 All right. So let's get started. Call the meeting to order. It is seven. 17, according to my computer clock. Public comment for items not on the agenda. Kate, are you here for. Just a listen, or did you have something. You wanted to bring up. I'm here for the historic preservation. I don't know if you have any questions, but I, I've just, I figured I would come and listen to the beginning because I've never been to a meeting. And you brought your dog. Thank you. This is my dog. Okay. So there's no public comment. Additions changes to the agenda. All right. I'm not sure where. You don't see Toby in the waiting room. Do you, Cliff? You're on mute, Cliff. No, I'm not on mute. I'm not on mute. I'm not on mute. Toby just came in. I'll bring him in. Oh, he dropped off again. I think he's having connectivity issues. Oh, okay. No. Cliff, I hit admit. Backseat driver. No, you know, Cliff. Cliff, I admitted him. I understand. I'm making sure he can hear us. Toby, are you there? Oh, he's connected. His audio is not connected yet. Now he's on. Toby. Hey, Toby. Hello. Hi, it's knowing. Hi. Hi. Lovely. So Toby, you want to, I thank you for checking with Doug Newton. And the state. So you just want to lay it out. What you found out. I think we're all on the same page, but I just want to make sure where we are. For the guardrails. Yep. So instead of using concrete barriers, we can just use a doubled or nested guardrail across the span. So that's essentially originally the plan was just regular guardrail across the whole thing. Because of the shallow depth over the culvert. We couldn't do that. So now we'll have doubled or tripled. Guard rail to cover the distance. And the associated costs. Are they all grant eligible? Toby. Well, I think it actually be. So the thing about the grant is. We do an estimate. They give us a grant for what we estimate. If we go over there are addendums that we file and we get paid for the overage if it happens. Cause we can't always hit the number on the, on the dollar. If we're under. They give us a little bit less. So, so essentially everything is covered. There's really no. Any real change in other than we just do 10% of whatever the whole project is. Okay. Well, hi, Scott. Hi, Tobin. And then Toby, you had cut, you had sent us an email with a couple of other projects. Do you want to just. Explain what they are. Yeah. The first one is repaving the, um, the pavement from route 14 to the school. That's a class two grant. Um, that's just an overlay, which would just cover over the existing pavement and. Uh, so that would be the class two grant for the year and the structure's grant. There's a culvert on loose road on the really sharp corner at the bottom of the hill. Um, we're actually having some trouble with that right now because the sidewall is collapsing from the road because it's such a steep bank. Um, I think that's a good point. Is that the project you tried to, that we didn't get the grant for? Was it last year? Nope, not, not at all. This is all brand new. Okay. So essentially the, um, putting together a grant that would put in an extension on the culvert or replace it entirely. Depending on this, the hydraulic study, which would require. Um, if it needs a bigger hole. It's not rusting or collapse, but, um, it needs a head wall and probably needs a footer wall. And it needs to be longer so that we can, uh, have a less steep slope on either side of the road. And what's the, what's the, um, budget amount and what's the, what money do we have to come up with, if any, and as, and if we do, what is it in the budget? Um, well, again, as you remember that. That our work is already paid for by the, by the regular budget. So any work we do, um, is stuff in time that we've already paid for. We do get reimbursed. Um, I believe in structures, it's 80%. So 80% of the cost of the entire project is paid for by the state. Okay. And so our percentage is 20%, but that can be time and labor. Okay. Well, that's how they calculate it, but we've already, we're already, you know, if the guys are working for a whole week or whatever it is to do the job. They're already getting paid out of our regular budget. It's not an additional money. The difference is that we get reimbursed for all the expenses and 80% of that work. Okay. And then there was another project, I think. Nope. That's it. That's just that. Those two. Okay. Anybody have any questions or. Whatever for Toby. Alfred. Uh, no, I'm good. Okay. And just while we're. On the issue of road stuff. Oh gosh, I can't remember what her name is right now, but she works with, she's working with PMD Andrea on the East Calus gully stormwater project. And, um, they're getting ready to send out the scope of work document. And then they'll do an RFP. And a woman, like I said, I can't remember her name right now, but I think I sent. You an email Alfred, just letting you know that she was going to be in East Calus tomorrow morning at nine. Just looking around. Okay. So the emails were kind of scattered. It wasn't really telling me. When it was going to be. Yeah. Yes, that's it. Jessica Lord Lord at us or something. The last name. I mean, there isn't anything for us. There's nothing for us to do right now. I just wanted you. Alfred to be aware that this woman was going to be out there looking at the project because. I just think you should know. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I can pop in there. Take a look at nine o'clock. Yeah. Introduce myself and see if there's any questions that she has. Yeah. Okay. And I think that that work isn't really going to happen until FY 22. Because they have to do the scope of work, do the RFPs, all that stuff. So. And I believe our share of doing that was just. Maybe the town. Doing some digging and things like that. That was all. Right. Right. Well, they're just doing engineering right now. Right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Anything else for the, anything else for roads guys? Nope. I don't think so. We're trying to grade when we can today was a rainy day. So we didn't grade, but. We are going to try to put the start putting sand up this week. Yeah, it's just trying to keep up with it. Yeah. Yeah. Things getting back to normal more or less. Yeah. So the update on the budget, we've got about $71,000 left in the budget before the end of the year. And I just put in for reimbursement on the paving on. Moscow woods for roughly $24,000. So if that comes in before the end of the year, we'll literally have about 90,000 before the end of the year to spend in the next month and a half. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We'll do what we can do. Yep. Yep. Thank you. Alfred and Toby very much. Okay. Okay. So are you done with me for the night? I, I think we are. Have a nice night. Okay. Very good. Thank you. Bye now. Here. Thanks, Toby. Yep. Good. Thanks. All right. Up next. Nick. What's going on with emergency management? Thanks for getting me on the agenda. Sure thing. Just a couple of updates we received notice from the regional planning commission. That's for modern merge emergency management approved the callous. Local emergency management plan that we submitted a few weeks ago for 2020. And I'll bet having that approved by the state is good because it, it's a condition for receiving funds. Vermont funds from ERAF, the emergency relief and assistance fund. So is that, is that where we, Nick? Is that where we submit? Or log. That portal to put documents in for reimbursement. Is that the same thing? No, that's, well, I think that's the same thing. Um, the female pays 75% Of. The reimbursement requests that we make. And then these, um, ERAF funds from Vermont can pay. Typically, well, for Cal's 12 and a half percent of the remaining. 25%. So no, that's a separate. Deal. If we come up with this $3,300 mark. Yeah, so I'll talk about that the FEMA portal we got set up last week for requesting reimbursement for COVID related expenses. Sandra is registered as primary point of contact to that. Judy or whoever the town clerk is at any point in time is is listed as the primary point of contact. Yes, it's a minimum for 2020. It's a minimum of $3,300 in expenses. In order to In order to get reimbursed. And so of course we need to keep track of expenses. And FEMA has just started to take a look at it, but if they have specific requirements for documentation. We need to keep track of expenses and record keeping. So it's, it's more than just keeping it, keeping an invoice. Yeah. Now I'm sure if it's federal, it's complicated. Yeah. And so I had some email with Sandra today and she's, it sounds like she has done this once over in Worcester. So she knows the territory a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure she probably does. Yeah. Yeah. Denise, I sent to KTV. Local emergency management plan information sharing agreement. For the select board's consideration about whether they want. To participate in that. Do you want me to describe that? Or. Have you that already? I am. I mean, I looked over the documents. I think. I think it's a good idea to, to be able to make a contact. With the community. The city has a lot of options and they can help us. I'm all for it. Okay. I guess. Maybe Katie's going to send that out to you then. I, it's very straightforward. It's simple. It's just getting the. Regional planning commission permission to share all of the information and resources that we listed on our. situations and sharing resources and we've done and we have done some of that not necessarily maybe through this same process but oftentimes you know if East Montpelier or Woodbury has something going on you know we'll loan them a truck or let them use the grader or so it's that same kind of thing right it's just kind of being a good neighbor it is yep and we know what they've got and and they know what we've got because we're sharing our information so and this letter that you sent us for us to sign off on is just agreeing to that right it says LEPC 5 would like to request formal permission from your municipality to share updated LEMP information with other LEPC members and Washington County municipal officials upon request that's basically what the letter is and I just need approval from the board to sign off on this anybody have any questions Nick or Nick or comments seems pretty straight forward and I agree it's something we should share participate in so would you make a motion then to authorize me to sign this letter of support which is goes back to Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission so moved is there a second second Moses seconding okay is there any further discussions questions for Nick comments anything like that yeah everything you need from us yes yes so far so good and maybe in six weeks or so I could hop back on the agenda in case there's anything moving along yeah yeah just let me know shoot me email and I'm happy to put you on the agenda and I'd like to just update you on this government electronic telecommunications service can we can we just vote on this motion for sorry I'm sorry okay we have to do a roll call Rose hi Sharon hi Cliff hi John hi and I'm an eye all right thank you for letting us get that done the motion is approved go ahead Nick so the acronym is gets and this is so I think I mentioned last time this is priority access to landline networks when there's congestion due to a national emergency disaster situation or some other situation you get queued to the front the phone carrier queues you to the front of the line as an emergency related provider and so I did request that service and we did get callous got approved for participation by the Department of Homeland Security and I requested cards for Toby and for each member of the select board and for and yourself right and for myself and Elizabeth who's the public information officer Judy and the road Alfred whoever the road commissioner maybe is there a cost is there a cost for that Nick so cost oh we like things that don't cost anything we like free stuff yeah we like free stuff you how does that how does that work it works by you get a card that has each person has an individual separate account with a separate passcode so you dial a single universal number no matter where you are from only from a landline it does not work on my cell phone and put in your pin and they queue you they put you up up front so you can get your call through at least more they say 90% of the time they can get your call through quickly oh I see so it's a pin number or something that you enter yes okay I'm so I have I've received the cards I'm not sure I guess I'll mail them to you individually and it gives gives instructions on how to use it I have I have prepaid stamped envelopes here from the town office if you let Judy or if you send Judy and Barbara an email and drop them off at the town office maybe with instructions I'm sure Barbara or Judy could mail them out great okay that's what I'll do yeah so these can be used from any landline you validate when you get the card you validate it by making a test call then they know that you're connected they encourage you to make test calls periodically every few months to make sure you know how to work that it's working and then I can tell recently well there there is another service that can be used with cell phones but there is always been a charger and let's see it's a monthly charge and a per call charge but recently very recently the wireless carriers have suspended those charges so now that's free and so if in a different kind of emergency scenario there might be cell service but no landline it's less likely than the other but so if anyone's interested in having this once you get familiar with gets with the landline service if you think you want to have this put on your phone let me know and I'll we can set that up it's unlike gets which can be used from any your card can be used from any landline the wireless priority service WPS can only it's assigned to your specific phone can't it can't be used from any other phone so it's a little different so like if I was at my son's house in East Calis and I needed to call if they have a landline I could still use that