very end? Right, exactly. You start out longer and wear down. Yeah. I saw Jeff in the cop. So congratulations on having a college son. Yes. Like lost track of where he was, school was. Yeah. Oh my God. Wow. It's been a long time since we've since that middle school. Oh no, we give it a little school. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Thank you guys. Have a great day. Drive care. Bye. Let us know if you need us for anything. We'll do. Same here. Okay. So the next two things. We're gonna need motions on. We have this resolution that John was gonna work on. Could we put that off the whole Saturday? Yep. Sure. No problem. Wait, what is that? It's that. Canvassing. Yeah, clean it up. Oh, yeah, right, right, right. No, not right, right. No, nothing from hell. And then Cliff will give us an update. And then it'll probably be nine o'clock. So we'll do some other quick updates and then we need to go back into executive session for personnel issues. And then we also wanna remember that the roads are not great. Right. So we also are meeting Saturday. Yes. We're on that out there, although I don't want Saturday to get consumed by everything else that we have got to focus on. Budget. Yeah, for Saturdays. Budget. Yes, yes. Sandra gave us all a budget update for our folder. I will give her the Woodbury Fire Department. Budget information. Roads. Thank you. All right, so I like the binder system. I told Sandra we were very happy with it. I'm doing it. So last year, last year, we did, we put into the minutes the approval and the amounts of the slack board annual stipend. And we also did the same for approval of the annual staff post. So I'd like us to consider that tonight as well. Last year we did $595, $594 for each member of the board, 1189 for the chair. And that was calculated to be within the budget amount, which was voted on by the taxpayers, which is the same as this year. So let's talk about that one first. Where is it? It's on each page. Yeah, so last year we took the budgeted amount and divided it out and arrived at the numbers that we just said and budgeted amount for this. This year is exactly the same. So there's no reason to change it. So I'm looking for a motion to. I'll make a motion to authorize the select board stipend amount of $594 for members and 1189 for the chair, which is calculated to stay within the budgeted amount which was voted on by the taxpayers. Is there a second? Second. Okay, is there any further discussion? Hearing none. Everybody vote? Aye. Aye. Hearing none. Motion carries. So the same thing with the road proof bonuses. We looked at last year doing gift cards and there's no way to do gift cards because of the law. The law, right. We can't do the gift cards. So we decided to instead offer a $375 bonus before withholding. To each of the office staff members, Katie and all of the road crew members, which is the same ones we have now, with half that amount going to the filling folks, which at the time was Dana, Hopi and Ed Raul. Right now we only have Ed. Dana's not on. So that's what I'm looking to do this year unless somebody wants to do something different. So the office, is it Sandra and Judy and Barbara? Okay. And we gave Katie the same amount. Okay. And it's the same amount for the road crew with half going to the temporary filling person, which right now is only Ed. And the road crew includes Alfred. But not Toby. Right. Okay. Right, that's what we did last year. Not the operations. Manager. Yeah, coordinator. Coordinator, right. Okay, I'll make a motion that we offer staff bonuses as Denise outlined. Is there a second? Second. Oh, okay. Any further discussion? Anybody wants to come up? All right, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay, I'm writing. Thank you, Rose. We're going to put off the resolution. Oh, okay. Fill in the blanks. So it's going to give us an IT update. I want you to do that. I'll pass out checks. Merry Christmas. Oh, very prompt. That's that fast. That's a cessation of approval. That's just a, that's exciting. Thank you very much. Thank you. Continued service. Another reason to go to the bank tomorrow. So after the select board met with Reuben from RD Tech, we had a follow-up meeting with the office staff. Unfortunately, Sandra was unable to attend because she was out sick that day. But just briefly summarize, it offered Judy on behalf of her discussions with the other office staff to make sure Reuben had addressed any other lingering concerns that they might have had and whatnot. And she felt that he and his team had done a good job of addressing those concerns. We also talked a little bit. I tried to, Joe Moore, into the details of your idea, Sharon, of wanting to really build a partnership. Yeah. And talked to, that was great. Is Reuben there? Yes, okay. So present was myself, Reuben and Judy. Barbara was here, but she was demanding the storefront, as it were. And Sandra was excused for illness. So he is going to share with us because something new that they're doing is every year, for whoever they're partnered with, be it a municipality or a private concern or whatever, they do an executive summary. And that is something that would say, this is where you're at right now. This is the upcoming challenges we see in your IT infrastructure going forward. He would be coming in on an annual basis to meet with the select board to present this. And he had actually had started putting one together for us, but that's about the time that the RFP wrote. Right. And so he