 There it is, 603. Seems like I don't have any more people coming in. I'll try and keep an eye on that if more people want to join. But let's go ahead and start this meeting first by reading that as a chair of the Rochester Select Board. I find that due to the state of emergency declared by Governor Scott as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and pursuant to Addendum 6 to Executive Order 01-20 and Act 92, this public body is authorized to meet electronically. And in accordance with Act 92, there is no physical location to observe and listen contemporaneously to this meeting. However, in accordance with the temporary amendments to the open meeting law, I confirm that we are A, providing public access to the meeting by telephone, video or other electronic means using the Zoom platform. And all members of the board have the authority to communicate contemporaneously during this meeting through this platform. And the public has access to contemporaneously listen and if desired participate in the meeting. And by, you can contact the town clerk to request the invitation or see the invitation that is on much more people on the post agenda. So we previously gave notice to the public of the necessary information for accessing this meeting, including how to access the meeting using telephone, video or other electronic means in our posted meetings agendas. And that's basically it. Thank you all for joining us. And there's nobody in the waiting room. So we'll start with any additions to the agenda as it's typed up and posted. Going once, going twice. I guess we have enough agenda to deal with. So we've got that, none of those. And we've confirmed that. We'll go to the prior meeting minutes of June 22nd meeting. And I went through those and they look good to me. Does Pat Frank, you have any input on that? I read them too. They look fine to me. They look fine to me also. So I'd move we accept those as presented. I second it. All in favor. Right. All right. Yeah. We've got someone else wants to get in. I thought I could let her in. Okay. We had on here. I don't see Ethan Bowen on here. Yeah. So I don't. So, and I guess Nancy is not going to make it here to this meeting. So we can move on and maybe come back if they join the crowd afterwards. He's going to be late. He was waiting for Courtney to get home to watch the little one. Okay. All right. So, Joan, have you got any updates for us? Yeah, I do. I want to let you know, RCS, the emergency project that the town's been working on. I think I have a good possibility for some financial assistance to the landowner we've been working with. It's called the disaster recovery relief fund. And it got started sometime in around the time of tropical storm Irene. And I've talked to someone who serves on your board or some kind of committee. And he said that he's put it on a list for review. That'll take place on time in the next month or maybe a month and a half. So I'll have some more information about that for you and for the landowner when that happens. Is this the talking about the Mendel property or up and yeah, yeah. Yes. And I did meet with Dean last week and went over that with him. I haven't talked to him the last couple of days since I got this new information, but you know, I've been working on it. Town Garage project, the stormwater project, I have some new information on that. WRP has been able to get a new grant. And the nice thing about it, the especially nice thing about it for us, is it doesn't require any funding from the town. Remember originally the last grant we had or the WRP was able to get, but then lost, required the town to put in 20% of the cost. But now we're getting to a $90,000 project, improvement project there, no funding required from us. And I was in touch with Cooter today on the logistics. WRP is going to handle the bidding and actually do the contracting correctly. And well, Cooter, the main issue has just been timing so that we don't interfere with his bringing in sand for the winter. And so we agreed on a tentative start date of August 10th. That's a Monday project is expected to take about a week. If there are any delays, it'll probably be to, you know, unexpected conditions, but also if there's rain delays, Cooter has said that he can be somewhat flexible in terms of over more than a week. And the bidding will be done, as I said, by WRP they will, it's not going to be a bidding where, you know, they invite everyone, they're going to contact contractors and invite them to bid. And all of the contractors about in Rochester, do this sort of work will be on that contact list. So that's going to move ahead, hopefully. And do you have any questions on that at this point? No, we'll go ahead. This is for the stormwater runoff part of the project. Right. Where do we stand with the town sewer connection project, which is? That's been completed. And they also have the plans, when they did the sewer connection, they had the plans for the way the stormwater, so that they knew, make sure there wasn't any conflicts between where they were digging and where they were connecting that, when they do the stormwater, they have the plans for them. Yeah. Good. Yeah, that went pretty smooth. And at the same time, they've also initiated, finished the concrete on the sand box down there, the sand filtering unit, which was falling apart last winter. Is there any word on the Cushman project, Joan? Yeah. When do we meet with Mrs. Bond there? Well, the arrangement that I made with WRP is first, that we would see if we could come up, we'd meet on the ground and see if we could come up with a low cost reasonable solution to Mrs. Bond's concerns, which would then make her feel free to agree to allow us to work on her property and she would sign some terminating temporary reasons. And so, first I wanted to just make sure the select board knew what that was, Frank, and then you vote and decide that is something it's okay for us to move ahead with. And the next step would be for us to talk to another family member that WRP has some contacts with and see if he can sort of get involved with the conversation to help move things along. And so, what we talked about was not much of a big change. There is a little bit up the road from Mrs. Bond's driveway. There's a culvert that is already scheduled for replacement and upsizing under the FEMA 2019 funding. And that culvert already discharges into a wooded area. And eventually though, it does flow onto for the mowed area that's part of the area around Mrs. Bond's house. And that's what her concern has been. We agreed that a possible solution could be a fairly simple one is to continue letting the water go through that route because that's really the best way for water to flow off is into a wooded area. It does slope down somewhat towards the lawn. And when it gets to the lawn, what we would propose to do is to build a simple swale and sort of a holding area that would slow the water down, help spread it out where it's still far away from the structures and let it sink into the ground more that it doesn't cause, you know, flooding in the area around her garage or into what used to be a garden area, which is her main complaint. And I don't remember if we came up with a estimated cost but it was something the town could easily do in a day with an excavator is what I remember. I think we kind of judged it at around 1,000 to 2,000. Right, okay. We just kind of looked at it like that. So it shouldn't be too bad of a thing. It's an easy fix if she'll allow it. It'll just keep the water diverted away from her garage and in the garden. So hopefully, because we got to use both sides of that of her land down there on the Culver job, we're going to need to appease her and hopefully this will do it. So the question is to all three of you, if this is something you find is reasonable and approvable, if you could just indicate that so then we can move ahead. Then I didn't want to do this, Frank, you know, Frank agrees that we didn't really want to do it until you were able to decide if it's something you wanted to move ahead with. No, I think absolutely that's, what do you think, Pat? That's, we're doing a lot of work on our property. I think that's the least we could do to, you know, keep things moving smoothly, keep the water going the right direction. Yes, I agree. I think her son, Bill, should be also brought in like just saying to help her or reassure her and help her along. Okay, great. Thanks for digging into that, Joan. Okay, that's all I need to update you on right now. All right, that's a good slot. Thank you. I think that I saw Ethan join the crowd. You there? Yes, I am. Yeah, we had you in there as a guest. Would you like to jump in and let us know what you'd like to speak about here? Oh, okay. I saw I was way down on the agenda. So I didn't know if you want me to wait until then or not. We could pick off some of the, well, not that the school building is an easy conversation, but we could pick on some of these easier ones before we get to the elephant in the room. Yeah, it's whatever you will. I'm cooking, I told Pat that I'm cooking dinner for my son and waiting for Courtney to get home at 6.45. So to give my full attention, I'd be great if it was a little later. All right, okay, we can hold that off till later. Great, thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah, later. And Nancy Woolley was gonna talk about the Parkhouse Generator. Does anyone, I mean, there's, we basically need a letter of support from this elect board that for a grant proposal that Walt Wells is preparing. And so I... All right, Dewey, did you see my email thriller text? I can tell you what it said, that's easier. I just let you know that I talked to Walt this morning and he sent me some information so that I could draft a simple letter. It just needs town support for the application that he's gonna be submitting in a couple of weeks. And so I'll have that and send it over. If I'm not in the office this week, I'll send it over through Julie so that you can sign it and send it along to Walt. Okay, that sounds good. Okay, so, excuse me, I just wanna make sure she's gonna, a gentleman's gonna write a letter and but you're basically are all in favor of this. You'll just sign it when it comes. Is that basically the feeling? Yeah, it's just been support of the grant, I believe. Can I write that? Yes, that's what it is. Okay, thank you. To make town support. I just wanted to make sure that, I understood that correctly, excuse me. I think we kind of lost Doom there somewhere. That does seem... Doesn't appear that way, doesn't it? He's their host. Well, I don't see his name up there anymore. What happened? Doom? Yes it is. Okay, do you want us to wait for you or I can carry until you dial in but you're gonna need to be there when we get to the road part. Thought we were doing that right now. Hey folks, I just spoke to Doom and his computer decided to give him an update so it kicked him out. As soon as he's able to add updates back in, he will come back in. In the meantime, can everybody hear me? You're going in and out in kind of wobbly. Okay. Doom's computer decided... Can you hear me? Doom's computer decided to update so it kicked him out of the program. So as soon as his update is done, he will be back in. Okay, you keep going in and out. Your voice. Doom will be back. Okay, thank you. So in the meantime, we wanna go on record and do and agree that we want to support the grant for the Parkhouse Generator. That's right. I'm gonna agree with that as well. Yeah. So the next thing that maybe we should have a little discussion about about we have a report from Frank about how the voting went. Not the results of the vote, but the process of the voting and what your thoughts are going forward. That's not on here, but okay. No, it's not a decision item. It's just... That's all right, that's all right. So Frank is gonna report. Okay, thank you. That's really... Everything went well in the setup. I didn't stay there for the day. I think Julie seemed very happy with it. I think she could answer more to how it worked out than anything that she'd wanna chime in. That would be great. Yeah, the voting day went really well. I can see that the August primary will, with some modifications will do fine. So between that and then the election in November, all should go pretty well. Of course, there are a lot of absentee ballots out. So that may make the vote... We probably will have a lot of people attending the vote since a lot of absentees are coming in. Are you able to keep up with all that by yourself, Julie? Currently I am. As the workload picks up, I may have maybe some help with that. Well, don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it. Yeah, and Julie, if you need volunteers on election day, you know, let me know. I'm working at home now and I may be good help. