 Tom, I see your hand is up. Sorry, not a post-emotion, hand it up before you call that. Yes, sir. Just my own notification at that point that Michael brought up. So a motion passes when a majority of present members vote in the affirmative. So in effect, a abstention would be acting as a negative vote in that it would reduce the number that would get to the majority. Is that correct? Yeah, and I think there's another way that you can, you know, if you weren't there, obviously it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to vote on the minutes. But I think there is another way besides abstaining, but I'm not clear on what that is. I have no idea what that is, but I know that we're being watched closely. And I want to make sure that everything is done appropriately and with utter transparency. So I would not vote for the minutes if I was not present at the meeting. And I think abstention is my only other option. Yeah, I have been at other meetings where there is another option, but I can't remember what it is. I have not, Michael. I'm sorry. That's the end of my comment. So is this material for us now in our voting? Alan, please chime in. I was just going to say the other option would be to walk out of the meeting for a few minutes, which I think some people sometimes do. Or just can people just say they're not voting because they weren't there? Yeah, but it still has the same effect that you brought up when someone affirmatively votes that they're abstaining. If they're not voting yes, then that's one more person you don't have to meet the requirement you need related to the quorum. Okay. Yeah, because we could run into the situation where enough people leave that we lose quorum. That's correct. Okay, we have a number of hands up here. Ray, let me go to Ray, and then Linda. Can we finish this motion and then discuss Parliamentarian stuff first? Well, actually, this relates to whether or not how this is going to work. Yeah, I think we need to keep discussing this. This will be a point of order that actually it will be for the next motion. This is still the October 11th motion. Yeah, this was from the amended to be, I don't believe so, no. If there's no abstention, then no, I'll wait. Okay, Linda, do you want to chime in? Or do you want to wait for the abstention motion, the abstended motion? I would like to chime in that Robert's Rules. I'm taking it off the Robert's Rules website. According to Robert's Rules, abstention votes don't count as a yay or nay, it says. I think I put it in the chat already. Thank you, Linda. Okay, let's move forward with the vote that apparently has no abstentions. Are there any opposed to the motion that is still on the table? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion passes. That are the meeting minutes, the first set of meeting minutes. So now we need a new motion for the second set of meeting minutes. A motion to approve the October 31st, 2022 meeting minutes as drafted. Second. My team keeps crashing. Sorry, Jerry. No, I see that you're frozen there, Linda. Yeah, my team keeps crashing on me. I put it in the chat for everybody to know what abstention is by Robert's Rules. Thank you. Thank you. So we have a motion. We have a second. Are there any opposed? I see Linda's hand is up. Is anybody else's hand up? Linda might be frozen with her hand up there. Yeah, down. Okay, thank you. Go ahead, Jeremy. No, I'm sorry. I was getting ahead of you. A motion on the table been seconded. Is there anyone opposed to the motion? Any abstentions? Yes, cabinet abstains. Four town abstains. I think I'm waiting for one more abstention. Thank you. We have three abstentions. Did you get those, Jeremy? Yeah, so R.D. Chuck and Tom Fisher abstaining. Okay. Any other abstentions? I'm going to lose that one. All right, so the majority is that the meeting minutes passed. Thank you. Okay, we got there. All right, let's move on to and still technically unanimous. Yes, that is correct. Thank you, Chuck. Appreciate it. Let's move on to supply chain, excuse me, inventory management contract. Who's going to bring forward that motion, please? I think I can't bring forward motion. I put in a draft motion to group. The chat. Where is the draft motion, Janiel? It's in the chat. So, here, I'll put it in the chat. I'm not seeing it yet. So, where is the lease for a warehouse and box yard in Montpelier for storage and kidding of its materials was entered into by CB Fiber on July 27, 2022, whereas materials have been ordered and have been arriving at our warehouse and box yard since August of 2022, whereas Wild Blue Yonder has been reliably performing warehouse and inventory management services for CB Fiber on a monthly basis since materials began arriving in August, whereas ongoing and reliable warehouse and inventory management personnel is required for the materials as they are received and as they are kitted out for construction in the field, whereas the monthly service fee is $21,491.50, and therefore the annual management fee exceeds $250,000, approval by the governing board is necessary. It is hereby moved that the contract for warehouse and inventory management services be entered into with Wild Blue Yonder with a one year term and effective and an effective date of November 2022. Seconded by Siobhan. Hold on, hold on. Somebody has to make the motion. Jeremy just did. It says it is hereby moved. Jeremy made the motion. Okay. And Siobhan seconded it. Are there, is there additional discussion that needs to be had? Are there any opposed? Oh, go ahead, Siobhan. I was just going to say it is hereby moved is my trigger phrase to know. That's what I listened for there. Okay. Well, you did, you did well this time. Is there any additional discussion? Are there any opposed to the motion? Are there any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion passes. Thank you very much. Thank you, Janiel. Thank you. Nice, nice set of where as is there moving through the logic of all of that. Thank you. Much appreciated. So we have another, another contract to discuss here. Our supply chain services contract that was just approved for recommendation to the board in the prior meeting by the executive committee. And there is a emotion for that. Ray, would you bring that forward please? Actually, no action is required on this. What I would say to you is this, that we usually request for proposals for material warehouse and supply chain services on three May. On 14 June, the board approved the award of a warehouse and supply chain services contract to KGP Co. Subject to successful negotiations with the contractor, each is determined by the executive committee. And on 9 November this date, the executive committee approved the contract with KGP Co for supply chain services. Very good. So there's no need for a motion here. This is just a notification and update to the governing board. Is that correct? Right. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. That clarified that for me. We still have another contract though. We have a construction, a construction contract. This is our second, if successful, this would be our second construction contract. And I just want to remind folks that our intention has always been our stated intention and our operational intention has always been to have multiple construction contractors. We have a lot of work to get done and a relatively short amount of time to do it. And it's always been part of our philosophy that we look to have multiple contractors even though the work may be similar. We like the competition and we like the option of being able to go with superior service if we find it. So that is part of our philosophy that we've used in the past and we're continuing to use now. And if there is a motion out there for the construction contract, perhaps now would be a good time to bring it to the floor. Okay. I'd be happy to do that. What I would add to your context is that you may recall that we did this for pole inventories. We had multiple pole inventory contracts. We did that for several reasons. One of which was to accelerate the work, which is one of the reasons for the construction contract. The other is that you may find that with multiple contractors, one or more may not be able or only one or more might be capable of doing the work the way you want it to be done. And among the pole inventory contractors, we started working with three and we wound up working with two. The third thing that's going on now is that there's a shortage of work crews. And so to hedge against the possibility that we might not have adequate work crews, if we had a sole contract with one contractor, we're going to have contracts with multiple contractors. And what we're proposing now is actually the second contractor. There'll be additional contractors downstream, but this is the next one. The first one was Eustis. This one is First Light. So the motion is this, whereas the Governing Board awarded construction contractors to more than one contractor, which included First Light Fiber Inc. on 12 July 2022, subject to successful negotiations. And whereas the Governing Board authorized the executive committee to determine that the negotiation had been successful, and that it was authorized to approve the contract terms, and whereas the Master Services Agreement has been reviewed by an outside attorney as required, whereas on 9 November 2022, the executive committee found that CV Fiber First Light negotiations has been successful, and it approves and recommends the CV Fiber First Light Master Services Agreement to the Governing Board for its approval. It has moved the Governing Board approves the CV Fiber First Light Master Services Agreement and authorizes its execution by the Governing Board Chair. Second. Seconded by Jeremy Matt. Is there any additional discussion to be had concerning this issue? The motion on the table. Hearing none. Are there any opposed to the motion? Are there any abstentions? Again, hearing none. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you. This is extremely important. We are lining up everything that needs to be lined up to get fiber built in central Vermont. Let's move on to some more regular business then. The Treasurer's Report. Lori Beth, are you able to do this with your internet connection? Is Lori Beth with us still? I do see her, but she's still muted. Is it possible you are on mute, Lori Beth? I am off mute now. And we can hear you now. Oh, good. Okay. I had sent the Treasurer's Report out and it gave what had been paid last month, which was quite a few things. There was nothing that had to be authorized by the Executive Board or any of the other boards, but there was quite a bit paid out. There was $919,000, $22.95 paid out. And we made a deposit of $333,000 in. That's the only deposit that has come in this month, the only two. And they were at the same time. One of them was the, I think the additional that was supposed to come from Orange, or was, no, one of them was from Orange. The other one is from Moretown, Montpelier, or East Montpelier and Middlesex. Are there additional questions for Lori Beth? All right. Hearing none, thank you. Ray, is there anything that you would like to discuss as the Chair of the Finance Committee? No, I don't think so. Thank you. Okay. Excellent. So at this time, even though we've run through the list in advance of the time allotted, we're going to hold the budget public hearing for seven o'clock. Can I interject? Just one question. Let me look at Lori's report. There is an item for the Vermont Communications Union District Association and a payment of $224,000. Can you explain that? I'm not sure what that payment was about. Absolutely. Go ahead, Janelle, please. We did a mass purchase for fiber through Vicuda through NRTC. So we got a better deal on fiber by ordering fiber through Vicuda. So that explains it. Thank you. Yeah, we have another one coming up too. We've been getting our fiber from Vicuda. So we'll have another $200,000 invoice for