kind of halted. So now he's going back, dusting that off, and he's gonna send it to me and of course forward it to everyone. I thought that's what happened is when we sent out the RFP, he kind of said, okay, I guess I'm not gonna do this now because we're going through that process. Because I thought that was the plan. Yeah, and we'll be able to see what he has. So I was encouraged to hear that because that's something that we're looking for. The other part of it I touched based on them was, I said, you have this agreement, what he calls the perception agreement. And it's evergreen, it rolls over every year, auto renews. And I said, if I look at that contract and what's covered in it, none of that is valid here anymore. So if we were going to enter into some kind of automatic renewal type of agreement, we would want it to be updated and noted to represent what we're paying for. And we need a 60 day notice of updates. So we have the right to back. Is there a 60 day window? A 60 day window to back up. Does he do this with everybody? It's a 60 day. Does he do the same ever? What is it evergreen? Yeah, it's pretty common. With everybody? Yeah, he does. Because I don't think everybody would have the same concern. Trash haulers do it. But he has updated his internal policies and the language in the contract so that it would involve this review. So that was also something I was encouraged to hear that he had proactively done himself without our prodding. We discussed budgeting. I need to circle back around to Sandra now so that we can put numbers into the budget. Give us an idea of what we might think we need for the upcoming year. The good news is, is because we've had to invest so much in upgrading our systems, the final piece of the puzzle is the server, which he did confirm. We're on the tipping point of where you start really running a risk, but it will last us until the new fiscal year. So we will have an opportunity to warn this as part of our budget. Okay, so we can find out. And we can look at financing, huh? Yeah, he gave us a financing company or something. Yeah, yeah, North Star, North Star fireworks. No. Right. Oh my God. Safe place for your mind. So we'll blow it up. So we can look at, you know, an option, a financing option if we decide we wanna do that or if we can figure out where we can pull the money from to do it, that's another way. But the other part of it would then is we can take the amount of money that we've spent on upgrades for equipment in this current year plus the amount that we would have to spend for the server upgrade, divide that before, by four and effectively create a capital plan for IT systems hardware going forward. So we can, for money in the technology fund then. Exactly. So we should have a figure for that for this. Right, and that's why I gotta circle back around and make sure she understands what we need her to calculate for us. Right. So on. Why divide it by four? Because it's every four years is when you wanna start thinking about upgrading these systems. Is there any way we can get some figures to know whether we should lease this new server for putting an amount in the budget? I think we ask someone to go ahead and contact North Star and say what kind of terms do you offer and then we can look at it and see if it makes sense. Because, you know, getting these figures done and ready for the warning and town report is the deadline's coming right up. It's gotta hustle, hustle. So we gotta hurry up and get her to do that. So that's why, you know, I wanted to give her a chance to get back, be well. So you're gonna contact her. But I'll follow up with her tomorrow. Okay. And say, hey, this is what we need to do. Actually, she kind of already knows because Judy did send her a summary of what we discussed and I mean with Reuben. I can, I think I have a copy of that I'll forward it to everybody, so. Yeah, we'll be good to have that summary. Yeah. And there's no municipal options, you know, like, yeah. Yeah. We could buy it cheaper from the state or something or at the state rate or something. I don't know for this, I don't think. That'd be a good idea. Cliff, when you say Reuben's gonna, Reuben's working on a, is it perception, is that what you said? Perception agreement. Perception agreement. Perception agreement. That's, is that the? That's the contract that. Okay, that's what they call it a perception. That's what I'm talking about. That's just internal language that they use at RV tech. Every company's gonna have their own. Yeah. So that's the contract? For IT services, yeah. Yeah, I'm talking about the, the management report. What do you think? Exactly, it's something. That's the summary, he's working on that. So, great that you said, here's where you are, here's where your vulnerabilities are, here's what you need to think about over the next three years. It is also going to be solution oriented, help us prioritize, right? Like, I mean, what I'm hoping is that we feel like we've got an IT person on our staff who's taking ownership of those issues. Exactly, because they, like, whoever we contract with, that would be the expectation. They effectively are acting as a department for us. And as we would expect annual reports, you know, that's what this executive summary would represent. Because it creates a situation where we can say to that vendor, here's things that we're working on that are coming up in the next year that we've been talking about in our meetings, but maybe you're not aware of. Right, like