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Also, so that we come forward from the last meeting, Frank, can you elaborate a little bit about what the project entails down at the Mendel property? What it is that they plan on doing to the stream there to make life a little better for Dean? It's basically going to... They're gonna take out a lot of the sediment that's moved in there that's kind of blocked the channel a little bit and open it up some. And they're gonna put a couple of bigger stones up above. They're not really putting in riprap or anything. It's just a couple of stones up above that they're gonna put in. It's basically hollowing all the material out so that the channel goes straight towards the pipe and has a little meandering path to it. But it really is just so plugged up that they just need to get it out. So it's kind of split in two streams at this point. One of them not going directly towards the path where it's the culvert that under Route 100. So that's what the gist of the project is. It's pretty much what is it? The natural resources project and we're basically doing the funding. They have to do the funding through the avenue of government which is the town. And then that'll give Dean a 25% pay on his side and a 75% coming from NRCS. So it's really a, we're just acting as a buffer zone for Dean so we can get some funding to help him out down there. Good, thank you. Yep. I'm back. Dune is back. Ringo's update just in time. Man. Okay, so we are probably ready to move on. We had a brief discussion, Dune, about the Dean Mandel project. And we had a brief discussion about how we felt about how the vote had gone on June 30th in the vote process. So now let's move forward back on to our agenda of what's next on the list. And they've talked about a letter of support for Parkhouse Generator. Yes. Yep. And Julie, you're gonna compose something that we could sign. Joan's gonna put it together. I do. Joan, well, okay, great. So we have next on the agenda, the approval of a class four highway improvement application. And this is on the for Pine Gap Road submitted by Marty and Christian. And there are sure a lot of people here Excuse me, Dune, I'm just interrupting because it looks like the meeting is no longer recording. Is that true? I think I came back in. I would think that Orca Media, are they still in there? Yeah, they're still in there. I also am recording as well. Okay, so. Okay, the recording thing went away, just let you know. Yeah, yeah, it's, let me see if I have, it's asking me to request permission from the reading host. I think since it bumped me out, I had to join the meeting as a participant instead of the host. So I think we're gonna have to clean up. Now it says recording now with a little red dot on my screen. All right, cool. Thank you. Little bit. I'm recording it now. All right. So for a little history, I presume most everyone knows what we're talking about but for those that will see this on the recording and maybe don't know about this, I'd like to talk a little bit about the origins of Pine Gap Road, which is in the Bingo Brook Basin and it dates back to well before this road was the town of Rochester's responsibility. Most of the West Rochester area was originally part of the town of Philadelphia. And in 1814, the northern portion of the town of Philadelphia was annexed to the town of Goshen. And in 1847, 11,300 acres of Goshenland was transferred to Rochester. And in these days, people lived all over these hills and besides access to homesteads, Pine Gap Road gave access to at least two schools and a remote corner in the town of Hancock. And some people stayed and some people used that road to get down off that mountain and get the heck out of Vermont. People left to take part in the Civil War or to find work in larger factory towns. And as motor vehicles became more prevalent, Pine Gap Road was used less. In 1932, the Green Mountain National Forest was established and began to acquire land, a lot of land in West Rochester, leaving a few scattered private in holdings. In 1970, the Forest Service began work on Forest Road 62 or Thresher Hill Road, which loops through the same mountain side that Pine Gap Road accesses and giving new access to the uppermost private parcel of land on Pine Gap Road, except in winter when Forest Road 62 is closed to motor vehicle traffic. In the 1980s, the owner of that upper parcel on Pine Gap Road used Pine Gap Road to bring building materials and build a camp. Also in the 80s, Mason Wade bought the parcel of land and a camp on the lower end of Pine Gap Road, the second of two camps located across a bridge over Bingo Brook. Time passed, rivers flowed and in the early 2000s, that bridge was washed out, resulting in a new $200,000 bridge giving access to the camps on Pine Gap Road. In 2017, the new owners of the upper camp requested a permit from the Forest Service to use Forest Road 62 in the winter to access their camp and were denied. Their other option to access their property was to use the largely dormant Pine Gap Road, which creates the eastern boundary of Mason Wade's land, resulting in a petition in September of 2017 to discontinue the section of Pine Gap Road that passes Mason's land. So sit over here, dear. Info, what? Okay, by a chair. So that petition discontinued was also possible by a petition to discontinue all of Pine Gap Road above Mason's property. Both petitions were denied and in January of 2018, Mason sued the town of Rochester, claiming that Pine Gap Road does not exist. Jump to December, 2018, when Pat Harvey and I joined an mediation process attempting to settle the matter, after which Mason refused to settle. His lawsuit was settled in favor of the town and he sued again in August of 2019, claiming that Pine Gap Road is not where the town and state maps say it is. This suit was also decided in favor of the town and here we are for the formal application for Marty, Marin, Kristen, Cosella asking permission to clear down trees, repair existing water bars and make Pine Gap Road passable enough that they can access their property. Last week I walked the property with, or the road with Cooter, the town road foreman and Chris Matrick from the National Forest and Marty to view his proposal and that's where we are. So any comments? I assume Pat and Frank, you've had a chance to review the application. Yes, I have had a chance to view it and I did a little research backwards and a very similar situation happened in the year right around 2001 with a road called currently called Cooper Run off of Bethlehem Mountain Road. That road had been diminished to nothing more than a trail and the town had decided when a homeowner wanted to develop his land further down that road that they were not interested in upgrading the road. So the land owner that it sells paid for the upgrade of the road and to this day it is still a town road but the town still turns around prior to the section that was upgraded and that land owner maintains that road himself out of his own pocket yet it is still a town road. That is a very similar, very similar situation to what is happening now. So I consider that setting a precedence for how we should be looking at this situation. The other situation that I found does go back to 1908 whereas the Beansbridge Road, as a road at the Martin Farm, the Carl Martin Farm and there was some development and two houses built a little further up that road and by Simpson Development SNL properties and they improved the road at their own expense in order for the town to go further in this particular case they upgraded the road to town specifications therefore the town does actually go up that road beyond those two houses because now it serves access to one of our suicides. So that is yet another precedence that was set. So I see this as a conflict on how it works. I was trying to get in and he hasn't turned his mics on. That's it for me. Thank you. You were not involved in the history on this so much is because you're new on the board. So that's why I put together kind of a, just a quick timeline of what is transpired through all this. I'm sure there's more comments. This is Lizzie Shackelford. I just had a couple of questions. Can you all hear me? Yeah. I was just wondering what the total length is of the road. I read through the proposal and it seems like it goes quite a long ways. And I was wondering if we'd done just because that area is such a, I mean it's pretty wild now. I know it used to be a well-lived and part of Rochester's community, but has there been any kind of assessment of environmental impact and potential water damage and erosion? I mean, I've used that trail up there to the extent that there's a trail and it's pretty steep. So I'm just wondering if there's any, been any kind of consideration or assessment of that? Yeah, that was a big part of what we, walking that with the Forest Service in terms of looking at where the water is going because they're concerned because for a large extent of it, the water would be turned or originally was turned off that road into the Forest Service land. And so they had definitely have an interest in how that is controlled. The upper half of the road, in terms of how long it is, I think it's about two miles, like 1.9 miles. The upper half of that road above Thrasher Hill Road is actually slated to be used as the skid road from the Forest Service for the Robinson timber cut. So that is, of course, the Forest Service, they're not gonna be cutting trees when owls are nesting and such, but there's definitely gonna be impact up there. And it's really what they're proposing here is to actually take some of the requirements that the town has under the new watershed requirements from the state and then address some issues that are technically liable for. So it's environmentally, it's a change, but it's not going to be degrading the terrain, I feel. It's actually gonna be taking some situations that are kind of out of control and putting