 keep coming on and the Here comes Nancy It is being recorded by us and it's also being recorded by orca media So I think that we can start and people that are joining late will still have the ability to back and see What what transpired so from the folks that are here do we have any additions to the agenda tonight? Okay, I'd like to know about the if we have a dog catcher dog catcher right Sorry, who asked that I quit because I can't see Susan Susan Morsh Thank you That's vacant right now those yeah, but it is yeah, so Community distancing Yes, that's yes We did our best to post this physically in three places and Warned it on our website and emailed instructions to interesting parties and it was posted on front porch Forum and Facebook and this is this is an experiment as you all know, this is our first virtual select board meeting which is Come because of the virus situation and our need for social distancing so this is We enacted this with the understanding that the legislature is I thought that they had Made an adjustment to the open meeting law that would allow a meeting to happen without Physical spot for people to come it turns out that is a proposal and they haven't they haven't finalized that so Legally by Vermont rules. We can't have an official meeting like this, but in the nature of Doing what we believe needs to happen to protect the community in this situation we're going ahead and and Having this meeting virtually and I believe that within days that will be Legally permissible and if we have to have another special meeting to ratify any decisions We make it this meeting to make them binding they way we will do so, but I Think you'll agree at least all of you that are here that this is the the proper decision There's no reason to to sit someone in the town office to share germs anyone So that said we're gonna move on as if this was a normal meeting and we've already asked for Additions to the agenda. We're going to bring up the prior meeting minutes And the first was the pre-town meeting and Pat was not at the last meeting so and At the other one so we needed to so it's between Pat and I to approve the minutes for the Pre-town meeting that February 24 that you approve those. I have read them and I I approve them. I second it All right, and I I also so I'll move we pass those except those is type Long favor All right, and then we go to the February Which was the regular select board meeting following the pre-town meeting and Same thing I would move that we accept those minutes as presented a second and vote aye voting aye and Dune if you weren't there that yet on that one. Oh, that's right next one you get to do sorry about that I move we overzealous minutes now the next meeting minutes, which was on the March 9th meeting And that's me and Frank Pat. You weren't there. So Frank now I would enter a Motion to accept those minutes as Presented I second that all right, and there we go on favor aye. All right. All right, so we've got the minutes Minutes from town meeting the actual town meeting. Do we need to approve those? I think that I Don't see them No on the I don't see them on the agenda and I would Julie do you know about that? Did we have some meetings for the town the town maintenance meeting? We don't yet. No, no, all right. What's what's holding those up? Well, if it helps it was in the Herald Those aren't your official minutes though, of course It was asked at the last meeting on March 9th When they would be put up on our website. Oh, okay I need to get Dan signature and I'll have those all sent Okay, we're waiting on that's right because Dan is a one that okay, so we'll have to check with Dan on that Okay. All right. All right good We've got no Joan here tonight So I guess we won't get any updates from her or the library. I don't see Cougar here and to Terry. We're getting rapidly down to what we're all here to talk about is the Adopting the 2020 local hazard mitigation plan and Vic. Do you want to speak to that a little bit sure? So We have a document called the local hazard mitigation plan. This is a Plan that the town has had in the past and it has a life of I think five years of this ban And then it has to be renewed if you want to maintain eligibility for FEMA Reimbursement, so there are specifications for the doc for the plan document that have to satisfy FEMA requirements we received a grant last year to Have professional planning assistance help our emergency management committee put a new plan together and So we use that grant to retain two rivers. They provided staff to the committee The committee composed of myself as chair Cougar Terry Severi Jan McCann Rob Gardner and Pat Harvey we met several times over the between summer and Winter and Reviewed that what we had in the past Considered various criteria for how we might through the plan The overall idea is to help us identify all the hazards facing the town rank them identify identify strategies to reduce risk from known priority hazards like Flash floods severe weather cold snow extreme heat Things of that nature. So we went through that process generated several drafts Senate to the state Emergency management office where it was reviewed and they came back with Some suggestions for improvement to be more aligned with FEMA requirements. We did all that and Then we've got a clean bill The last time around in December. I think it was and so the next step is to present it to the select board who received their approval and Then it can be sent off to the state and the state will send it on a FEMA And then we will be eligible for female reimbursement if