the most recent fiber delivery in the coming month. Got it. Thank you. And R.D., I invite you to come down to Montpelier and drive down Stonecutter's Way. It's not Stonecutter's Way. It's Stone... Granite Shed Road. Drive down Granite Shed Road to the end and you will see reels of fiber. So all we need to do is get them strung on poles. Yeah, my son used to work down there. I'm familiar with the neighborhood. Okay. Thank you. You've also got lots of work to do on it. So, Janelle, then would you please move into the Executive Director report and let us know what's been happening with Make Ready Permits and Materials? First, E is meant through Vermont Power. Yay. We just got noticed that there were a few final changes to the lease for the West Sites in Moretown and Calis, well, First Calis. So we're finalizing that. We had a warehouse-kitting meeting with Wild Blue Yonder, Eustiff, and NRTC today and identified that some of the bulk and other hardware hadn't arrived. So I reached out to KGP Co. and asked them to release some of those that they were waiting to release until they had it all. I could just send it as it comes. So we're getting a lot of materials in. Our warehouse is looking very full. And for Permits, we've received 11 Washington Electric Co-op licenses. More are expected. We're continuing with Ride-Out. This is about 75 miles of pole licenses. That's partly the backbone and partly just outside the backbone as well. So it will be strategic how we issue those statements of work and start on the construction, depending on how many licenses we have when we push go. So that's the overview of Permits' easements and where we are with construction materials. Could you give a little bit of a description of the kidding process? That's a little bit of a unique thing. Could you describe that for folks? Yeah. There's a bill of materials that's developed by our design team and construction manager, NRTC. That is organized by distribution area. And when we have the green light on a distribution area or enough of a distribution area that it makes sense to get the team, the construction team, out and building, will issue a statement of work to proceed. They will go to the warehouse. They will have received from NRTC a copy of that kidding list that is to be used for that particular scope of work or distribution area for building out that specific scope. Justin and his team at Wild Blue Yonder will get together in a special corner of the warehouse a kidding package. And that is all of the materials that are needed for that scope of work or distribution area. Then they will take all of that material and place it on the truck and go out into the field. Now, they do this once a week and maybe even every other week. They'll have a crew going out into the field and hanging fiber or laying down the platform and templates for the cabinet sites and doing their construction work. So they'll come in the beginning of the week, pick it up, build it out all week, and then return to the warehouse at the end of the week with any excess. And if they're missing or short of both or something, they will come back to the warehouse and ask to fill the gaps. And, David, did you want to provide context here too? I noticed you had your hand up and you were at the meeting with us today. Well, I wanted just to make sure that Michael and Jane are aware of the issues when having a hydroelectric. And we think we have a little go ahead that they're going to come up with us very shortly. But it's been a very slow slog to work with what Hardwick and it's not just Hardwick. It's Hardwick owns their poles with consolidated communications. So even if Hardwick was slow, consolidated was even slower. But I think we're moving through that. But it could hold up the construction in the Woodbury area. So we get that all approved by the getting those licenses. And the other thing that came from the kidding in the construction, I just want to make sure, because we don't always meet with every town. I think Chuck raised at the executive committee, we already got a comment from the newsletter, the Mountain Front porch forum about, wait a minute, you're hiring Eustace. Aren't they the folks that killed the cows? Well, it was Eustace's subcontractor who left the stainless steel wire in the field. I just want to say we have hired NRTC to be our construction manager and they are holding Eustace first light speed to the fire to make sure everything is done according to specification and best practices. So I just want to make sure everybody is aware of all the little safeguards we're trying to put into what we're doing. And I have to say it's pretty complicated. Yeah. And Eustace is really responsible and responsive. And it was their sub that made this terrible mistake. And even the Agency of Natural Resources has issued a memorandum to broadband specifically identifying the importance of cleanup. This is something that Eustace and all of the people we work with are very aware of, the importance of cleaning up. So yeah, it is absolutely something on everybody's radar. David, your hand is still up. Do you have anything you want to say? No, I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no, that's okay. Is there an additional discussion about the Executive Director's report here? I wonder if I could ask a question about hardware and electric. I'm sorry that they're kind of a frog in the wheel here. But I know, is it Karen Kotecki? Somebody has been communicating with me and other select board members about the bits of road that cable will be implemented in Woodbury. And I know there was a question that I just found before the meeting. And I don't know if this is the proper place to do this. I can continue that dialogue with Karen. But there are a couple roads that have been designated that are class 4 roads that people don't really live on. So we're kind of scratching our heads about that. But I'll continue that dialogue with Karen. And if there's anything that Woodbury can do to Goad, Hardwick Electric, they're often kind of dragging their feet on a lot of things. Well, they're pretty small. We're asking a lot of the utilities. There's no question. But any help, Michael, would be much appreciated. And please stay in touch with Karen and get in touch with Janiel or David as needed to move things. Yeah, the class 4 road, I'd like to talk to Karen is leading all our permitting stuff. But NRTC did the design. So they may have to be called into the issue that you flagged. That's okay. So I'll continue talking with Karen. Super. Thank you, Michael. Yeah, we have to follow the polls where they are, of course. But we should look into it. There's nobody there. One of the roads has no polls at all. So that's, but we'll figure that out. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Is there additional discussion on the director's report? So moving on, I'd like to move into the construction schedule, construction schedule discussion here. There's no action to be taken. It's just a matter of updating and it's kind of a continuation of Janiel's report. Janiel, can you give a little bit of an update on how things are moving and what's between us and actual construction? Yeah. Well, we did get our first two licenses or approvals on a design, final approvals on design from VCBV from the Vermont Communications Broadband Board. That was independently looked at through their consulting agency and they're reviewing additional distribution areas for us, but the first two already came out as approved. What that means is it's essentially like a state building permit that gives approval for the design. As long as we have green light with material construction and the permit licenses, we can go ahead and construct. So CLO1 and CLO2 have received formal approvals. And so let me ask you, when does Eustis plan on going into the field? We have scopes of work now that they are reviewing? Yeah, so it is right. So when we get our scopes of work signed and executed, I'll issue a notice to proceed. And that notice to proceed can be go in the field now or it can be go in the field within one week. It has to stay a date certain to start. But I will tell you they're already in the field. I mean, looking, doing some pre-construction analysis. We met with them today. We met with them two weeks ago. They've been in very close communication with NRTC and with Wild Blue Yonder. They have a local construction manager on site who's going to be watching over the troops in the field or the crews in the field. And so they already have started the process of getting ready to go. Thank you. That's very helpful. Are there any questions? Go ahead, David. I see your hand. Your real hand is up. At the meeting this morning, they are going to need to find a staging site so they can store their trailers or then whatever those big, big trucks and to keep materials ready to go for themselves that after they get it from our warehouse. So if anybody knows of a graveled field someplace in Central Vermont that makes it easy for them to destroy the stuff, they're interested in leasing it. Possible to like save a callus or east mile. East mile. Yeah, yeah. Some are close as possible to where they'll be constructing. Thank you. That would be great if somebody could find such a place. Ray, go ahead please. So in the interest of stretching this even further so we can get to seven o'clock. For the budget public hearing. Guilty as charged. Hopefully to provide some additional information. You may recognize that the board actually approved the statements of work for use this and there were four of them. The first one had to do with the callus OLT district which is and there are three district distribution areas there. CLO one, two, and three. And so that's the strand and lash strand and fiber business. The other two, the other three had to do with the where the OLT is actually going to be placed physically where the cabinets are going to be and where the lights going to come in from first light or Velco or some other source being managed by Watesfield Telecom. So there's a place in callus and it's a WEC substation and there are components that are required for that one of which is some sort of a kit that they have to actually put on the ground and they pour and then they add the cabinets and they add the electronics and then they put the light in etc etc. The materials for that are still not here. I don't think we even have the kits yet. Do we Joneal for the platforms? No, so yeah we don't have the kits. We don't yet have the cabinets and we don't yet have any electronics. Those are they've been promised to us so we'll see when they arrive but hopefully they'll arrive by before the end of the year. So the first one is in callus. The other one there's one in Marshfield that we mentioned it was it was part of the motion that same kind of configuration. In fact both Marshfield and callus have two calyx 2000 and a 1000 because there's so much distribution area and then the SOW-4 had to do with Middlesex so that installing a platform in Middlesex. Now so notice is to proceed for each one of those really. You can give a notice to proceed today well not yet today because we don't have all the contract sign but you know what they can't do anything until the materials and stuff are there right? So those notices to proceed are going to be downstream at some point in time as things become available. We're hopeful that what they can do is do a lot of the underground work Michael and others that you know that that Karen Kotecki and others are identifying those things so that they can do the underground work before stuff freezes right? And as well as maybe some fiber some strand putting up strands some lash they're going to be doing some tree trimming. They'll be doing some make ready not the power make ready because that's what WEC and the other folks are doing but they'll be doing the make ready in the communication space that 12 inches we need for that strand and lash. And