some control in there. They're not talking about flattening and gravelling that road, we're basically talking about clearing some dead trees and some small trees and re-establishing existing water bars that were originally meant to control the water on the road, as far as my understanding of the application. Thank you. I have a question, will there be any culvert work done that's going to direct the runoff into Bingo Brook? There's, they're not talking about any culverts. There may be need of a culvert at where the top half of the road meets Thresher Hill Road because it's, and that's all the water there is eventually gonna go into Bingo Brook because it's in the Bingo Basin. And then possibly one culvert at the very bottom were Pine Gap Road interfaces with Mason's driveway but the rest would just be water bars, yeah. Thank you. Hi, this is Emma Wade, you okay to speak? Yeah, yeah. Hi, I select board and whoever's here. So I'm here tonight as a landowner affected by this permit application. And I'd like it to be said on record that I was not notified. My family was not that a permit was submitted or in the work even though it crosses our property and will affect our access and our actual property. And I'm only here tonight because I saw on the, I've gotten a custom to look at the agendas and saw approval of class four highway improvement application. And I thought, huh, what's that? No, like it couldn't be in Bingo that just, why wouldn't we be notified? And it was a Friday, right? The agenda was sent out. So I just want people to hear this that it was only that I emailed Julie this morning and received a copy of the permit which says that it does affect our property. Concerned that this is not addressed also in the town ordinance, which is part of this history as well that a year ago, I believe in consequence of the lawsuit and this issue, the town created a first ever policy for class four road for class four roads and particularly for an improvement permit policy. So this is a new thing for the town and in the ordinance, I notice that it doesn't say anything about notifying the public end of the process and of the landowners affected. I may not understand this fully but I wanna bring up that it doesn't appear to be there and the experience of this meeting here is that we were not notified. I also was thinking about the other landowners and one being the National Forest and called Chris Mattron this afternoon and he notified me that he walked with Eudoon and Kristen and Martin and walked along the road and I was also surprised to hear this and frustrated as a property owner that's going to be affected and after all that has happened, I would hope that there would still be goodwill to have consideration for the parties. A lot of energy has been invested in concern and stress and worry and care to the property and to the surrounding area. Also in this history, thank you Eudoon for sharing. It was not shared that a lot of public people in the town of Rochester have expressed concern and interest in this area over the past couple of years because it's not only affecting my family's private property and the McCurryers below but public land it is everybody's National Forest there and a place for recreations. I just wanna say that on record and in terms of this meeting with the Forest Service walking along, this does tell me that it sounds like the town has been involved already in this permit application and I want the public to know that, what does this mean? When we look at this, I don't even know if everyone here in the meeting has seen the application because that's not included with an agenda. I only saw it because I asked for it this morning by email. So I'm concerned about, how can the public can have even feedback for the select board if they don't know what this is? Particularly to our property, this takes out trees and what has been our lawn for 30 years, our perennials we have lilac bushes and how will this be considered? How will runoff to our land be considered? I have more questions. How will the materials and equipment be dealt with? We have not been communicated with at all and the McCurryers have not either. So how does this relate to this permit application? So how that relates to the permit application, I guess, well now here we are with a final, finally a proposal about what would happen after several years of back and forth about it and I would, I really don't think that Marty and Christian are intending to make a bigger footprint than is necessary and I would, do you want to speak to this Marty and Christian about your willingness to work with the property owners, to work towards, well, working towards an acceptable situation is kind of hard to entertain in light of the lawsuits, I guess, and the resistance that's been put up to it but I didn't, Marty and Christian, do you want to say something about your intent and how you're going to approach the modification of the road? Sure, I would say to Doon's point the footprint is likely going to change very little. It is going to go across the edge of the property where your guys property meets the Forest Service. I would say looking historically, I think that was, that fact has been well known now for a couple of years. We've been a couple of months since summary judgment and we've been a couple of years in, couple of years and thousands of dollars in trying to help defend this thing and so I would say, sure, we're open to discussion what I wouldn't say that we're open to is going into another couple of years of debate on the road being a road and our intention here is really just to make it passable in a four-wheel drive vehicle. So if you were to walk up through there, the majority of the road, so it's about a mile of road in Rochester and about four-tenths of a mile in Hancock and the majority of the road that's in Rochester by simply removing trees that are down and a handful of trees that are standing and maybe a little bit of work just above the Wade property on the Forest Service land, you'd be in a situation where it'd be passable on a four-wheel drive. So the intention here isn't to make this thing look like Bingo Road, but the intention is to make it passable. Can I have a follow-up question about the passability? Sure. So my understanding when talking with Chris and what has been said so far is that there is not intention to build culverts but Kristen Martin, do you intend to drive over the very substantial water bars? Yes. Okay, and if so, what does that mean? This is a public road and it's public access and anybody can go up there. So technically, is that true or is it something that's locked off? I don't know if the town can do that. And it seems like a liability that people could go up there and get stuck, one or hurt. Yeah, so I would say, yes. So yes, we would drive over them. When we talked with Chris, there's a number of places where there's water bars where you could do a culvert. Our preference would not to be putting culverts in simply because the fact of when you have a road that's not being used a lot and you're not keeping up with cleaning them out, it's an easy way to have a whole bunch of runoff ended up in the road because a couple of ranches and some leaves plugged up one end of the culvert. So it's not really the most practical fix for the runoff that's already crossing the road. So we would just intend on driving over the water bars. And yes, with any class four road, anyone could drive out there, they could get stuck. I guess I can't really comment too much on what somebody else might do on it. Thank you. A select board, could you comment on this concern? Well, probably some signage discouraging people from driving out. But no, it's not gonna be a private road. It is a town road. So people will have the right, but I would assume that the minimal extent to which they plan on upgrading it is maintaining it would discourage the casual car to just poke its nose up there. It's driving through water bars the first one you come to, you say, no, I don't wanna do this in a car. It's, there's no question that there will be, you know, curious people and there will be, you know, more traffic than there is now on it. And that's the nature of the beast, you know. Well, as it is, you know, we get curious people and they stop because there's no road that continues. So really, I mean, those are serious water bars. If that's a public way, what does that mean? If you, I mean, you can turn around, but you can't turn around if you're, it's a steep hill and it's not easy to. Like I said, I'll probably have some signage, you know, signage making that point to unwavering. Okay, so that the town would be liable for your following through on that, that would not be part of the road improvements. I would get to discuss that with, you know, the road foreman, see what's appropriate and see what's legal on roads, I think just the light one, but I'm not gonna commit specific actions right now, but you've raised a good point and I think that would be, you know, check it out, that would be an appropriate, you know, warning sign to put up. Okay, I also spoke with Chris Matrick and he was saying that the, so the northeast corner of our property is sort of a really wet section in this way. And it's also our main ring that goes into our property and wondering how that will be protected in these improvements, and what there can be, you know, some measures to take care of our water source. When we walked that, I believe we pointed that out as an area where it would be appropriate to bring in some clean gravel to make that, you know, a less of a muddy, muddiable spot. Is that your understanding, Marty? Yeah, I think we'll do what it's necessary to make sure that there's not a bunch of silt rolling off the road right there. I would say just to be clear on it is, as we went through mediation, what over a year ago, what was on the table is for us to do some work with that spring and that was denied on Mason's side. So we will do our best on the road and make sure that the drainage is better than it is today. But Emma, if your question is, are we entertaining and doing something else down where the water collection is? I think the answer will be no at this point. Thank you. Just for clarity, I mean, in terms of talking about the mediation, thank you for bringing it up. I think that we're not supposed to talk about what happens in mediation legally. But from our point of view, we were not denying it because of that conversation about water. Question, you seem to have a concern, Emma, about your water. Can you point out where your septic system is? Because that could potentially be a larger concern. So if you could establish what you have for your septic system, that would support the distance from where the spring is for the incoming water. And you should provide a property map showing where all of your utilities are so that all of it can be avoided. Thank you for that question, Pat. I don't think that's an appropriate question to ask. Okay. Lastly, can I ask, because I didn't get a response on why the McCurriers and my family were not notified of any of this development? I believe that this is not in the hands of the zoning board, correct, Doon? This is in the hands of the road commissioner. It's the select board. And the select board makes that decision, right. This is not, don't change where, or a subdivision where all the neighbors must be