there's another disaster. It does not speak specifically to Coronavirus any other pandemic? This was an issue that was just not on the radar when we were putting this plan together And perhaps been an amendment at some point or in a future addition will He'd add that in but this would this would be satisfactory in terms of meeting FEMA requirements at this time So so the documents about 55 pages long Martha sat in on at least things and reported down at the paper all the meetings were warned appropriately and So there's been an opportunity to review it So let me just stop there and see if anybody has any questions You know, thank you for for that synopsis and Like I said earlier since it's questionable to what extent we can take binding action Eating I would I would still propose that we we had this this plan and then we can come back and reaffirm that adoption In the future once they've Legitimize this meeting format. So I'd entertain a vote now to adopt this plan Second that yeah, no in favor No, right that's I think that in this situation that has to be a roll call. So that's some Pat you're saying aye Yep, and Frank you're saying aye Saying aye just so it's identified who's voting in that situation Do I want to excuse me do. Yeah, can I ask you a question? Yeah, I want to make sure I get this worded correctly I was saying doon proposed that the board adopt the plan provisionally until after and after until they get a Formal approval from the state to do the virtual meetings and then go back and do a Prove it again. Is that correct? Well, we won't need to approve it again I believe we can just ratify the decisions that we're making in public now and Just to make sure that all bases are covered. Maybe totally fine But just you know, we'll we'll come back and because this is um, that's an important thing to And we don't want to mess it up. Okay. So if I said do you propose the board adopt the plan and then act to ratify that after the the After the virtual meeting format is Legitimized. Thank you. I just want to make sure I get that correct and don't make trouble for you guys. No, no, that's that's all right That's why I want to get it. So That was really the the the meat of the agenda tonight other than the elephant in the in the town about in this and Burma you brought up what are we going to be doing about? You know social distancing in town this We have ready in the mail the second in the series of town mailers, which is going to provide About the town's response to COVID-19 and it's because it's a definitely a rapidly changing situation And that's I mean increasingly urgent that People adhere to safety guidelines for social distancing by staying home and ceasing non essential outings and Dr. Erwin Lang of Gifford Medical Center is met with us when I say Of course that is dealing with this and that it's comprised of myself and Rob Gardner and Vic Robato and Catherine Shankman and Vic do you want to speak to the structures and the different roles that we're all playing in that sure sure so Part of the scope responsibility of the emergency management committee is to address unforeseen incidents like this and So we created a small task force that Dune just identified and we created a structure go with it our overall mission is to organize the efforts to lessen the suffering of folks in Rochester as a result of this coronavirus pandemic and Collaborate with local state federal organizations to do the same and So we've created a very simple table of organization where we have an incident commander I play that role as the convener of the group and Helping us sure that we stay on task Rob Gardner is working as our communications chief where he's creating and executing Communications plans. He's putting good information up on the web to drive the the mailer that dude just a reference and taking in in from questions from public and Triaging them and sorry them out and getting answers to folks as questions come up Dune as he's he's coordinating make sure that our town services remain Functioning, you know, we don't know how long this thing is going to last and we have critical services that sound provides to the residents and so He's focused on on that And then Catherine shankman is has put together a team including Paula d'Ordi Peggy McKinley Jan McKinnon, I think maybe someone else him I might be forgetting Anyway looking at elder and family services issues that might arise and then Sue Robato is focused on food security and she's been able to create a volunteer service where people who are isolated Either they're Been been told to take self-isolation to determine whether or not they have the virus or if they're a vulnerable person like a Senior person and shouldn't be out shopping for groceries that they've created sooner group have created a system To shop for and deliver groceries to people who can't or shouldn't go out and do this themselves And that's scheduled to launch next Monday And you'll be hearing and seeing more about that soon So we're trying to anticipate What the urgent needs are and and what's coming down the pike, but as everybody knows there's a lot of unknowns here We just keep reiterating the message that Berm identified as we got started that the social distancing is really really important And this one of the doctors at Gifford said to me if it's not a pain in the rear end You're not doing it right you got a you really got to be diligent about it It's difficult, but the alternative is a lot worse Make a comment That In terms of what you just laid out. I I know that More tests will be done in the future and possibly