the digitization of the cut stuff is probably something we should have said to RV tech. To our IT guy. Right, that we're gonna start working on this project. So that's on us to also participate in that communication. And conversely, it is then there, our expectation would be it gives them that opportunity to say, here's what's changing on the IT landscape in the world out there. We're not the experts, they can tell us, guess what? Microsoft found some big issue and there's gonna be big changes coming up and that's a threshold of one year out or whatever. And we can be informed and be prepared for that. I see this as a two-way conversation. We have a responsibility to let them know what's working, what's not, what big projects we have coming up. For instance, like the Cots one that we did and we didn't tell them. So I see it as a two-way conversation so that where everybody's on the same page. Exactly. And I was like say, I was encouraged to hear that he had proactively seen that this is a process that needs to happen and they implemented it themselves without our prodding. Good. So when are we gonna get to the end of this? Well, I think what I would recommend is we go ahead and give everybody a chance to review the executive summary. When is he gonna have that? I'm gonna ping him and ask him because I was thinking I would have it by the end of this week, first part of this week. So based upon what he said in the meeting. So if I don't have it by tomorrow morning then I'm gonna ping him and say, I need to get this in front of the board because we're getting deep into budget season and we need to finalize stuff. And you know what that's all about having been on the school board yourself. Right. So then we can see the numbers that Sandra puts together for us. And you're gonna contact Sandra to talk about North Star. Right. And then we can decide. Because if she can have something maybe by Saturday. Exactly. That's what I'm gonna call her tomorrow. Yeah. So everybody can get to the office tomorrow. You're right. Oh, yeah. She can work from home though. But what's tomorrow? The weather. The weather's gonna be that bad. Well, it's supposed to get really cold overnight but then it's supposed to warm up. So depending on the timing of that. Timing's gonna be everything. Yeah, the road temperatures are not favorable. Right. So anything else, Cliff? Um, that's pretty much it. The only other thing I can add is we did discuss in the meeting with Ruben. I'm bringing this up because he mentioned it when he was finding the whole select board that there might be a way to wheel down that number that he quoted on the server replacement. 18. Right. I thought it was 10 for that server. I thought it said 10,000. The whole project is 18. Is 18, can we change? So what does that mean? So it's a server and maybe some workstation upgrades. Server installation, the replication, also putting the redundancies in place. Chocolate? So, timing materials. Yeah. What's their hourly billing rate on stuff like that? Is that 130 bucks or something? Yeah, I think it's about 60 on this thing. Oh, yeah, it's not cheap. But. More of a turning. He was very adamant that if anything, it would come in for less. It would definitely not come in for more. Remember when he said that, then I was here. Yeah, so. This saving, potential for savings is nothing significant. At the most, it's maybe $500. Yeah. And what that would involve is the redundancy, the level of replication that we have would basically be divided by half. So instead of four layers of redundancy, we'd have two layers of redundancy. It doesn't. For the price difference, I don't think it's something that we should look at. I think that if we're gonna spend this much money, let's do it right. We don't want to have to go back and do patches, have issues which would then end up costing more money. Exactly. Okay, is there anything else? It's nine o'clock. Is there any other questions? Thank you so much, Cliff, for doing that. Really. Thanks. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Since anything else for Cliff, any more questions? Since we're doing, we're gonna do budget warning on Saturday, this is Saturday. Sandra's going to join us because she's... On Saturday, yeah. Yeah, I already talked about it. You might have seen the email that the cast on report will probably be ready like mid-January. That's a preliminary, right? Right. But it's a full year project. Yes, I'm not certain on the... Oh, that's my memory. Yeah, I didn't even get a real... I thought it was a year project. A year? Yeah. Because if they're senior year projects, they don't graduate until May or something, probably, right? I think it's a semester. I think it's those seniors that took this capstone this semester, and then next semester they'll take a class. Right. I suppose we could ask. I thought I... No, I think I did ask. I'll just go on the UVM catalog, right? No, I think I did ask, but I didn't really get an answer back, so I've got to follow up and see, but I know they're getting ready to go on break, so they weren't going to have their... They did a preliminary, you remember, on January, December 4th or whatever it was that they invited us to. So anyways, I'll follow up on that. Okay, so we're scheduled to meet from nine to one at the town office on Saturday. And Katie and Rose helped me with finding the board. Did you have anything to add to that list that Katie had that you could think of? Oh, of the town report? Yeah, I have a bullet point of