notified. This is improving an existing road. So I'm not sure. I think you're thinking that it's falling under the zoning board rules and it does not, correct Doon? It's, yes, it's a select board decision. But I did, I know that specifically, Brad and Harlan had requested, and I suppose you had requested being notified anytime there was a permit, a road permit application made. And correct me if I wrong, but Julie, did you send that out to them? I mean, you sent out a notice of the meeting, which in basically, I mean, yes, we walked the road last week, but this is not been, this permit has not been sitting on our desk for weeks here, you know, this is relatively quick. And, you know, you are here, but Julie, did you get a chance to notify them like they'd asked? I sent them out this morning, yeah. Sent them out this morning. Yep. I received it because I asked Julie for it this morning, just to clarify. Correct. Okay. Thank you. Well, I think you, I've taken some time, so I wanna see if there's anybody else that would like to speak. Thank you. Judith, thank you. Please shackle for it again, if I can just have one minute. I'm not a party to this lawsuit. I know there's a lot of bad blood because of the history, but I also do think that, you know, just for folks who don't, I do a lot of running over and hiking in Bingo, and for those who haven't been over there, it is going to be a major disruption. It's going to happen that has been decided by the courts, and that is fine. But I do think, you know, maybe, I mean, these permits can be approved with conditions, and I think it would probably be, you know, very helpful. I mean, there's gonna be a lot of machinery used that is loud. And I'm just wondering if there's gonna be any sort of provision for, you know, appropriate hours, you know, kind of any sense of notifying, you know, the family that lives on that property when there's going to be work being done there. I just, I know there's bad blood, but it's still really impacting, you know, people who have been residents here and property owners for a very long time. So I'm just curious if that's gonna be something that's taken into consideration. And particularly, I mean, I avoid the area as well when it's happening and wouldn't go hiking there and that type of thing. Yeah, I think in terms of the impact in the area, this is gonna be pretty dwarfed by the logging that's gonna happen on the upper side of the road. And I really think for people that use the Pine Gap trail and that loop, this will be a pretty minimal intrusion in terms of the actual work being done between Thresher Hill Road and Bingo Road or Mason and Emma's property. I don't think that's gonna be a long ongoing thing, but I would, I guess I would request that Marty and Kristen, you know, notify them when they're planning to do that. Just, but it's, we're not talking about a month-long project here. I think this would probably happen in a week or so. Is that reasonable, Marty? Yeah, I mean, if you talked about going down from Thresher Hill Road to where Pine Gaps being driven on today, it's, you know, it's maybe two days. It's a couple of days, maybe it's three days, I don't know, but it's, we wouldn't be there for a week. Excuse me, June. Are you, as it's written on the agenda, Approval of Class 4 Highway Improvement Applications, that's something that you were planning, the board was planning to vote on tonight or it's something, or this was just discussion about, about what the upcoming. No, this is something that we're planning on voting on tonight. Okay, thank you. But we're definitely open for discussion because we know this is a sensitive issue and a lot of people are very interested in this over the years. Yeah, does anyone else have anything they'd like to add to that? Then I would move that we approve this application and keep an eye on it. Okay, one more question, yeah. This is, I mean, I think that we have to also bring into consideration that we're on Zoom right now and it is a pandemic. My, this, the lawsuit ended in the middle of this. My father is not here because of this technology, the barrier of this technology. And the, I'm just, I just heard you to motion to move this without any consideration for alterations or considerations in the permit for the other landowners. And I really want to know why that would be. And if there, I just want you guys to really think about anything that, you know, if you pass this, what does that mean? Go ahead and there's what the communication between, between, are we, are we obligated to communicate with Martin and Kristen? Like, but this is a town situation. It's very unclear. And there has to be better clarity. I don't understand what this is about. I'm sorry. And I, I'm continuing to speak because this is just not addressing the people here. It is only addressing what they want to do to excavate and cut the logs so they can drive up to their property. I'm sorry. Right. And who is it serving other than that? This has been a, I mean, this has been going on for, for three years now. So it's, I mean, I would think that there's been plenty of time to contemplate what the situation is and what the reality of, of what the ask is. And, and it's been established that this is a class four town road. And in terms of your father not having access to the technology to do this, I'm not sure if I understand that because you can access these meetings through phone calls and he was able to drive to Rochester to join a physical meeting. I would think that he would be able to drive to any town to have cell service to join in on a phone. So I don't, I don't see the, the, the reality of that, that barrier and it's been going on long enough that people have been able to figure out how to, to access whether it's through a computer that wants to reboot in the middle of a meeting or on a phone, you know, landline or a cell phone. So I, I, you know, that's, he's able to make the effort to come physically to a meeting. I don't see why he couldn't make the effort to, to come virtually to a meeting. But it's not, I mean, this has been a long, I mean, Pat and I spent how many hours of the mediation. I won't talk about what we talked about, but I will talk about that. We spent the whole day, you know, trying to work on this and then talking about the issues and talking about other possible ways of treating this. And then that was not, this is not like we have no concern and have not put any effort in to trying to minimize the stresses caused to everyone by this. So it's, I mean, so that's why I'm moving that we approve the application that you've looked at. It is very detailed about the specific spots where he's going to do what. That's why I spent a couple hours the other day walking the road for the third time on a town, you know, as a town official to see the site on ground and talk specifically about what was going to happen. It's not just like, yeah, go ahead, do whatever you want to do, you know, it's, you know, so it's anyway. I'm sorry to get emotional, but I understand that one thing that would be, but just one thing that would be really helpful would be to be notified of any progress as this is happening in the town, could ask that of Artin and Kristen to, you know, they have to notify the select board and my understanding of the ordinance of the class four road highway policy. So as you are, our town is notified. I'm pretty sure that they can't hear me. We can hear you, whoever's talking there. Is notified that the McCurrier's and ourselves would be notified as well. Is that possible? That you'd be notified when work is done? Well, the plans for the dates, I mean, in the ordinance, there's various things that they have to bring to you. They need to confirm that they have any date or federal permits that they might need. They show insurance, all of these things. Is it possible to be informed of the process to know when something's gonna show up at our property, the hours like Elizabeth asked, is that possible? I think we're gonna say something. Dune, yeah. I think it would be common courtesy for landowners that adjoin these projects be notified. I wasn't notified, Emma wasn't notified. We just kind of found out about it last week when the select board had already said, okay, we're gonna vote on it. Okay, that's good, but it would have been nice to get our heads up because I'm sure that just didn't happen. It didn't just sit on your desk and go out the same within the same hour. So you had knowledge that this was gonna be coming up on the select board. There was plenty of time to email us and say, okay, next board meeting, this is what's happened. And there's been an application that's gonna affect your property. That's one question. That's common courtesy. The other question I got is on your application, you have a section in there on insurance. How's that being dealt with? Like if something happens. I'm curious, because what if I wanted to do something? What's this whole insurance thing all about? That is if there was someone, say someone is logging and you're using access of a town road to do a job that is something that we put in an exclusion for people that own property on the road because that made it a little burdensome for that. That is insurance for the work being done while it's on the road. They're not ensuring that anyone that ever drives on that road will not run off the road or, you know. No, I realize that part. But my question is, is if I wanted to do something on, you know, say the road that goes from me down to Bingo Road, if I wanted to, you know, do a little work on that, do I need to have- I think that bridge maybe. Usually the town fixes that bridge, but yeah. If you wanna- After that- So your question is- For that, I am very, very, very thankful. Yeah. Because that's all we get for our taxes. And I appreciate that bridge. You don't know how much that means. Yes, we do. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm not sure what your question is. If you wanted to do some work on the road, would you need insurance to do that? Being an adjacent property owner would not necessarily. Oh, okay. If there was someone that that was, I know it's such a short section of road, it's kind of hard to say. We put that, that was in there for people that are using the road that aren't residents of the road. Okay. No, I was just confused. You know what I thought? I thought anytime you try to do anything, you know, that would come and play, you know. Yeah. But in the future, you know, if landowners could be notified upfront, that would be greatly appreciated. Yeah, it's a good one. Understood. Thank you. Thank you. Is that something that could be put into the ordinance considered? Well, or into this particular permit that you would be notified when work is to be done? Yeah. That would be more appropriate than changing an ordinance. I don't think we'd change the ordinance so much. We could put it, we could put that as a condition. Yeah. Marty would just notify him when he's gonna do his work and give him some heads up. That would be pretty good. Marty, you okay with that? Yeah, that's not a problem. Yeah, okay. Good. Thank you. Sorry, I have another question. So the location of the road is still not understood because we know the corner points, right? And the distance from the top of the corner points and what we've been trying to figure out in the last couple of weeks is like where are you, where does the town actually believe the center line of the road is as it goes along our property? And that's something that my father is very concerned about before anything begins. And is that something that can be put into place? Yeah. And is that something that begins? And is that something that can be clarified before work begins? Can that be included in here? And maybe there's a understanding, is there an understanding already? Because we have not been notified of it. Where it goes was on your deed that it's the eastern edge of your property. And it's, and in talking with the Forest Service, it's pretty, it's pretty clear. It's obviously where the road would go because it starts to go uphill from there. It's not like they're gonna be digging into the bank on the edge of the road. It's the, you know, so it's pretty, it's... But the center line has to be determined, right? All the way up. And has that been determined or is that loosey-goosey? I mean, we're not, it's, the thing is, this is not like we're looking at, or they're looking at gravelling a swath of road through there. It's just keeping it as close to the edge of the bank and close to the edge of the property as possible. Thank you for saying that. And actually in the words in the permit, it is, you know, it's leaving it very open. It says that there's an understanding, the road is two rods, which is 33 feet. Right. And with a general... That's the town right away, yeah. Right, a general desire to keep it at 20 feet. Is there, is there a way that, I think that that is maybe even a bit wide for going past, you know, going along there. What's the width of one car? Is that a condition that the town could be a little harder on here? Well, I don't think that there's intention to make it a wide swath through there at all. Correct me if I'm wrong, Marty, but as we walk through there, you're pretty clear of that. You're just gonna keep it minimal and as tight to the bank as possible. Is that correct? Yeah, there's just, there's some places that either need work to extend water bars or ditching on the side. And to be totally honest, what the purpose of leaving it a little bit open is, we don't wanna get into three more years of, we said it was 12 feet and it measures 13 feet where the dirt was disturbed. So our intent is to follow the road as it is, but the purpose of putting 20 feet in there is, if we're putting a ditch on the side of the road in a section, we don't wanna be back debating that in six weeks. Thank you, thank you, Marty, for saying that. Is there, and I appreciate your words here and now, but how do we trust that, given that what's written on the paper is not that? So I guess this is really the only thing I could say about it is we've, the only action that we have, we're about to take, we started that action by going and speaking with Mason before we did that. Through the course of the last three years, there's been petitions and lawsuits and over and over and no one has ever approached us and said, hey, here's what's gonna be next. So what I can give you is my word that what's in the permit is the best of our ability accurate of what we need to do to make it possible. And like we said before, we'll let you guys know when we're about to do it. And I would say that's the same thing we did prior to going to the select board three years ago to say, hey, we have intention to ask for permission to use this class four road. We spoke with Mason before we did that. I'd like to chime in a little bit about I am, I'm a real estate broker and these folks bought a property with the expectation they would be able to use that property around. It is a right to the real estate market. It is a right to not have a piece of property become landlocked. So they are entitled to have the property. I didn't sell them this property. When they bought the property, they did have a reasonable expectation that they were ready to go to their property. That is something that I said three years ago, way, way back where I was the select board that I certainly, they were told the property knowing that they would be able to use their property. It just points to that. See where we should deny them for their property. And they can listen and enjoy their property just like all of the rest of us do. I think that's the fundamental right. Thank you, Patty. I have to say that they have access. They have access on the Forest Service Road and they knew that when they bought it as well. Not year round. So with this, we've been around and around these issues over the past three years, many times and informally in the select board meetings and informally in the courts. And it's, I don't know how much more we wanna beat this. I think that it's, you know, I'd like to, I'm sure there's, unless there's someone that really has something else that they wanna say on this, I would move that we approve this application with the addition of the fact that Marty contact property owners to let them know when he's gonna be doing the work. And I'm trusting that the property owners will not use that notification to cause any problems with that. I'd like to talk to Marty here for just a quick second. You're gonna be going extremely close to Mason and Emma's water supply. And I know you've had discuss this with Mason, whatever I was in party, I don't know what was said. But when this work is done, common decency, you know, let's face it, we're all gonna end up being neighbors. So common decency would be is that you ought to try to do everything that's possible that when you get to that section of the road and I know there's drainage that's gonna have to be dealt with up there that you do everything that you can to protect their water supply. I mean, you know, that to me just seems like basic common decency. And I hope that, you know, when you do do your work to keep that in mind that, you know, it's not gonna mess up their water down the road. Thank you. I guess with that, I'll offer say welcome to the neighborhood. Thank you. I agree. That was something that we talked about. We talked about, you know, specifically about treating that area by which we talked about earlier. But yeah, I agree. And I'd like to, well, it's not my neighborhood but it's our town. And I'd like to welcome you to the neighborhood also. Anyone else wanna chime in? Hi, it's Emma again. We haven't talked about the future. And I wonder if that's been being considered here in terms of these are, this is sort of sounding like a quick fix, so to speak. Down the line, in terms of, you know, is the permanent hat, is this something that needs to be done every year or what's the liability on the town? I mean, I understand the policy document, but it also mentions, those are two different things. So one is, what does this mean when these victims need to be repaired? What does that mean for Martin and Kristen? What does it mean for us and for the town? And two is in the ordinance, it says something about holding a, a security deposit of sort. Is that something that happens? Seen as in terms of the future, I'm anticipating that since they're improving the road at their own cost for their own use that kind of assumes that they would maintain the improvements that they would make. And they were not, they're not asking the town for any money on this, they're just asking us for permission. So we're not looking at, we're not exchanging any money here. I don't think that we're requiring any bond for them to do this. We've just basically identified what work they're gonna do and ran that by, you know, the powers that be in the forest service and the road foreman. And that's, you know, that's where we're at. Yeah, I'm understanding the policy right though that anybody who suggests an improvement to the town has to, the way it's written is that they have to be financially liable. So that's the transaction. I don't think that's written in there that they have to be liable, you know, financially liable for that. There is class four roads that if there are now and then and we go up on Mount Cushman, which is not even a class four road, but a legal trail and we've dealt with some, some washouts and bad spots there just because it's the right thing to do. So I think that here, I understand that, you know, this is a big deal and it's concerning to you, but these kind of details are the kind of things that just dealt with in real time and in real life. Is that true though? Because isn't that what conditions are for that the, that we anticipate? What could be an issue? I mean, we're looking at the town, the town's road becoming to be in better shape and in a more stable condition than it is now. So as it is, you're looking, permit that make a one-time improvement with an assumption that they can continue with it. This, I believe this permit would, it's a road maintenance. They're going to be doing initial improvements, but if they go to drive to camp and there's a tree down across the road, I believe this permit gives them permission to move that tree off the road, you know? So it's not, you know, it's, yeah, I don't think we're, I'm not sure what you're trying to bind them with here. No, it's more like, I'm not trying to bind them. I'm trying to know that I'm trying to anticipate something that could be an issue so that it's not. And really that's what I'm trying to do. Yeah. So. No, be assured that this, you know, this is gonna be, you know, we're gonna have eyes on this and we'll definitely be aware of how it unfolds and what happens not just this summer, but two, three, five years down the road. It's, you know, roads are a constant effort to maintain. And so it's, this is not, I don't know what else to tell you, but that it's, you know, it's, I trust them to do the minimal impact, but effective job and we'll, you know, check that. And if we see that's not the case, then we'll bring it to their attention and deal with that. Okay. I mean, so how does this address things like, will there have equipment up there? And what if material and equipment is deposited on our land? Is that okay? What are the guidelines? We're talking about the town road and the right of way of which is a 30 foot right away, which they have no intention of exercising that. And then I would, there would be equipment, you know, for probably half a day. And then I don't think there'll be parking equipment on your land, but, you know, it's not, it's not, not, I wouldn't be a fear of that. I mean, it's frustrating. This is the only forum to ask these questions and I'm taking up so much time, but it's, it's, I mean, the last three years it's been alarming that there's not better process. To communicate about, about, you know, inter-town and property issues. So I just wanted to say that I'm, I don't really feel answered on the question about, about what we're going to expect with this permit. I hear that we're, we'll, on good word that will be notified by Kristen and Martin, so not by the town, somehow. And that's about it. No, yeah, we're talking about notification of when the work is done, not notification of every time they're going to drive on that road. Correct, notification of the progress of improvements and dates and showing up. But is it, so I'm sorry, I have another, like, so who, who is going to watch over this? I know there's, there's laws in this and that, but what are, you know, are there, somebody from the state that shows up or is it all just- No, it's not someone from the