more people in our community are going to be tested but there is no uniform information regarding post-testing and actions of people while they're waiting to get their results from their tests and I am afraid that That because there's no uniform way every doctor and their patient have their own personal relationship People will be going out before they get their test results Not knowing whether they're positive And I I foresee that this could be a problem in our community And I wonder how best to address this Probably through public communication as Rob stunned the line. Do you want to speak to that if you're there Rob? Yeah, go ahead. Well, it's important to keep in mind that we're not the police and we're not You know, we don't have the power to chase people back into their houses or anything like that I think all all the I think that we can do is to continue to communicate with tools We have which right now our Facebook front page forum physical mailers and the town website And then a lot of people are sharing this stuff and moving the stuff around This the single most important message that I'm repeating over and over again on the on the on the stuff That we put out is this business of staying and staying inside isolating yourself Because it's not only your safety that we're talking about or the safety of the person that you might infect rival the hospital upon which we all And they're in trouble at like hospitals all across so that's just a message that we can repeat mixed in together with What you know things are going on or canceled in town or whatever I'm just wondering if maybe in the letter that goes out people could be remind It's important to wait The letter it has has been posted the text has been posted on these different internet sites now and I guess right now the letter is focusing on on Symptoms and testing and reducing the hospital surge and tips for caregivers caring for a person with the virus and cleaning and preventing the spread and Simple just simple prevention tips and then also Pointing out that we are putting together the volunteer team to help shop and deliver groceries to people that are quarantined or Isolated so that's that's the gist of what this letter this immediate letter is going out and it's And you're that's a good point Burma to that could be folded in to You know following letters is that then the importance of I Mean really everyone just should just assume that they have it and act accordingly Can I chime in just real quick? If people are interested in rabble bring this up with you later But Dan and I have gotten tested already. We are negative But I could write up a short brief thing on how we went about it how what we were instructed to do and How we were instructed to act just as something kind of personalized maybe for the Facebook page or something else Informationally it might help people kind of understand this happened to folks in our town and here's what they went through and here's how they acted That's great. Let's see The other question sure you and Dan got got tested Did you have did you get tested because you felt you had symptoms or was it because you travel internationally or what? We had just come back to a trip where we both went Italy And then Dan had a high fever. So we checked all the boxes. That makes sense. Okay, I just wondered Can you post it somewhere else besides Facebook for those who don't do Facebook? I can I can put it on front porch forum, too. I've been copying a lot of the things If anybody has other ideas of you know useful just to share the information stuff, so we're happy to add more options now Lucy has been been volunteering to repost with the stuff from The one platform to the other with the big pain in the butt and she's been very helpful in that. I think that's a great idea Lizzie to do that. Also, Burma, you can send me a note saying what you think and I'll put I'll write it into a post and put It up tomorrow. Whatever you say, I mean I'll do the best I can to format it and put it up there right away anybody else too Rob, I want to say that how much I've enjoyed the Rochester, I guess it's a community. I guess it's called the community website that you've been using you've been posting so much about coronavirus on Bolton board pardon me. Anyway, it's it's very well done and and very much appreciated Can I uh We're gonna continue to mail out something every once in a while about the updates on this thing That's our thought now. Yeah, but I don't know if it would be weekly or but Yeah, what kind of precautions are you gonna have for the people delivering this the food and everything and doing the shopping Precautions on that. Yeah, they'll we'll provide them First of all instructions about how to stay safe and and not have real direct not have direct contact with the people who are receiving the Goods are basically leaving on the doorstep and Still give them gloves and and masks. We have a supply of them We can use for that purpose and make sure that the people who are doing this are not in the higher risk categories even those So people some of the people would like to do this Okay, I also Notice that there was a group of people playing basketball Sunday afternoon down For and there were cars there as well. So there were adults who were driving them there to play I didn't uh take any police action Rob Several hours I saw them and I I felt like I couldn't go down and say anything because it but it bothered me and I mentioned it to somebody so Well, yeah, I mean it's gonna happen um, it's just You know, I don't want to expose myself by going to a group of