then putting that stuff up and as Janille said there's 63 70 miles worth of already approved what I call green pole licenses and that's a stretch of about seven miles each so we have about nine to ten of those to be done. And they are going to jump from one green area to another green area to get that done until we get the whole area being green. We have pole licenses for all of it and hardwick you know that hardwick is Woodbury right? So that and that's callus so three and so our ability to you know we can give a notice to proceed there but they can't do anything until we have green and so getting those uh getting those make getting that make ready done poles replaced as necessary etc is important before the work gets done. So that's kind of the lay of the land at this point in time. Michael you have a hand up? Yeah Ray I just wanted to ask you because I was part of a discussion with a longtime worker at Hardwick Electric where he had mentioned that they're going to have to be putting in new poles for in some areas for the fiber and Woodbury under their you know their jurisdiction. Do they just see the fiber paying them to put in those new poles? Okay. Sure is yes. So that's part of the issue where they have to pay for the poles. It could be in some instances if you know if the pole is already corroded or it's you know it's if they if the pole is corroded for example and they should have replaced it then that's on them. If it's something that it's required by us because the pole is too short and we have to have 18 feet above the roadway right so they have to go from a 30 foot pole to a 50 foot pole then that's on us right? So there are there are and by the way it's the same way with Green Mountain Power and WEC. We don't let the payment interfere with the timing so if there's something that needs to be negotiated or discussed or to be determined we pay for it we move on and we'll continue to negotiate but we won't wait. We're not going to hold everything up arguing over one pole. Yeah you may recall the board and the executive committee has approved expedited payment processing for that particular thing. What we do is we submit a 200 pole application. It could be less than that but that's the max 200 poles. They come back and tell us it's going to cost us this much money because they get the money up front and so Janiella approves those, authorizes the payment for them, they get paid right away because we can't afford the delay on the other end. Now that what they're giving us is an estimate of what the cost is going to be and so it could be that frankly the cost is more and we won't know that until they've actually done the work and it also could be that the cost is less in which case we'll get a rebate so we're you know we're not optimistic about that part. Janiella go ahead and jump in. So here and that is that the the requirements for the make ready are being checked. We've hired MBI Mission Broadbands to do all the rideouts with us so it's not like the utility company is just saying hey spend this in order for me to approve the invoices. I'm checking with MBI on everyone and saying do these notes agree with the field and he's going back for a quick negotiation downward if necessary if the things on the estimate don't agree with what he saw on the field. Nine times out of ten it agrees every once in a while he'll say oh I think that we don't need five pull replacements we only need three and we'll get a revision so while it is true that we're paying them and we'll we'll true up later because it's just an estimate in the beginning we do have the checks in place with our independent contractor to make sure that they are agreeing with what the utility company is initially estimating. Allow me to stop the conversation here just for one minute David I'll go right up to you. We have 15 minutes before the the budget public budget hearing and during that time we there's one more item on this agenda and that's our subscription rates. Can we get jumped to that discussion now and fill the next 15 minutes with that discussion and make sure that we are available for the public hearing at seven. David your hand go ahead please. Now I was just gonna let you know I mean in terms of make ready if hard work has a trouble getting polls or transform as it could delay the work that too so a lot of things in terms of supply effects things that's all I'm saying. Okay doc yeah that's very true Jeremy Matt. So the only thing that pops into my head about the subscription rates is whether or not that's going to be an executive session thing in which case we would have to boot off orca and potentially other people who might be interested in being around for that. That's why we save it that's why I always save it for the end of going into executive session. Yeah I mean we could always just say you know bio break and be back in 15 minutes no one disconnect but I apologize for scheduling this so poorly but we move through things very quickly today. We can do some discussion of subscription rates background information that that we uh because a lot of work has gone into this and we just came out of executive came out of our executive committee meeting and talked about these subscription rates but David put his hand back up so. Yeah I just want to know why these have to be an executive session because we're gonna announce them we're gonna announce them. We're not announcing the rates tonight David that's why. Are we gonna do it at the webinar next Wednesday? Probably not. Wow okay I disagree. Yeah actually that's that's a fair point I mean I could see it announcing it you know our well I mean it would be good to discuss them ahead of time in case there is disagreement so that you know you get that. Siobhan your hand is up. Oh I was just going to say I thought Ray had prepared an interpretive dance to fill in the space between. There's certainly a lot more we could talk about in terms of getting the makes ready and all the work that's involved with that