card yes okay all right wireless network is more vulnerable to disruption than landlines I think and so that's why we thought we'd start out with the landline gets card so any questions about that right off no what a great service thinking my mind is at the moment more focused on the preparedness phase of emergency management so these in that in that vein and I just before I sign off I was wondering who do I speak with to better understand their current range meant the cows has for backup of computer files RV tech and yeah okay am I right in thinking that there's going to be or there is a external hard drive backup in the town office if cliff doesn't mind he knows a lot about all of our computer stuff okay cliff maybe I'll contact you about that I was gonna suggest neck yeah we can have a an offline conversation the short answer is yes we have backup provisions in place and we will be putting some additional backups in place so that there is online there's backup on site backup off site and backup in the cloud great all right but RB tech in case you ever need to know is our computer support company all right yeah there's a recommendation out there to have some backup on non electronic media such as flash drives or hard disks but I'll talk about that maybe cliff later yeah anytime just being me when you're ready okay that's it for me thank you so much thank you so much Nick okay thanks anybody else anybody have anything for Nick no thank you thank you you're welcome to stay it's going to be so exciting I'll hang around for though I'll see what happens all right there you go next up is David Healy cd fiber and I did you sent this template letter David and I did go in and try to put some callous stuff in there but I don't know if it made it to the Google folder can you hear us David yeah I can hear you I don't know whose folder my folder your folder are the select boards Google drive that we know you can edit it to your hearts content okay and when that gets done should I we send it to you yes please send it to me and it'll be added to our application which I guess is going to be quite long I've already put about 25 hours into it oh my so can you just you want to just you want to just give everybody an overview of what this this opportunity to speak with you tonight came because I made a request that I like to get an endorsement from the select board to support our grant application to the northern border regional commission economic development program this is a highly competitive process although broadband is one of the topics that they want to finance but it's about construction so now I can go back to where see where is cd fibrin now that it's almost it's exactly two years this month in January we hired a company to do a feasibility study with the money we got from USDA and from the Department of Public Service for broadband feasibility study and a business plan this week we will be receiving the feasibility study from the consultant who have seen a draft perhaps in the draft and one of the requirements was can it pay back for itself in three years which is pretty extraordinary but that was one of the requirements that the Department of Public Service put on the feasibility study so the consultant has been looking at routes and how to do a pilot project where to do them and it's going to be about between 25 and $30,000 a mile it's not cheap but we are confident of their confidence that we can do it by underwriting it we don't believe that in the first two or three years we'll be able to serve every house which is the goal but the consultant is also looking at a putting up radio radio Wi-Fi similar to what cloud alliance already has but putting it so that everybody gets something if they're not on the broadband a high speed internet they deliberately didn't look at routes that had a lot of cable cable but in the way they looked at it was some places they had to use go through areas without cable so callous is one of those weird places which has cable but then has a lot of unserved addresses so and so this grant application is basically a first stage to get a pilot project funded in which the state will we are allowed to borrow up to four million dollars from Vita but Vita funds require a 10% match so looking to try to get at least $400,000 from the Northern Border Regional Commission so that's one project and which I've asked for this letter of support the other project that's on the on the horizon is the FCC is going is sponsoring a reverse auction for every unserved address and every census block in the country and how would that means in this case callous actually has a lot of unserved census blocks and they'll pay up to I think it's $4,800 per household is a starting point and what a reverse auction does is if you're competing with another entity that like consolidated communications or Comcast and CB fiber the idea is you bid down the amount of money that you're willing to accept and if you're the winning winning bid you have five years to connect every property in that census block and it has to be 100-100 so it has to be fiber and the money is paid to you over a period of 10 years so it's a pretty good deal and we are looking to find a partner to bid on that because we're not eligible to bid because we're not an internet service provider the other entity that is able to bid on this is Washington Elector so we've been talking to Washington Elector as to being a partner with us to bid on this auction we've also asked some other providers to see if they want to be interested in teaming with us to do this auction. The third pool of money which I think is sort of speculative at best is the anticipated infrastructure money that Congress is supposed to talk about this year it's I'm not sure it's gonna be talked about till next year and even then it's unlikely but no it's possible but if they did come through with what they're talking about that amount of money that they're talking about is enough to pay for the whole network and CD5 of territory I I don't know why I'm so skeptical but I always find opportunities in which they say oh you're gonna get something and it's not but we do know right now even borrowing money and and getting subscribers we can actually pay off the loan so it's not terrible where would that money come from the loan to pay where would the money come from to pay off the loan from rate rate payer people who subscribe so depending on you know what speed you want to buy it's you know if you use the EC5 or model in central East Central Vermont they charge about 75 dollars a month up to 200 dollars a month depending of your business and want super gigabit speeds and that's right here is rate payers pay for it I mean not that you know the users pay for it and that's that part of that survey we filled out correct they asked if you and if they asked if you would if you would subscribe right correct and the other option is you know instead of borrowing money from Vita is to actually solicit you know local residents that might want to have money and want to invest in CV5 or and get a little bit