the highlights of select board meetings that I'll use to draft our select board report. I'm not sure that I really saw that. Can you be sure to send it again? Sure. Okay. I had, like with that Google Drive today, I had, it didn't like list a lot of stuff, and then it said like quick access, and it listed a few things, so I emailed Denise to say, send me the link to Katie's folder, yeah. I wanted to make sure that everything was in there, so. So we're supposed to meet from nine to like one, and I thought we could order sandwiches or something, and maybe from one of the stores, and somebody can go pick them up, you know. Who? Does Maple Court, yeah, they do sandwiches. Maple Court orders sandwiches, these cows does sandwiches, so. And don't forget, we're meeting with East Montpelier Select Board on the 16th at seven o'clock. In East Montpelier. In East Montpelier, this is to talk about the fire department proposed budget for FY21. Cliff and I were there last Thursday night for their presentation. I think I can do that. Okay, because I'm gonna do an agenda. Just FYI, I have to get on you, so I will be probably late. Yeah, well Rose was supposed to be there, but then her mother. I was at the ER for eight hours with my father. No, I was staying for Monday night. Right, but it was last, the fifth. Yeah. I thought it ended up being two of us, because then you went to your dad's party, and then you had your other incident, so. We're not meeting on the 23rd. So, for the last time. Yeah. Minutes. Excuse me. Bless you. Thank you. Minutes from December 5th. I don't know what we'd do about those, because there wasn't a quorum. We have minutes, maybe we just leave them as unapproved, I don't know. Yeah. Or people can vote on them. You don't have to have a meeting. But you don't have to be there. It's not a special meeting. Oh, Katie was there. Right, you don't have to. It's not an official meeting. Yeah. Can I finish? Sorry. You don't have to, you can vote on the minutes, even if you weren't there. Right. But it's not an official meeting, so. No, it isn't. It can take lots of good information. It has to happen, but you don't have to worry about voting. We don't vote on them anyway, but we just do those. Do you want to review and vote on the minutes? Just put them. December 5th. I read them, and I thought they looked good. And I think that's a good information. Yeah, it's really good information. As we're going to meet with your board. Yeah, OK, good to know. But I think what John is saying, I agree, is just put them out. But I think we need to, if we're not going to approve them, then we should say something at some point that these were not approved because there was not a forum on the board present. But I'm suggesting it's not a statutory requirement. We do it as unison. Right, but you don't have to worry. The other thing is that you can vote on them if you weren't there. No, I know. So, right. So I don't care how we do it. I just don't want to take up a lot of time to say it. That way there is sanctioned. Did you see that bank fraud incident? That was pretty interesting. Did we get screwed? No. The fire department caught it. They worked with the dealer. They worked with the bank that the money was frauded to or whatever the right term is. That was pretty interesting. Basically what happened is the company they were purchasing this ambulance from emailed them the bill for the first payment. The person who sent that out, their email account was hacked. Whoever hacked the account saw that, did a fake version where they changed the routing. Routing numbers. So they put the routing numbers right in the email. In the attachment to the email. So unencrypted, here you go. Right. Because it was a money transfer. That person went in and said, oh, changed the routing. Sent a new email that looked like it came from the same person. Oh, disregard the last one. Here's the correct routing information. Wow. Mm-hmm. $109,000. So in advance of a holiday weekend, the chief and Toby went to pick up the ambulance. And the guy said, well, I haven't received your payment yet. And they said, oh, we sent it. And he said, you know, I'm not worried about it. It's a holiday weekend. I'm sure it'll be in the bank come Monday morning. Well, fortunately, who's Toby? Was it hacked, their end? It was their end. Yeah. Good. Toby. It wasn't comfortable about that. So he contacted. What's that guy's name? Over the week. He contacted him over the holiday. Yeah. The main, one of the head-on shows at the bank that the fire department works with. He said, can you tell me if this is correct when I don't? So the guy said, I can't do anything over this weekend, but we'll jump on it first thing Tuesday morning after the holiday. And sure enough, they figured out that it got into some account in South Carolina. That's Michigan. Wow. That says Michigan. Michigan? Okay. Michigan. Doesn't matter. Maybe it was supposed to be a South Carolina account and it went to this Michigan account. Any rate, short end of it is 10,000 of it had already been spent, but 100,000 of it was still there. Oh. So the bank president for our bank, the East Montpete fire department's bank, contacted that bank's president and they froze the account so no more money could be. Wow. How would you ever get away with it if you have a legitimate account and a legitimate bank that I didn't date into Nigeria or something? That's where this guy kind of screwed up because if you're going to do that, then you immediately transfer it