in our progress and construction schedule etc etc but we can also do a little of contextual background for the subscription rates and and then get to the I would the budget the budget hearing is going to be like five minutes because and you know unless I'm misreading the crowd unless we have more people joining unless more people are joining us here there's there's no public to have a meeting to discuss exactly so that but we but we have you know we're required to do it and so we've announced it and we'll do it and it'll take five to ten minutes but but perhaps in a few minutes now leading up to that we could talk about subscription rates if you'd like to yeah yeah I'd like to leave that discussion off and then we can we can we can talk additionally about it so you know we've been talking about our subscription rates for a long time and we actually approved subscription rates a couple of months ago and between then and now we started learning more information and the folks on the executive committee have already heard me say this but we thought it was our due diligence with the new information that we had to make sure that the subscription rates that had already been approved were in fact still appropriate and we reached out and had a number of folks work with us on bringing up the updating the information that we were estimating with new estimates based on our make ready costs that we already have experienced based on the bids for construction that we have received that we hadn't didn't have before based on prices for materials that we didn't have before so in in in pulling all of this together we had an RTC rerun our financial model with this additional information and in in in doing all of that work which took quite some time I'm I I have to add this was a kind of an additional task that wasn't on folks plate until we had asked them to do it they found that our the rates that we had approved were appropriate they remained they were still appropriate that you know some things went up some things went down some things didn't really change all that much and that we were we were in a good space in a good place with our subscription rates so that's that's the the out of executive session type discussion and I think I'm going to pass it over to Ray because I know there's another part to this that he would like to add that that uh that he added also in the executive committee meeting so you see me jumping residential right jerry jump in there residential yes yeah it was residential you may recall linda that we were working on the residential with regard to our our poo our average revenue per user right so um that's that was our target and we had a target number that we had to reach to support our financial obligations our our you know but our revenue had to meet our expenditures right as well as a projection for um debt financing um and because we're going to be getting some we're going to be issuing some municipal bonds um probably in 18 months perhaps as early as 18 months there are um what I would what I would what I would add to this conversation is this which makes it the the variability makes it difficult and that is this we have we have ARPA funding um to the tune of about 23 million dollars that's going to take us so far um and bead money which is the ii j a infrastructure uh investment in jobs act I guess it was um every stake at 100 million dollars a minimum and there might be some additional money uh also so we had we had counted on another 9.3 million dollars out of that bead money but it could be higher the problem is that the bead money is not going to hit until sometime in 24 and it could be june it could be august we don't know when that bead money is going to hit so there could be a gap between our ARPA money and our and our bead money and of course what we don't want to happen is we don't want um we don't want to be in a position where we need materials where the queue for materials the lead time for materials is only going to get longer because of the billions of dollars the feds have pumped on throughout the states right and so everyone's going to be ordering the exact same things that we're ordering so the lead times are going to go up the costs are going to go up and what we're going to do is we want to order our materials and get materials ahead of that curve um but the other problem is that we lose our construction crews right if if we if our work slows down or stops we're going to lose crews and those crews may not come back you know these are um these are nomads okay they go to where the dollars are and if the dollars aren't here they're going someplace else and they may not come back so um we don't want to we don't want to stop and go uh we want non-stop construction and so we need to fill this gap or find a way to fill this gap so we're looking you know at some several alternatives uh to do that so that's a but that's kind of the variability that it's built into the financial plan you know uh how much money do you have when are you get loans uh what are the what are the payments for that going to be and you can imagine for municipal bonds you know where not to in fact in december december of uh 20 um ec fiber sold bonds of at uh four percent four and a half percent somewhere in there right uh now those rates are getting five percent six percent because look at the interest rates have they gone up right so uh that's a problem um so we're we need to we need to look at this whole plan so the the what we were what we were giving the nrtc and our financial plan was this kind of information as well as they've told us oh by the way your mileage has increased the mileage estimates that we used now we're getting the detailed design work back and the mileage has gone up so now our expenses have gone up you can use a round number like 50 000 a mile as a round number and you're not going to be that far off you're not going to be that far off you're not going to be you're not going to be 20 percent off uh 10 percent