better interest than one and a half percent or whatever it's down to now maybe it's even less than one percent so that's another option that we will be looking at and probably putting out some solicitation to find out at this interest and it could be a risky investment but that's also the interest that you get paid so there's a lot of potential there for money in the survey we did we had over I think was 60 percent said that they would pre-subscribe which means I think the way the question was asked was you pay for two years in advance well we had a lot of people who said yes so that would certainly help us get the thing underwritten and going so that's sort of a nutshell of where CV5 or is that is a lot of crazy stuff going on the legislature is wanting to do lots of things it doesn't appear possible that the 1.25 billion dollars that the state of Vermont got any of that can be used for broadband it may be able to use for wireless connections to what money are you talking about what we got because of covid the state got 1.25 billion for covid related expenses the definition for those expenses is pretty tight I would imagine that that's not would not be eligible for this right the thing that would be would be for school kids and if he can run you know your Wi-Fi networks on top of polls or whatever but neighborhoods don't have service so I have data for every town in Vermont who gets who has service and who doesn't have service it's not perfect but it's pretty good and so that's what we've been using sort of to figure out which routes and most in need and we'll see how that goes we're meeting tomorrow night every first Tuesday second Tuesday of every month the Berlin elementary school and that's coming pretty well the legislature is has an emergency broadband plan that they've proposed in which there's a lot of things what I would call vapor vapor money for broadband but they also are talking about Wi-Fi and sell your extensions and cable extensions and all those kinds of things so that's they want comments on that plan by the end of May and they have put a reverse auction idea in there for the money that doesn't exist but they think will exist so that's that's coming up and Congressman Welch is on the bike partisan committee for broadband and he's the one that's saying that there will be an infrastructure bill that this will be in the question is whether it's going to be in this year or a future year depends I guess who's in Congress next year so that's sort of my update on where CV fiber is be happy to entertain questions and cliff I wonder cliff I wonder if you could bring up that letter I think it's in the Google folder now if I can open it from the email give me a minute okay so board members or anybody else out there in the zoom land have any comments or questions let me ask them there how many people have Comcast zoom meeting I don't I have their point I'm sorry I've consolidated communication sorry yeah right that's what I have but Sharon is that at home or at your office we have Comcast in the office where I am now and I have consolidated at home okay I think that's what I think that's what David's asking is at at your residence what you have right which is why I'm not there I'm I'm where I where it actually works now when you say consolidated is that where I have fair point that's consolidates the same company yeah so letter is just you know how to call us supporting that our application for this grant money from the Northern Border Regional Commission okay Scott had his Scott had his hand up Scott yeah can you hear me okay as they say yeah David how how how are you going to decide where to begin on the project oh Scott you asked that question the way the way the consultant did the they did six routes or proposing six routes and they based their recommendation for pilot project on where they thought they could get the best take great to underwrite the payment of the infrastructure so it it'll be interesting to see what the board decides if you know it could produce you know could choose any of the other routes my my preferences that we go for the whole inch ladder only do all six all six routes of which I should just let you know that a good chunk of calluses in that okay including the worst section worst served areas of call us which are which I wear David oh he's call us and not call us yeah okay um so when do you need this letter by I need this by the end of the month I need it by May I needed my hands by May 29th so I can put the package together on June on Sunday so I have to do a compiled PDF of every piece of the application so I don't know if that's the date I don't know if board members have had a chance to look at this yet I had like I said I started to kind of go through it and I had a couple of questions just to start off the bat was our property values have remained lower than our neighbors yeah I don't know if that's true I don't know if that's true and how we would know that and then I actually I found a couple of typos but I didn't focus on I didn't focus on those right now it says the new norm is high speed internet at every premises would not the word should be resident residents know because we're talking about organizations and businesses and schools and everything so the generic term is press premises premises really okay I learned a new use for the word premises then yeah um and in this if this goes through does that mean that and Wexapartner that little dish things or I don't know what you would call them little things would go on the top of bone electric poles yes it could be some of that to reach that basically the one you know if it's gonna cost you know $29,000 a mile in serviced areas if there's one house and a house and you know there's no other houses on that road they may be serviced by a little thing a couple of things on top of poles yes and that would be on it that would be interim that wouldn't be permanent so the idea is it would be buried fiber optic then it'd be strong on the pole and the reason the team with Washington Electric is that if the fiber can be strong in the electric space on Wex poles we don't have to pay any leases and a and Washington Electric itself is thinking of doing the fiber themselves and then leasing it to CV fiber because they know that they are going to need fiber to everybody's home just to do management of electricity Wow and they also know that the you know how they currently collect the information for the billing system that's I don't have I don't have whack I have hard with electric oh yeah you're really lucky really no I'm gonna say the power goes out just like it could go out right now because it's no one yeah no the they they're what they're why a Wi-Fi data collection system is basically failing it's an old technology that's not gonna last much longer the other thing the pandemic has done you know from the standpoint of future planning I am Nick is still here but from an emergency standpoint this is who should get fine who should get high speed internet access and is it a public good and should it go to everybody and those