again and play a shell game. But that's probably what they were going to do, but they got caught. Or it was the holiday weekend, right? It could be the holiday weekend. I got jammed up. The other tack there is 10,000 had already gone out. It could be that they were going to split it up on a variety of accounts. Oh, it didn't look like it. Right. Yeah. And so the fire, so actually they were out the 10,000, but the dealer or the vendor, whatever he was called, they covered that $10,000. No problem. They're insurance. They're insurance. Right. Because it was hacked from their system. Well, 10,000 is that magic trigger. There's a greater than $10,000 transaction. Banks have to report it to the feds. Oh, really? Yeah. So that's why they picked that number. So anyways. Let me make a motion to approve the minutes as is. Thank you. I second it. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All right. Now we have the 11, 20, it was 11, 25. Yep. Did everyone vote to approve that? Yes. Okay. That was unanimous. This is 11, 29? 11, 25. Where's mine? No. Oh, there's one. Stop that over there, you two. Listen, we're friendly. I have that camera pointing out that you're a baby city. You don't want a big bed of junk to come down on us. Oh, that was what Cliff just reported that the reason that meeting that Ruben talked about didn't occur was because we had put out the RFP. Right. So I just thought we should put that in the minutes for future memory. Mm-hmm. I see there's a comma. They inquired of Ruben. What are you doing? Okay. So that was that. I think there was something else. Where did it go? I don't know. Where did it go? There was something that there was. The server map. It was participated and it should be participate. Oh. The months ago, RB Tech promised to investigate charges. I'm really excited. The Denise Wheeler? Yeah, crossing that out. Crossing that out, yeah. Oh. The battery or the keyboard or something like that. Oh. I'll just make a mental note and do it. Okay. It seems like there was another one and I put it in red. I did that little edit pencil thing. Where did it go? Here. That one too. Construction will not happen. This is under... Which thing is this under? Oh, CVRPC, the grant thing that Pam talked to us about. That was in red that year of 2021. Yeah, it just said construction will not happen this summer but hopefully the following summer I thought it was just good because it's like which summer, which summer. Did we have any winter road conversation at that meeting? Not really. I don't really think we did. I think we just said that that report was in... I think it might be under my update. At the end. Okay. We could look. Because I thought that you did talk about it. Yeah, it might be at the end. I do want to make sure that we get in the minutes that you and Stephanie did outreach over the summer and try to corral a committee. Oh, wait a minute. And... Oh, yeah, I didn't say anything in there, did we? Wait, do we want to... Did anybody else not have a chance to look at these? No, I looked at them. I don't know if we talked about it even. I think we did under my update because we talked about... We just need to put that in writing sometimes, so we have us to go back to. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I get you. Just put it into... We can put it in tonight, so we can put it in last week if we talked about it. Well, it's on tonight's agenda. Under my update. We just put it in there. Okay, let's do that. I'll even write something for you, Rose. Okay. I've been looking and, you know, we went back in the minutes and we're fine. And I know who said... It doesn't get recorded. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So would there be a motion to approve the 11-25 minutes with the changes as noted? So moved. Is there a second? Second. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, now I'd like to go back into executive session to discuss personal matters per one BSA. Section 313A3. Do you want to make your statement about the Roads Committee and the fact that we've not... While you're... Well, because that's not exactly the session. Right. No, the Roads Committee, I reached out... I think we... I reached out to Stephanie, I reached out to several people, all the people in fact, that came to those public meetings about the Roads and had issues or suggestions. I reached out to all of them to see if they would be willing to serve the committee and nobody was interested. And so the one thing we haven't done that we might do, when we searched Frontpours Forum, we also have not posted a request on Frontpours Forum. Right. And also, the Roads Committee is not interested in this as part of their charge. But we could always change their charge to include this. They're not interested in capstone. They're not interested in helping to deal with how to better manage the winter. Their thing was really about the main event strategies. The nature of the Roads in the summertime. Right. And ditching. We might have different machines. And road widths. Roads and culverts. And treaching and invasives. So if you were saying when we were kind of gathering earlier that you were maybe interested in getting a little more involved in roads. So maybe that's a time to pick that up. With the UVM report coming in. So maybe that's a time to I think that might be better served to talk about that at a different time. But I think the minutes can reflect what I just said. Right. Executive session at 9.15. Do we vote? Aye. Seconded.