strangers and I think maybe they all I could think of was that maybe they thought it was okay because they were all outside and in fresh air But even so they were playing with a basketball passing the ball back and forth between each other And they and they were all being close to each other while doing so which I don't know I had seen something about that on um one of the websites about how that would definitely wasn't a good idea Yeah So I posted a thing in response to that because a couple of people contacted me about it And I used the event as a kind of a platform to talk further about why I needed to do that But I got some negative feedback and private messages from people down who were just kind of disgruntled that I guess I was presuming authority or something like that You you can see that that not everybody is on board of the whole idea that you need to be responsible You know, it irritates some people not, you know here in the entire country. So I don't know what to do about that except for every single person to try to be as personally responsible as they can Some people aren't going to do it I I witnessed that I was walking the dog out in the back and I didn't approach them but my um My intuition or sense about it was that it looked like a group. They're probably already if they're Infecting each other by playing ball. I think they're probably already had infected each other by driving together I I don't think they were locals. I think it might be someone that has Retreated to a house in town perhaps and just getting out and playing side, you know to I don't think we can just you know ban everyone from From No, I didn't recognize any of them. Yeah, I didn't either and I I didn't it seems to me It was a new york plate on a car. So I my sense was this was a a group and they were there as a group I don't think it was just a gathering of of stray people playing I think that was a group that arrived together and was playing together and then they probably all left together too so It's we're gonna we're gonna have that we have there's definitely been an influx of people Coming to to homes in our area to to ride out the storm as it may be They have closed playgrounds in our area. They've posted signs Including Someone was trying to talk but I couldn't quite hear them but anyway that um Yeah, you know, what are you gonna do? We do the best we can and try and educate people that's um Probably not a bad idea to put up a sign out the you know Down there, but it's you know I Could does anyone else have any anything else and other concerns things I'd like to contribute I was just wondering if uh vick, uh, was there a Telephone meeting today with the emergency committee? No, uh, we had one large group meeting Week ago or so and we tried doing that by uh conference call and it just Didn't work very well And I also felt that a smaller group could be a little more nimble in terms of making decisions getting things done pulling in the right people and so that's uh, so we went to just the smaller group of uh, dune rob Catherine sue and and myself and then we pull another expertise as we needed like dr. Lang or uh, Jan mccann or terry sevry is the case may be so That's why we would seem to be working. Okay Okay, so you had that smaller meeting so um in your update that included whatever discussion came from the smaller Yeah, I often uh after a meeting I make a little paragraph about what happened in the meeting pretty brief and post it on Facebook and the front let me post it on front page It's not like the minutes but it it gives a sense of what the key things were that happened in the meeting And I do that For people and to give people the idea that the lights are on in the town and you know, we're still paying attention Well, um, I guess we're um, we're in it and we're gonna keep Moving forward. I I think there are a lot of times when living in a in a small town like Rochester really has A lot of challenges economically and And socially and in this situation it I believe that our small size is going to really be To our benefit in terms of the it will it helps It helps the social distancing I mean because someone said, uh, oh social distancing. Isn't that what it means to live in Vermont? Not really You know, I heard someone comment the other day that oh this this uh pandemic is just like going through Irene and I thought No, it's not because Irene nobody was dying and also if someone was sad and upset during Irene We all hugged each other and you can't do that now. Yeah Yeah, but um, I do I do think um, it's wonderful to see How our committees are working so hard to make things happen like for example, Sue Roboto's thing with the grocery deliveries for people and I mean That's that's one of the wonderful things about living in a small town in Vermont I think uh people I've gotten a lot of kind, uh Comments on the facebook page You know appreciating me, but I'm only the most uh, visible Volunteer of a whole lot of people, you know, all the sues people, uh, Catherine's got a whole Social service team put together. Uh, everybody has been working As much as they can within the confines we have and I think it's really something to be proud of. I think it's quite touching I agree You could say stay home stop the spread save lives Yeah, that's short and sweet Well, you will all be getting a um, uh fairly scary detailed letter in the mail um, you know with uh specific recommendations and and advice and that will not be the last one and um We'll um move forward. It's um, it's challenging times and let's say we're gonna deal with it In terms of Other