are gonna be discussed I think you can have a lot of new discussions in the next two to three years on this whole topic well especially when you've got all these kids trying to that's right do remote learning you've got all these parents also trying to work at the same time I can't even imagine the chaos it must be in some of these houses so anyway that's out of my story and I I'm sorry I haven't been to the board in a few months well I know when you're when you need to update us you let us know yeah you know if you can get it to me that by the 29th that'd be great okay so maybe we can just we can work on it between now and then and get it to you yeah another meeting board members is that board members is that sound like a plan that maybe we you could review we could all review it and when we next meet come up with the letter and then we can get it to David by the 29th I think we're gonna try to meet not on the 25th because that's a holiday but the 26 I think that's realistic that's not like a plan I think it's good it's not I mean I I think that the letter looks really pretty good fix a couple words here and there yeah I think it's good to go okay hi Ruby Ruby's all wet she's got foolish no okay anything else board members John did you have anything any comment so can you guys be quiet please so I do have a question how much of this is going to be hardwired how much is anticipated to be the broadcast Wi-Fi technology David the goal is you know wired a fiber to every home and the short term if we have a five year or eight year plan here the initial our consultant thinks that we should be trying to serve as many people as possible as quickly as possible which would be the Wi-Fi technique I couldn't tell you what the how long it would last or how many people would be on that we probably will be in when we start doing the engineering planning on this thing which you need this money to do but the goal I mean it really depends on money I mean if they're gonna give us a lot of money next year we can bring five at every house they will they subscribe that's not the question so so our installing Wi-Fi for the last half mile or hundred yards or whatever I think that's what you're gonna try to do that's not gonna limit our ability to get future funding or to is it gonna cause attention to be redirected away from us I mean five I mean the district is you know that would not be the district's intent our district intent is to bring it to everybody so as long as there was a revenue stream a revenue positive stream an EC fiber which has been in business for eight or nine years they are cash flush right now so when they go out they're bringing fiber to every house regardless of how many houses are on the road so you know saying you know in five years it'll be a different story than tomorrow so that's you know the best I can say at this point okay thanks I mean one thing is you know if we run fiber by somebody who has Comcast what's the likelihood of you switching from Comcast to see the fiber we don't know idea and it'll be often service dependent obviously right you know I the range is gonna be fifty to seventy five dollars so if that's all you're paying to Comcast you know it's a toss up you know it's our is our capacity gonna be on par with Comcast or is it gonna be better it'll far exceed Comcasts I mean but not everybody needs that right anyway yeah no feel free to send me any questions you have anytime I just I just want to make note that we had a fairly well we had an ordeal in the northern part of town regarding what broadcasted Wi-Fi internet and what's that yet a VTEL one so yeah well I thought my I I expect the concerns of the residents back then could be very similar if we're gonna if we roll out Wi-Fi I told I told the consultant that he was doing this I says you can have a lot of people not my backyard and his projects that he's been doing in Western Massachusetts have been on wooden poles 60 to 70 feet so with wooden poles 60 to 30 feet is too much for people and it might be tough but those are gonna be little little like little dish things or something it'll be an antenna on top of it and running around it it won't be beautiful but it's not gonna be you know I mean it we'll have to see how it goes I mean if you don't like 75 feet put one you know every you you have to run more more of them around it's and everything costs money right the one thing that we're looking to do is to make sure we have fiber to those poles so that we can actually extend when we when we go forward so and one last thing you did mention North Callis is underserved speaking with residents this past well yeah this this winter up that way it's horrific the Wi-Fi I think maybe there's a lot of demand on a on a weak line but when people all get on they basically shut down it's it's exacerbating like people just about in tears you know I don't want I don't want any hurt yeah no if you're at the end of a DSL line you're really suffering because right I don't know where the boxes in East and North Callis but like in Maple corner there's a DSL box right in Maple corner now as you go away from that box it degrades totally by distance and East Callis has a real problem up on Baton I think it's Baton Road maybe I think you're correct yep anyway let's hope we can get this thing done quicker if you priority you know the first roll out if possible and when did you say the first roll out roll out might might plan would be to start the engineering this fall and have the construction next year for the first first whatever yeah and how would and how would you communicate how does the how does your board can plan to communicate with the residents are you going to do like local group meetings are you gonna do just from porch forum postings I mean how you present I mean really wherever we're running the same we're gonna have to go door-to-door okay and you know if they're not home we'll leave a door knocked you know with an explanation on the door so you're gonna not do like VTEL did no remember we're a municipal entity that's right we are so it sounds like you've done a tremendous amount of work you and that and the board thank you so very much welcome my head explode just hearing about it never mind doing it yeah it's a lot it's intense I bet I bet thank you David appreciate your work thank you rose thanks everybody anything else for David anything else for David folks okay your thank you so much thank you keep us posted and we'll work on this letter we'll do already bye bye you can stay on if you want it's so exciting what's the next topic is it the adamant it's adamant all right I'll for that yeah all right up next adamant historic preservation commission I have to say that I went in and looked at the documents thank you Scott the pictures are beautiful they're just it's such a beautiful little village and I read a lot of the history it was it reads like a story it was it was really very nicely done thank you so who's gonna take the leads David I'll kick it off but Larry Bush in particular has been very involved with this project I'll just remind