state. There'll be probably us from the town and John Champion, the road foreman, you know, I'm the road commissioner and Chris Matric from the Forest Service. There we specified certain spots up in the National Forest Property where they will have input on how they want, you know, the land treated. That's why we walk it with Chris. So it's, so as I moved before, I'd moved to approve this permit with the conditions that the property owners noticed when the work is, is going to happen. And that, second that? Yes. And all in favor? Aye. Aye. Yep. So we'll definitely, Marty, let's, we'll be in communication about when you want to do that and make sure that the property owners also know what's happening. And, and of course, any questions that either you or our other property owners have, don't hesitate to reach out to the town and, you know, give us your concerns. But I really hope that this could transpire in a pretty smooth and I'm hoping a much less impactful way than people are anticipating. So it's been a long road on a short road. But thank you, Emma, for your concern and your input. Thank you. Thank you, Dune and Pat and Frank. And I, yeah, I'm here in goodwill and I'm just trying to understand and find a way forward. Thank you. What is the best way to communicate with the town? Is it sending an email to Julie or? I guess an email to Julie is a surefire way and she can pass everything on to us. Yeah. Okay, thank you. All right, thank you. Oh, tax bills now? Tax bills. Julie, what about the tax bills here? We're awaiting information. Basically, we're trying to avoid having to hire the, yeah, hire them to come in twice to change them because they're not sure what the state is gonna do around the school. Do you wanna talk more on that, Julie? Sure. So because the school budget hadn't passed yet, we don't have the school education rate yet. And if we wait to send out the tax bills once that we have that rate, it will save the town money based on NEMRC having to come down and work on our software. There's a lot of bits and pieces to it to create once a tax bill goes out and a new one has to be created. It creates a lot of confusion for the taxpayers if they're receiving a couple a year. We noticed that this past year when several taxpayers overpaid, so that's gonna create more problems. So basically we just, I spoke with the VLCT attorney to ask what our options are. He said that so long as we are under a state of emergency, the select board has the ability to make a decision to act on the Act 102, which allows you to make the decision to postpone or change the tax rate, postpone all of those things. So Becky and I still can gather the municipal tax rate which you can vote on. And we were gonna get together tomorrow and get that situation done. But if the state is in a state of emergency up until July 15th, this is when you're given that opportunity to make that decision. If we do not extend, if the governor does not extend the state of emergency, then it has to go before the town as a town vote. Those are our options. And we have a little bit of time. We can create a resolution if you'd like. It's up to you. So do we have any idea when they might have the final tax bill or is there any guesstimate on that? From what I understand, they're going to have a meeting tomorrow night. If the budget changes, I understand it may take another 30 day warning. If the budget doesn't change and they go to vote, I heard that it could be a 10 day, but I don't have that information confirmed. So I wanted to get in touch with Tara at the school down at the supervisor union and find out on Wednesday where we're at and where we go. And when are the tax bills you were hoping, usually they are out when? Generally we're printing them this week. Right. So we have to, from what the VLCT attorney said was that we have to give taxpayers 30 days. So we have to have the bills sent out 30 days prior to the due date. For the August 15th, you're saying? Yeah. Correct. For the collection. Sounds like we got to jump on something. Yeah. Don't really want to put off the due date of the taxes. I mean, but, and what it costs 1500 bucks to have Nimrick come in and reprogram if we have to change it? It's about that. Yeah. It's about $1,000 to them and then all of the other costs with shipping or sorry, postage and everything. Yeah. What does that do if we put it out another month to have them do September? I know everybody usually pays on August and that's the way we voted at town meeting. But what if we change that date to September 50? Can we legally do that? Right now it sounds like we can, right? You as a select board can make that decision. You have to, majority have to approve that. So as a treasurer, what do you think of that decision? As a treasurer, I really not like to print them. I meant in terms of the need for that income. We still have money in the account that we could make it a month if need be. And then we have, if we have to do an anticipation, there's always that option, which I don't think we would need to. And when does the first payment to the school system come up? You know, that's a good question. That's the big one. Yeah. Yeah. I know we've made payments to them and that works out fine. But that's a good question. That's something I can look into. I would not be a versus if we really take a close look at what bills are coming due and specifically the school, which is the biggest chunk. I would not be to postpone that August 15th to September 15th to alleviate all this hassle of the, an extra expense. We also have our line of credit that we approved at our last meeting. Right. Correct. Correct. Even though if we did even bump it out to the 15th, I think you're still going to have people making payments. Probably in August. Anyway. Yeah. Sorry. We also have our line of credit that we approved at our last meeting. Right. Correct. Even though if we didn't even bump it out to the 15th, we wouldn't be able to do that. Probably in August anyway. Right. Just because that's their, their budget schedule and. Right. I think you'll have some revenue coming in. You won't get it all, but you'll get some. Right. I think Julie, wouldn't you be getting money from the state unless I misunderstand understood it? I got a letter from the state today. Telling me. You know, I don't know if I'm going to be giving the town, like I qualified for. Like a rebate or what do you recall? I don't get it, but you know, it's a credit. We did get. We did get some state payments in. Today. Okay. Into our account. So we do have some small amount that has come in. Yeah. I was just thinking that, but they did was that if they gave me a credit for something or other landowner, the money goes to the town, right? Correct. And that, that like to have the, like, I know that they extended the July, the taxes for personal taxes weren't due until July 15th. So the state payments, a lot of towns were looking at state payments. That only affects one person to have a, to have a rate like the, the, the school education rate, that affects everyone on the board. So, you know, to change, to send somebody a revised bill for a state payment is not nearly as much work as it would be to do across both, you know, all taxpayers to go across. I like the idea of putting it off a month. People that have escrow. That may end up. A lot of work for. In. Of their. Orgages. And when they. Oh. That. It's a rock. This is as far as I can see. I'm not kicking everything. You're. I'm not kicking everything. I'm not kicking everything. I'm not kicking everything. I'm not kicking everything. I didn't get what you were saying about, yeah. The, the people that have escrows for their tax is where it's automatically. That complicates matters when it's automatic payments. Those may just come automatically to the town. Like Frank was saying, we might get some payments coming in. Yeah. Now the escrow companies, they will, they will call. They have been calling. They will call, they have been calling and I put them off a week and I told them to give me a call this week coming to, we send them a file of the taxes when they're ready so like when we, when we print out the escrow company a file. So those files they won't receive yet. Can they be notified of that anyway, or is it an impossible job. No, I can update them and I have them keep in touch with me. If I'm saying if we change the date. Right. Right. I mean that's what I was wondering. I, well, you know what the state of emergency and the option to give us this little elbow room to, to wiggle around the rules I would, I, I'd move to put that off a month and to make it do on the September 15 instead of August 15. What do you guys say, the worst problem I see with that is, is it puts the November one really tight to the September one. Right. The only issue I can see would open it back. But it's good. I don't know it's. I mean, and when you really, if we like communicate through the paper or what have you in the website that people still know that the taxes are coming do they could still pay. Even if they paid a portion of that last year, at that time, and then they could make up a little bit of a difference and get on board with the November payment. I mean, it's really, it's not that much. I mean, when people will, will take advantage of, oh, I don't have to pay for another month. But when it all comes out in the wash, the taxes are still due at the end of the year and they want to, you know, they're going to have to pay it. Just saving the confusion. I know it was. It was confusing last year to get the tax bill and then get another tax bill and that I made the wrong payment and then it's, it's, you know, it'd be nice if we could take a little bit of the confusion out of the current situation. So basically doing I could say that people are welcome to pay earlier if they're able to do so. Did it go through? What was that? I was asking a question. I don't know who that is. Not sure. It's a, it's somebody on the phone. Anyway, would it be okay to say that the board that you noted that people are welcome to, even though I do to to put the date back a month that people are welcome to pay earlier if they're able to do so. I would say, I'd say, I would encourage them to pay earlier in that the any change could be clarified by the November payment. Who is that? I don't know. You could just ask people to mute. Maybe what's coming through. They're not muted. I just want to figure out which one it is. I could do that too. I think it's this one that ends in 0102. It doesn't give me the, oh, there we go. I think there they went. All right, there we go. Okay. So, I don't know what do you say should we, you guys have a second. I second that. All right. All in favor. Hi. Hi. Yep. Okay. Thank you. So I guess we announced that in the paper. Is that what you wanted? Is that the way you want to handle that? I think we should, um, Are posted or. Yeah, you might want to do something in addition to me putting it in my office. Something in addition to the paper. Legal notice. I could send out a postcard or something. I think that would probably be the way to go. It's, um, you know, It's a little bit. Yeah. Because not everybody reads the newspaper all the way. Wish they did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably. So you're going to postcard everybody then Julie. Yeah, I could do that. Yeah. Okay. Why we're piling up your plate there. Yeah. I hope we're