man you know 50 use 50 000 a mile and we just went from 100 we just went from a thousand miles to 1200 miles so 50 50 times 1200 miles is 60 million dollars so a project that was going to cost you know we thought around 50 or something like that um is 55 58 60 million dollars so um but we built we worked with the with nrtc with kevin and keith and stuff on the financial plan um there's a comfort level that we've achieved with regard to that uh there are some possible solutions we're going to look at reconnect usd loans which uh now are at two percent they have a loan to let me tell you that's free money right rd that's free money two percent i'd love to get a two percent loan um yeah so and and the other thing about that is you only make interest payments like the first three years so you defer that plus it's the length of the life of the asset so we're talking about 20 years 30 years that kind of flattens out the uh the payment requirements right the debt service on the on the subscription rates the impact on subscription rates which are huge for ec fiber 65 million dollars they have an outstanding debt and it amounts to like 39 percent of their um of their subscription fees 39 percent and so that's why their subscription rates are high they have no choice now they envy us the fact that we're going to get um 35 to possibly 50 million dollars possibly in uh in grant funds so we'll see where we're at and we have four minutes until public hearing i hope that's sobered you up a little bit it's sobered me rd you have any questions i know you're going to see you're laughing there you know so tell what's your budget what's your budget there you're on mute what's your budget in your town it was a great interpretive dance right i enjoyed every good of it yeah yeah and healy and and others are tired of hearing it anyway that's that's that's kind of where we're at and so the the subscription rate uh business i i feel comfortable with where that's at uh we had a conversation with uh with nrtc today and janiel was on the call and we're going to we're going to be doing live updates to the financial plan so as as the information becomes available as we cut you know because we estimated something like 6500 a mile for make ready right and so pole replacements the actual tree trimming the hold you know moving the stuff in the electrical space and blah blah blah uh 6500 a mile well we've had pole applicate what we've had one stretch of pole application with uh janiel $100,000 for for i uh i can put that on an insanity one um that was $40 a mile $40 a mile right is that worth yeah uh outrage to see so you know obviously we've got a thousand miles to go but what we're going to do is that we're going to take the information that we're getting because the next load of materials that are going to be ordering which will be about two million dollars plus or minus in probably by the before the before the end of the year we'll order another two million dollars of materials so that we can we can hoard it we can bank it we'll have it in the warehouse so if there's a gap that we don't have any money uh we're not uh we're not left out of the queue right because we can't even order then we need to have stuff in the warehouse so we can kick back up again because the lead time is only going to get larger and maybe that'll sort itself out in 2025 or something but it's going to take several years to shake out so that's where there's one there's one thing that you didn't mention that when I handed this off to you I thought was where you were going to go and that is why why are we bringing why are we bringing subscription fees back to the governing board and I'm happy to address that one and and that and that is this so the governing board back on 9 august this is going to be part of the motion and you actually authorize the executive committee to adopt subscription rates you authorize them to do that okay and so the the executive committee could do that but um tom fischer's comment at the end um having to do with uh you know what this is something the governing board need should really should really approve you know they should understand it uh why that is because people in the distance going to ask us how come your your rate is in dollars and you need to understand you know why the rates are that high and I think they gave you some background on why that is but um and and so we're we'll go through what the rates um uh and and so what what's going to happen at this point what I'm hoping will happen is that you'll you'll you'll ratify what the executive committee has approved okay we the executive committee has approved rates and they've asked the governing board to ratify it ratified don't ratify it but this is um this is what the the rates are um expenses are going nowhere but up and I'd like to note that it is seven o'clock and we are here to entertain any public discussion on our budget for 2023 uh is there any public discussion on our budget which has been sent to the towns for their review right yeah so I see rd with his hand up so I'll I'll defer here but I wanted to provide some context this is a public hearing and I wanted to kind of go through some process stuff um at least flash the budget on the screen you know yes go through it go through a few motions with that but I already has his hand up and I'd love to hear just really I just just as a procedural matter do we need to adjourn our regular meeting and convene the public hearing what what I would say to you is that uh the statute says that uh the the public hearing will be held at the regular meeting in November okay and so I would say no so let me let me give you some background on the process here thank you so on 11 October this board approved the budget approval is an adoption of the budget you approved a budget okay and the and that budget was subsequently sent to all of the legislative bodies of the members of cb fiber for them to review and to provide comment either in the interim or at this