everybody that we are a certified local government therefore we're eligible for small grants that are given through the division for historic preservation and one of the highest priorities for the division is to slowly get particularly the enclaves of Vermont on the national on the national register of historic places and we so far have Kent's Corner and North Callas we have a pending application from East Callas oh I thought we had that already well it's been approved as far as you're concerned but it has yet to go all the way through the process of being accepted oh I say on to the national register it's still in the division's hamper I think Scott can maybe update us on that and we now have completed the draft for adamant to join those enclaves on the national register we hired a consultant Brian Knight who lives down in near Manchester and Brian did East Callas he did such a phenomenal job with that we had to hire him back because he is very responsible for making sure that these national register nominations read like history yeah and they do you read like a book he really has with a lot of guidance I might add from Larry who is a real devotee of adamant so I'm gonna let Larry say say a bit more about this Larry um yeah I I really don't have a lot to say David but thank you for giving me the the floor this has been a an interesting project for those of us who have gone into the details that Brian has sorted out and we think he's put together a pretty good history for adamant within the structure that he has to follow for these national registered nominations the project that we approved has two components the the nomination being the biggest part but there's also an oral history project which we hope to get off the ground by this summer which would complement the the nomination document and the work that's gone in for that and Brian is also going to do the oral history segment there will be approximately four people that we will select ultimately to be interviewed and we have not finally indicated who those people will be but there's likely going to be someone who can speak knowledgeably about the music school someone who would speak about the cooperative movement in adamant which if you're not familiar with it is an incredible story involving both the co-op and Washington Electric and the credit union in its brief and somewhat happy life in adamant and then someone possibly to talk about the tail end of the couring operations in adamant which kind of ticked along I believe until the late 70s so that there are still some folks around to know about that and we we've talked to a couple of people about about that so looking forward to that part of the project as well but tonight we hope to move forward on the actual nomination document for the the National Register so I'm happy to answer try to answer any questions you might have about any of this and this is a CL this is a CLG so the match is in kind correct yes that's correct so this is I mean we've done this with like you said with north callous we did it through for East call us and so this is just it's another one of the same kind of process is correct that's correct we kent's corner was the first kent's corner actually was one of the earliest National Register districts in Vermont we updated it that was our very first project and when adamant is on the register we it remains only for maple corner to be done and then we'll turn our attention potentially to other projects and this helps leverage opportunities should they come along for other grants is that correct absolutely a good example is the grant that we just got to help in East callous which Scott can tell you just knowing that East callous is a pending National Register district definitely adds a little momentum to the project to save these callous general store correct so board members or anybody else and it's on want to say anything Tobin Scott Kate from the HPC I don't know what Kate's role is Kate is a member of the Commission in training oh the HPC welcome Kate nice to have you thank you hi yeah I just recently moved to the area and I'm a art historian and an archivist by training and was invited to to get along to get involved with the Commission so I've been to the last couple of meetings mostly kind of in a listening capacity and I'm looking forward to continuing and to get further involved great great welcome to callous glad to have you thank you we're now where do you listen where did you move in callous well so I'm actually in a kind of transitional moment I am currently house sitting in East callous right down the road from Scott and I'm actually about to move to East bump earlier as of just last week just right on the other side of adamant so yeah so and I think I think if I remember correctly we have a provision that we can have a member on callous is HPC even if they don't live in callous so you're not off the hook that's correct we we've pointed that out she lives in greater adamant okay and adamant is one big happy village yeah so now I'm going I'm going to be within walking distance from there so yeah cool that's great board it's been exciting sorry and my dog keeps climbing on me I have one of my cockapoo's is currently sitting on my lap so mine's a little bit big for a laptop but it's very excited by zoom oh see now you can hear her she's talking to your dog okay board members do you have any questions I'll go first I didn't have any questions I just wanted to thank the historic preservation I read I spent the whole afternoon reading this whole document from beginning to end I was so enthralled I really enjoyed it and then I sent a complimentary email and I live in greater adamant for the past 35 years was heavily involved in the adamant community club and for about 15 years so I just I was so pleased to read the application I think it was really well done and I just want to thank you yeah and I would second that I didn't think I was gonna like really get into it but I started reading it and my husband who's originally from Cabot used to come over to there was a thing in the thing in the story about the patches who lived in adamant and moved to North Calus my husband and his family used to come to North Calus to visit those folks and they used to roll and this is back in the old days we wouldn't let our kids do it now they would get in the tractor tires and roll them down the bank so so when I saw oh patches now I yeah so that was really charming to see that in there that's great thank you for your love rose oh you're welcome you're welcome and I didn't send a love note but you know you know it's there it's very nice and we we totally agree all of us Tobin is an excellent writer himself if this document has benefited from some good edits from the commission at large yeah I mean Tobin wouldn't be an author or anything would he uh something like that thank you Tobin if you want any um contact information from Mike Garand about the quarrying part his father owned the adamant granite quarry I think his father was one of the last people to own it so he might have some quarrying info