business Susan we don't have uh designated dog catcher right now Did you have a situation in mind? Did you have a problem with the dog? No, I was just wondering if we don't have a designated dog catcher um and considering just people having difficult times with Being laid off etc that Would it be possible to consider not having the dog licensing fees since there's no one to do anything about them anyhow? and just put that on that side, I don't think that I think that the dog licensing is is um Regardless of not having a dog catcher. They're two separate separate issues. It's really a matter of verifying that the dogs are properly vaccinated and and just knowing where they are and and You know, even though we don't have someone as the animal control officer at this point now When we do or if even just a citizen Finds a stray dog. It'd be nice if it has a tag on it and it's licensed Then it's easy to track down and I mean take it home so Yeah, so I think we'll keep that We need to keep that What is that money going for if there's not a dog catcher then? I mean, I just I agree the dog should be licensed But what what's the fee for them? I don't think that specifically offsets the cost of the human officer that is basically just Just a fee for the processing and the paperwork that needs to be filed and probably to buy the little metal medallions It's not a not a large fee, but it's a state requirement. Do I think it probably is. Yeah Yeah, the state gets part the state gets part of them The state gets part of all fees license All right Does anyone have anything else that they'd like to talk about tonight or I think we know what the the main topic is and and we'll We'll continue on This for the foreseeable future this may be the The venue that we That we use to do this. I'm finding that this experience worked very well compared to the The conference call we tried last week. I've been able to understand Everything everyone has tried to say and I believe that in zoom it is possible to just join With a phone you don't need to be on a computer, but I think the invite the information The information goes out via an email There is um, but if you get the Yeah, there is um, it's definitely helpful to have a computer and it's the first one of these meetings I've ever run on. So Rob has done it a handful of times I'm sure that we'll have some people that are a little um frustrated that they felt left out of this, but we'll um It's not like you can say go to the library and get on their computer Okay, and um Well at the end, you know the date of the next version being etc And for more information if they'd like somebody'd like to be included they could call Office would that be all right or is that an imposition? No, I think that that's that's appropriate. Yeah, okay I would like to suggest that julie send out the Code the zoom code a half an hour before the starts She can easily do that I don't see that as being an issue because I never got one and I get and she had my email address. So For some reason I didn't receive any any email Oh, sorry about that berba Sort of a group email and maybe uh, you know, this it's a work in progress this whole thing Actually, this went really well I tried to do it. I would it was really hard and uh, this I think the julie and Dune and and the folks who put this together Really did a good job. I'm glad if they the code in an hour early. They'll just get a screen that says you're me And so then people can get settled with their computers and make sure they have everything running from there And in case they have to create password or whatever to get into zoom Um Hey, dude, yes, uh, just a question you you mentioned the town plan the other uh last meeting Yes, that is a time crunch on that There's not a um On that it's it's um And that goes to the two rivers region regional committee to for the regional um agreement Then this it seemed that there is Enough interest in that we were Um, this is not the time to have people feel that they Input on that because of the the challenges of of meeting right now. So I think that I know I was just Wondering if there was a time frame to it. I wasn't not. No, we don't have a super um Um Super deadline on that. It's just something that we're in the process of We felt as um credit adopt the local hazard Mitigation plan because we don't know to what extent FEMA will become coming into um into play Yeah, but it's it's um It's out there. We didn't want to just have anyone feel like we're Rushing the town plan through without a chance for the public to really Conversation about it. Yeah Yeah Can I throw out just a very quick question? Yeah Um, we took a picture of my screenshot here of what this zoom meeting is like I wanted to check with people who have their script. They're um on I mean, it's very small But I thought it might be helpful to upload that to the community The facebook page to show This is what our virtual solo board looks like if people want to join the meeting It just kind of makes it a little easier to see how it goes, but a few of you have Images Right now, I wish I could have gotten the images to work on my screen. I can see people's names, but no pictures Yeah, we see you Martha Oh gosh Well, I'm glad I brushed my hair at um Media once again for working with us to document There the meeting so I I'm So it'll be good to have this posted on the on the website and It'll help to Normalize it I suppose Perhaps So I guess with that we're going to sign off at um 6 58 that was um Our first virtual meeting the broad chester is move the future one way or another Thanks everybody