not over doing it. We did take something off her plate though. Not having to do the tax bills twice though. Hopefully. Right. Well, that's true. Yeah. All right. We're on masks. All right. Ethan, you've been, I'm going to skip ahead to you. You've been very patient waiting, talking about the school building. Are you still with us? I am here. Yeah. Uh, terrible waiting. There we go. There we go. Um, so great. Thank you for having me. Um, I just want to say first off that, um, This is completely informational gathering. Being here at this point. Um, I've taught a chat with Patty. Patty was at our last meeting. Um, and I'm having some discussions with the. Um, WRVSU lawyers tomorrow just to get a sense of the whole procedure involved in this. Um, uh, but totally the, the school board has made no. Formal emotion to, uh, To, uh, engage in this proposal or anything like that, this transfer. Um, the one thing we did say was that, uh, that we were going to have no educational activity in the high school building this for this year. And we were going to make visit, vigorous efforts to move to new opportunities. Um, I'm taking that on to just find out. So we have the basic bare bones of, uh, well, not the basic bare bones, the full scale of what this transfer would be like and make sure that that is, you know, something. Both sides are interested in. Uh, excuse me. I'm unsure as to what you mean by this transfer. Could you clarify? Transfer basically of transferring the high school building to the town of Rochester. Okay. Thank you. And, and building surrounds science. Thank you for reading. I get ahead of myself. Um, There are some details that I know already. Um, I'm also Jamie Kenarney, the new superintendent is very much a part of this process. And, um, uh, we've been talking back and forth. He had a couple of things. Um, there's a couple of things I can sort of tell you as far as subdivision, but. I don't know how you want to start this conversation. A pat pat Harvey may sound like this was something that maybe had been discussed already or was, um, that certainly you were enthusiastic or interested. Um, and I think that's the best way to go forward is to make sure we have all the. Irons out at all the details out there so that then we can, uh, make a informed decision on both sides. Right. Um, so what I have, I have some numbers and some things that I have been told. Um, what would you want some of those? What are you? What, where do you want to take this? Basically, I think during our regular meeting, we just want to go on record and saying that, uh, we have started the conversation. About the. Of the building. Um, we are anxious to move this along. As. As I believe the school board is now anxious to move this along. Yeah. Just to make it, well, have an informed discussion about it. I would say that's a more accurate way to say it. And, um, if, if that was the, uh, message that came across in the school. Vote. Budget vote. Um, we heard it. And, um, we're all going to be at your service. Okay. Great. We can. To discussing numbers, which I did see some. Get into our executive session. Um, this is again. Floratory and informational only. There's no decisions tonight. And to also go on record by saying that there is a school board meeting. Tomorrow night. Yeah. If anyone has any further interest. Um, they may want to dial into that and listen on to that meeting. Yes. I, it is my hope to bring, uh, the school board a, a sort of a bullet list of steps, you know, starting from the list you gave me Pat. And working, um, uh, also adding some details that I've, I've gotten today, bond. Amounts and things like that. Um, as well as basic costs and procedures of surveys and subdivisions. Um, so hopefully we'll have a, a, a, a very clear picture of what this, how this process would go. Um, one question. How are, are all of you familiar? I believe Vic, you have read it. The engineering study. Of the high school building. Um, and do you have a copy of it? I know there's one at the bottom. I would highly encourage you to take a look at that report. Um, before you go, you know, uh, so that we're, we're talking, you know, uh, the, the standard they used, of course, was for a, an educational facility, which might be different than amuse municipal facility in terms of dollar amounts and where money is spent. But I think it's something that you should be familiar with because it is. An important tool in this process. I've seen it. It's chock full of very useful information. Right. The building and some of the history. Good. Um, any. Anything else? Um, I had a thought, um, today and, um, listening to the news and about what the future of, of education is going to be. Um, in light of COVID and, and just to kind of, I wondered to what extent could the, um, excess space of having two buildings there, maybe turn into an asset in the future for the school. If it's required to figure out a way to, to separate students more. I'm just a thought that threw out there, but it may be. It has been throw out there. It has certainly been discussed. Um, there is, you know, the, the, the, it comes back to these dollar amounts to effectively renovate. The, the building to an educational level. Um, and, uh, this. This is the biggest contention. If, if the school, if the high school building was in excellent shape. Um, at the, at this point, I think that would be a very different discussion than, um, knowing what we do. Um, Uh, so that it is there right now that we're really focusing on, um, outdoor space. Um, uh, actually I've been on, on the phone as another thing I'm doing for the school board is where a tense. And what kind of weatherproof structures we can use for, um, outside education. So that was why one of the reasons why we decided this was a good year to at least experiment with the idea of nothing happening in the high school, turning the heat down, um, to the bare minimum. And, and, and, and because we were hoping to, planning to expand outside as the extra space. Ethan, could I ask you a question? When you're saying nothing happening in the high school, do you mean just the school itself? No, and no educational activity. Or things like, for example, the white woofer Valley players, their home has always been the height has. Auditorium, but. I've already talked. I already spoke with Dick and Dorothy about this, um, about the heating and what might have to happen. And of course there's always, you know, there's all kinds of standards around what needs to happen as far as performance spaces to have people in those spaces. And they felt that this was a good year for this experiment as far as the usage as well. Also, are you talking about, since the music, traditionally the music program and the art programs have been over in the high school building in the elementary. And one, one planet would be included in this. Those would all be over in the elementary building. That is, that is what we're working on. We're outside. We're outside. Yeah. Okay. Now I just wanted to make sure, because another thing that was brought up at one point was, um, And I can't remember which meeting I go to so many of them. It was, was that one, one, one use of the, um, High School. Building the space there where the library was and that with the, um, Classrooms along the side would make possibly a really good, um, Uh, Daycare center kind of thing. Oh, for the, for the town. I mean, This is a very complex decision. I know. I know I'm just saying. And I don't mean to belabor any, I mean, The ideas that have been put forward. Um, It's, it's, um, And it's far from a decision that's been made yet. Oh no, no, no. I just thought that was something that could be another use that would be helpful to young families in town. Oh, absolutely. I heard. I think, you know, I think Vic could give you a whole list of. Potential. I'm sure I'm sure. Um, I've got, you know, I've got my eye on a little corner myself. But as I say, this is information gathering and a formal sort of. Hello. We're starting this process. Um, more detail will come as, as we have it. So Pat, when you said about, um, executive session, that was obviously not including me, right? That's something. Because you're going to provide us with some information about, um, We're not making any decisions, but we're going to be sharing. Back and forth. I wanted to mention something because Martha is on here. Um, Uh, I just wanted to verify publicly, Martha, that you transferred property. Um, From your own land to the town of Rochester, which is the area that was created that created the state space. Right. Your property. Went almost up to the school building. It did. When I bought my house 35 years ago, they explained to me standing up there on the hill, looking down. And of course, Skatespace wasn't there or anything that I owned at that part all the way down there. And as their. Single mom with three kids and several jobs, I, the, the idea of trying to get that mode and my kids were little and everything. I couldn't believe that I owned that piece of property. Well, anyway, a few years later when they talked about doing the. Skate space thing in memory of, of Katie and that kind of stuff. And I was approached about it. That was a blessing to me. Obviously no money changed hands. I gave it to the town because they didn't have any money. And I felt like I needed to do that. Um, Katie was in my son, Peter's class. Um, anyway. Um, so yeah, it did go up almost to the school and, um, I don't have the exact. Border. But it goes up. A little way up the hill, not much, you know, past the skate. The, um, the lawyer who I'm working with at WRS view was the lawyer. Who handled the transfer of property from the Rochester school to the Rochester Stockbridge unified district. And he is familiar with that, that survey. And where that land is. So he confirmed the boundaries. Oh, good. Because of the, um, the, um, I think it was a rust to put in the little bike track there next to the state space, just in the last few years. And that's all on that property too. Not, it certainly doesn't come up on mine. Okay. And when you made that transfer, there were no stipulations about the use of it or anything like that. No, it's just that I gave it with the intent that it was going to be a skating rink for the town, a public space for the town, you know, recreation space. Yeah, I'm glad we, I'm glad we held up our end of the bargain. Well, I think it's wonderful to be able to look down there and see the kids. And it was great this past week to be able to look down and see Kenley Tanner and the kids. Um, on, you know, doing some bike. A mountain bike stuff. I don't know if anybody saw the little piece. I had in the paper this week, but that was a wonderful use of it too. You know, I love the fact that it does. Still get used all these years later. I mean, that was a long time ago. Actually. Over 20 years ago, maybe 25. I can't remember. Oh, that's amazing. Good. Anything else that I want to hold up your. No, I guess. Yeah. If you wouldn't mind hanging on Ethan, just if we have more specific. Questions to ask. I'll stick around and mute and go off and give me a holler when you're ready for executive position. Okay. All right. Thank you. Yeah. To be continued for sure. So really. That was the. I think that's the end of our, of our list here. What about the thing about masks? Space masks. Okay. Yeah. I jumped over that. I couldn't see it. My mask