although he lives in Virginia now we certainly keep in touch in touch with him regularly so let me know and also his sister and brother-in-law Pat and Lester Toby of course live right on the county road yeah we are in touch with them rose yeah with Lester and Pat and Lester's offered to try to dig around in some of the family materials and and provide us with relevant things he could find yeah great they might be involved in the oral history part of the project as well because Lester said I think he worked at the guaranteed mine our quarry sorry um for about seven years so yeah oh yeah yeah and Lester Lester's parents were the king and queen of adamant Elbridge and Lois yeah so what what are you looking for from us tonight anything um your approval um if if we could have your approval on this document you will then move to the next stage which is to the division for historic preservation and by approval do you mean something in the minutes or for us to sign something uh I think uh something something in the minutes would be in the minutes is fine in the minutes is fine all right so I would make a motion to um ask that the HPC move forward with the historic um and you can correct my grant my um words here the the um application to put adamant on the national historic register is that what you need yes okay is there a second second okay any further comments or questions I don't see any little hands up okay all those in favor of Rose you have to vote hi John hi Sharon hi Cliff hi and I'm an II there you have it all right thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you great job thank you okay um next up is the board is gonna um talk about the FY 21 budget anybody that wants to stay is welcome to this exciting and entertaining event on a Monday night with snow it is now accumulating on the ground I have to just tell you so the board is very aware of the financial situation that might occur or probably will occur as a result of the pandemic um more likely to affect everybody in FY 21 which begins July 1st of this year and I'm sure we've all heard ad nauseam all the stuff that's going on and the potential for financial impacts in many many ways people's jobs not coming back um you know what it's just the financial stress that it's putting on everybody which will then trickle down to towns and state government budgets so the board is very aware of that and we're looking at opportunities where we might be able to reduce our budget and the legislature just passed s 344 which allows the board to make changes to the budget if we're making reductions which would we overall reduce the property tax rate that would be set um so that's kind of the background of it and the board has looked at the FY 21 budget that's in your town report and we've come up with some areas of some things that we might be able to do to get garnered some cost savings our next goal is to then is to invite members or chairs and members of the various committees commissions to come and talk to the board um about our ideas and where you think um within for instance the cemetery commission at their meeting next we asked them to look at their budget and see where they might find some opportunities for savings are there projects that could be um put off to reduce the overall cemetery budget um we're looking at um maybe some savings where in painting the town hall maybe we don't paint the whole town hall um right off so we're looking at things like that where can we save money to help um you know the residents who are going to be struggling most likely um you know we've looked at we've looked at reserve funds you know could we put a little less in some of these reserve funds than was then was originally approved by the voters at town meeting so that's where our heads are at um so if anybody would like to jump in Larry Tobin Scott members from the public please would it help if I maybe pulled up that spreadsheet or sure talk about it in general terms sure uh so people can see some of the things we looked at let me see if I can pull it up and we're not saying this is a done deal these are just things that we went through quickly and said where can where can we save some money um and we started off with ourselves to um for the select board not to take their stipends it's not a lot of money but we're trying to you know lead by example of you know we're in this too we're all in this together as the saying goes so this is just a quick look at you know where could we save some money so that's kind of where we're that's where we're headed and Denise I just want to underscore the point that you just made that this is a this is a first run we might decide um we need to save more we don't need to save this much right I don't think we even looked at we didn't even get so far as really figuring out what does this mean to the tax rate what is it how does it compare to last year's budget we didn't even do that much so no I mean we're this is really thank you Sharon this is really in its infancy we just felt the need as a board to be very cognizant and caring about the taxpayers and what they're going to be up against you know this is a great community everybody cares about everybody um and I think it's in our nature to be looking at things like this to figure out what can we do so anyway so that's that is like this is that what you see is like the very first look and like I said it's not a done deal um you know that could change and you might and you folks take out your town report look at it yourself if you have some feedback of you know why are we spending this much money on this or could we save on that please let us know I mean we can use all the help we can get okay does that make sense everyone yeah I'd like to just point out like we didn't pick out the swim program for a cut we were going to ask them if what they expect to see this summer in terms of needs um at the time of our conversation we when we discussed for instance the swim program uh the edict from the governor's office would not have allowed a swim program were that to have continued into the summer so with the changes that have occurred over the last even week um I expect the swim program could go forward so these are the kinds of things that are moving pieces that will affect how we eventually decide on what where to cut and where not to cut or where we can accrue savings and where we would not be able to so and I think the first three items are um we've all agreed on the invasive species program isn't going forward anyways it's only $250 but it needs to be on the list um like I said you know we just we just pulled things out of the budget let's talk about it right and and just for clarification discussion around a town hall uh we have a plus or minus sense of what it's going to cost to you know uh scrape prime and finish coat paint that town hall it's in the 50 to $60,000 range um but there if there is existing paint on the older clapboards and areas that have not been either uh added or uh repaired uh the lower clapboards due to the foundation work and other work that's been done have been replaced and only have primer on them and so when Denise was uh earlier on saying that well maybe we would we could get away with only painting you know portions of the town hall uh this year until we see ourselves through the situation those are the kinds of things we were looking at the the stuff that has primer on it that needs to get a finished coat on it get that done um the new the new addition in the back get that done and um and then we'll come back and uh and this is these are ideas we were on a past the town hall committee um those involved in that but um those are some ideas where we might be able to spread spread the costs of that over a few fiscal years so it won't be so painful and the town hall the friends of the town hall committee are aware um that this is a possibility the rfp that's going out has some language in it that cliff can if he wants to can tell you what that is to give us some options going forward yeah what i can say there is um we are hoping to publish that rfp uh this week and as we enter into discussions with uh contractors who respond to it we're going to ask them to present us with some outside of the box thinking as they have a chance to size up the project could it be accomplished in phases um so we break up this cost over uh you know a couple of years or whatever we also um as i mentioned an email i sent out to the friends of the town hall have looked at this idea of just doing the bare minimum to preserve the exterior and then come back to the rfp at a later date so the language that's been added to it um once we get to the final draft which we're just about there that really addresses all of these ideas okay is there any any okay somebody in the public sounds like they have a comment i can i guess you can take this spreadsheet down now because i can't see everybody okay is that a dog or a public comment all right that's that's ruby's comment she says just make sure you have enough money to make homemade dog food that's all anybody else it's rough huh would you say cliff she's trying to tell us it's rough yeah it's a rough life around here for the dogs yep okay scott or larry or um nick did you have or tobin any comments on this no comment okay all right so that takes us on to thank you guys for watching over us like that we're trying it's a it's a good effort thanks a lot yeah oh we're not we're not done scott no we're not well thanks for the confidence though thank you we have we have considered calling all roads class fours and maintaining them at that level scott scott would like that larry if i might i just had a question the the list that uh cliff put up um indicated if i understood it correctly that the wood chipper that was approved uh is not on the chopping block so to speak right i mean no it is it is on the it is on the list oh okay so that meant that it was was going to be removed okay um well it's up for discussion perfectly i understand well we are quite possibly uh well although i don't think we're going to see serious emerald ash borer um destruction soon but callus is right on the doorstep if it's not here it probably is here so eventually that wood chipper could be an important part of the um towns um need to deal with the dead ash trees along the roads so good point yeah good point thank you larry anything else are you ready to move on um cliff do you want to do you have any it update uh nothing major it's pretty much uh as reported last time around we're just waiting for the equipment to come in to do the get the backups set up in the server a replacement server set up before we schedule actual dates to make that happen and i already um yeah that's pretty much it that's all we got right now okay all right um i was just going to give an update that i i i talked to daniel kirny kirny who is now the the main contact for the swim committee just because i got to thinking about the whole thing with summer camps and social distancing and all that to ask them if they had thought about you know would they be able to even go forward with the swim program and they're still that's still under consideration and review by the swim committee whether or not they can successfully pull it off and also um they're having they're really trying to find an instructor which is not i guess been an easy task because the only place to go now for training and i think he said it was like Hampton beach area so if somebody wanted to be certified to be the person doing this swim instructor they would have to go pretty far away to a pretty maybe undesirable place at the moment to get training so they're weighing those two different issues and at some point you know at some point they'll make a decision and get back to us but you know it might swim program might go forward or might not and you know we'll have to deal with that then um i think i think that was it was there anything else seems like there was something else i had on the agenda but i can't remember now what it was to update on larry you're on mute larry you got it on you just wanted to say good night thanks everybody i'm out of here all right thank you thank you tobin larry janice you had something about um location for june 24 tax sale under your all right right your chair um we already we already approved the tax sale in june you'll remember at a meeting several meetings ago i think we are still at the office but it's likely that the tax sales will be held at the town hall just so that stuff can be social distanced better and easier we don't have the certificate of occupancy yet so but and i notice needed a notice needs to go out if we're still going to do them in june remember we pushed it to june it was going to be sooner but we pushed it to june um and i don't remember i missed the last couple of meetings before while we were still in person but that's neither here nor there right and so we move we we tried to give more opportunity for folks to pay so we're still we we're not there yet obviously right so um one one taxpayer who is delinquent has promised to start paying by may i think i think it's 16th so that will be a good thing and that's one of those people who we understand that our cycle and that life yes yeah and in part why we moved things pushed things out um so i think that's it other than um i'd like the board to go back into executive session if there's nothing else we agreed to meet so katie has it in the notes because i don't think she was on the call then can you do um we decided we don't we're not going to meet on memorial day katie are you available on tuesday to do them to join us okay um and i think that's it i've already signed and emailed nick the cvr pc document so ruby come here ruby sorry having a dog is like also having a kid you know they want your attention um so unless there's anything else we could go back into executive session if there's somebody would like to make a motion hi ruby so move second john seconds okay vote cliff hi sharon hi sharon hi john hi and i'm an i thank you so much katie enjoy the snow hi katie i know hi katie and you have a way to turn off orca right cliff