was in the way. You want to speak to, there has been some. Questions about to what extent will the town of Rochester. Make a recommendation around the use of masks and public spaces. And do you want to speak to that? Sure. Sure. Let me just preface that by pointing out that. You know, the Vermont state health department. Post information about. Which towns have confirmed. So how many. And so far, Rochester remains among the towns that. Do not have any confirmed. Known. COVID cases. It's a minority of the number of towns of. Vermont, but I think it's a, it's a good group to be part of. And we ought to try to do everything we can to keep it that way. Mass wearing the mass. It's well documented. From. Federal and state and professional groups is. You know, one of the best ways of. Slowing down, preventing the spread of the virus. And so. I think as we all go around town, we see that quite a few people are wearing masks, but there's a sizable number of people are not. And I think we should. Do more to reinforce and encourage people to wear a mask. You know, this is, this is a, it's a marathon. This is not over by a long shot at this point. And we just need to all adopt new habits. Of wearing masks. When you cannot be, you know, more than six feet away from your, from your neighbor. So wearing masks when you can't be more than six feet away from another person. And especially going into businesses, which are in closed spaces. And, you know, you don't get the same air circulation as you are outside. I think it would be really important for the select board to, you know, to go on record to recommend that. That everybody in Rochester do that, both visitors as well as residents. Yeah, I don't think there's any, any reason not to make such a recommendation. I mean, I have. I have a box of masks. I found in my business that. 95% of the people coming in the door are wearing masks. And if they're not. As soon as I mentioned something, they will be willing to, to, you know, they'll pull one out of their pocket or I offer, but they're trying. Luckily, my business is going to be conducted outside to a large extent. But I think that. Enforcement is basically just everyone's responsibility and awareness and leading by example. We're not done. We're not going to be asked to the constable to go and start dumb. Handing out masks and harassing people, but. I know you guys have any input on this. No, I, I, you know, it's. It's kind of a, well, it's just, you're never going to be able to enforce it. You can't force somebody to wear a mask, but it's always pretty nice. To see people go into businesses or whatever, when they're masked on that's really kind of. Kind of important, I think. So if we do it, I think. That that's the biggest thing I see. As far as walking around outdoors without a mask, I don't have an issue with that myself. But if you're going to, like you said, Vic, if you're going to be within six feet of someone. Less than six feet. You know, it's appropriate to have. I mean, the whole point of the masks is, is, and from the beginning, the whole point about this whole situation is to. Assume that you are infected and. Right. Other people from that, you know, and even though I knock on wood, that's not the situation in town here, but that still is operating. You know, that's, that's the way to move forward to. Keep things mellow around here. I'm doing from just my own observation, going into Max once a week to buy my groceries. I rarely see anybody without a mask. When I was in there on a Saturday morning, I believe it was. I only saw one person without a mask. But you know, the place wasn't mobbed or anything, but you know, there were maybe a couple of people in each aisle. It wasn't, you know, but it wasn't empty. I think people are trying. I think most people around here are pretty good about it. I don't know. I don't get out that much. And the question then comes up to. Cause. Most of the people in town or a lot of the people in town are pretty savvy to that. It's the, the issue is the visitors. And here we are in, in, you know, the height of the summer season and moving into the fall. That's, that's the, um, you know, that's the worry. And just like, um, I think, you know, I think one of the things that we, I think I'll, I think we've talked about this before. I think we, I think we, um, We early on put up the, um, I think, Jar put the, Put some posters up on the park. Just reminding people of, uh, Of a quarantine process that they're coming from out of state. Um, perhaps we come up with a, um, catchy little, you know, this is a Rochester is, is a mass town. Something, you know. Make an attempt to, to communicate to visitors that. and appreciate it if people do wear masks. It's put on the agenda that we are joining other Vermont communities mandating face masks in Rochester school buildings. We don't own the school buildings. I think the school building is a separate item of the economy agenda. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, that's the separate agenda. Mary? Yeah. And in mandating, I don't, you know, I think that we're recommending, I don't know if we have the power, we're not gonna go through the process of creating an ordinance here that is unenforceable. So I think that really the wording would be more just to, you know, that we support and recommend the use of masks and... June, I think that's a great idea. And I don't know, I didn't notice if Max had a sign saying asking people to wear masks. But if you had some signs that you could put up around the village, you know, maybe near the businesses and stuff that would be a good idea, I think. Yeah, I'll work with our, rest of our COVID task force team and we'll come up with some communication methods to help educate and reinforce. Yeah. This is something that we're just gonna have to renew every once in a while. Yeah, yeah. Right. But I, for one, I'm thankful to be doing this on Zoom so I don't have to be wearing a mask right now. Oh, me too. True. That's gonna be this long a session. Yeah, right, right. Two hours, you know. Which, is that a move to adjourn, Frank? Hey, y'all. I have one quick question about executive sessions as real estate and what's that gonna be about or should I? Basically, we're talking in some more details with Ethan about some, any more information and numbers that you can get. We're building transfer, okay. All righty, and I obviously am not speaking. And Jeff, get part, would like to speak. I have a question for the board. I understand I've been appointed energy coordinator. Yep. I would love to know any particular needs of the board in that position. And then I would also like to have the board to see all of our electric bills, all of our fuel bills so that I can begin looking at how we can save money. Absolutely. Julie, is that something that you could help gather and get to Jeff? Yeah, anytime, Jeff, that you'd like to come down, we have that information available to you. Okay, very good. I have made contact with efficiency of Vermont and know who the contacts are for a support of municipalities. There's an energy committee started on its own here in Rochester, so I've joined that to help them out. And I've met with the two regional commission and a settlement from Randall and one from Hancock. They are, as you know, working on trying to get a five, 10 energy committee together. Right. In that there's interest in volunteers in Rochester, I don't see any reason to wait for Rosata Quiqi to go through a very long process here. But we can certainly join that when they're ready. If that's the board's pleasure. I understand that I work at the board's pleasure. I have no authority without making that decision. So I'm just gonna be looking for ways I can help the town out. Thank you. It would be our pleasure, Jeff, if you start gathering your expertise to help us when we do acquire an extra high school building. Well, I'm one on the Envision Rochester Building Repurposing Committee who suggested we contact a commercial researcher and see whether there's anybody out there interested in that elitra. You know, we have some wonderful, wonderful ideas for how to repurpose the school, but I just don't see the developer there to fulfill all of those wonderful ideas. Maybe the community can come up with those people internally, but there's usually a need for money involved. So I, you know, I'm just curious as to how an outsider might do that facility and whether there are needs for a facility of that square footage in this location that would work. So people are, you know, Vic is on the call right now, too. And the others on the Envision Committee have come up with an awful lot of great ideas. But, you know, whether they're- I just, sorry on this question. Well, for maybe this falls under your auspices. Jeff is thinking about community compost place, an area somewhere in the town where we could have a community compost and people could benefit from that for their gardens. Very good point. I'm more attuned to efficiency and energy use, but on the committee, the local committee, there are students who are very interested in that are going to be pursuing that as well. Oh, good. Thank you. Great idea. So that's all I had. I just wanted to see if there's anything in particular about the buildings or facilities that you know of that I should be focusing on. And if not, I'll just start to look at where opportunities are out there. What kind of fruits are you talking about? Jeff, I got one thing for, with Green Mountain Power, you might want to touch base with a guy by the name of Freeman Corey. Freeman Corey. He does a lot of buildings like that. Okay. Okay. Yep. And he said there is money there to use- All right, C-O-R-Y, Rewind. Yes, yes. Very good. Yep. Let me know if you can't get him out. I'll get in touch with him. Very good. Give him your info. We also got to get that substation fixed up so we can put more solar in town. There you go. Maybe that's the school roof. Ah, that's been one of the ideas floated. Yeah, you're not sure. The school roof's above the flood plain. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Thank you, Jeff. Okay, thank you guys. I've got some grandkids here to feed. All right, go have fun. So with that, I'd entertain a motion to adjourn. I second it. All in favor? All in favor. Can I ask one quick question before you do that, Dune? Yes. Do you anticipate making any sort of public decision you know after you come out of executive session? No. No, this is just information. This is just- I was just gonna say I could call Julie tomorrow. I'm gonna call her anyway for her minutes because particularly during the part about Pine Gap, I got confused a couple of times taking notes and I'm gonna need to look at hers too. This was a long meeting. All right, thanks. It's been a while since we had been one this long. I'm not surprised though. Okay, thank you. Yeah, thank you, Martha. All right, all in favor? Hi. Hi. Have fun, guys. Yeah. Night. And Barca, I guess you can leave because we're executive session and we're not really gonna just information gathering not really looking to make decisions, so. Is this just for me? Should I stay on or would you- You can stay on, Ethan, because we really wanted to get that information from you. Yeah. Okay. So I think that Barca Media can go away. I think you can control that. Because Ray Beleu is the administrator of the thing and he's the one who nixes them.