particular public hearing uh second this this public hearing tonight is an is an opportunity for people to offer comments and ask questions about the approved budget at the at the regular December board meeting the board actually adopts the budget okay that is our budget for 2023 having said that what I would tell you is that the board has the authority to change the budget and you probably remember for over the course of this last year we have changed the budget a bit we have added light items and and we move money around etc etc we're authorized to do that so we're I can tell you that we are absolutely going to do that and the reason I'm doing all this type talking is that I'm the chair of the finance committee so if anybody's on the call they didn't know that so that's that's it so that that is the that is the the the process that we're following I'm just going to share my screen here just so that we can we can take a look at here's here's the budget and for 2023 in the forecast our expectations for example is that we're going to get about about 24 and a half million dollars in terms of grants and and so town opera funds we already have 833 thousand dollars committed and that is just from the town itself it doesn't include the matching and so we've now since recently learned that the the matching funds is coming from a different is going to come from a different pot of money so my expectation is when we get to adopt a budget that's going to double that number will that number will double we have pre-construction funds that are being carried over construction funds of 17.3 and we had a materials grant for six million dollars and we're we're going to spend we're going to spend a whole bunch in in 2023 so our total income is like 25 million dollars notice that it it assumes that we're going to get 470 thousand dollars in subscriptions subscription revenue which assumes almost 1200 1200 subscribers and so that is kind of like the best case scenario if we had everything green and we have these two construction contractors working at the rates that they can work like 40 miles a month we can get a lot accomplished provided we don't run out of money right we don't we don't run the higher cost and the end if we have a if we have a significant increase for example in in people subscribing every one of those drops is like a 1500 dollar charge right it's going to so if we had a whole bunch of people subscribing that money that is used being used for drops is not being used for construction and so we might stop construction may end a little bit earlier than then and so this is an optimistic number so we I would tell you in the front end of this is that is this going to happen is this exactly no it's not by the year 2025 we'll have a better understanding of of what's happening all of the elements of all of these things we don't have that we don't have that now a lot of the stuff is variables just like talked about earlier okay this is broken down into four in the four expense parts one is administration pre-construction construction and operation so administration is you know here's the total of that is about 750 thousand dollars this has to do with costs for staffing advertising audits for example 40 thousand dollars we're going to have our first audit this year we're going to audit 2022 and that audit we need that audit before we can even apply for this reconnect grant that I mentioned earlier for that possible two or three percent grant whatever that's going to be hopefully they'll still have the program we have some advertising involved we have we have something like we've had something like officer stipends well we have been paying our treasurer a stipend of a thousand dollars a month new for this discussion is a stipend for the board chair and we have previously had a stipend for the clerk which the clerk refused but the that number has been increased and is also put in here does approval of the budget approve these particular expenditures and the short answer is no okay that those will come up for individual approval when not not the adoption maybe the adoption is a separate line item but approving it now doesn't doesn't do that we have increased insurance requirements licensing etc etc and so 750 thousand dollars for that our pre-construction costs these are the these are the make ready design costs that we're talking about earlier materials we move materials down here into the construction area because that's really more appropriate because that'll eventually go away right those warehouse stuff will eventually go away construction project management it you know if you've done project management on any other project you these costs are typically 10 to 15 percent of the cost of a project so they're not insignificant labor 14 million dollars or so materials another three million dollars not only are we going to buy materials in this year we will buy materials again q1 next year because we can't afford not to if we're going to run out of we're going to run out of money right and then we have operations and and operations will be with us forever construction eventually was going to stop the operations will go on forever and we're anticipating almost three million dollars in in operations and look at some of some of the stuff that is in this budget the things that were gleaned from ec fibers budget and other people's budgets for example bank and credit card fees that's a cost right bad debt is a cost those are things that you perhaps you hadn't thought about but they're definitely parts that they're definitely cost the affordability fund here we're talking about the possibility of some sort of relationship with equal access to broadband or some other method by which we're going to help in the identifying qualifying and making sure that people who can't afford it and and qualify into the programs can get that affordability the affordability connectivity program and that is 30 a month we have to do we have to do some things in order to qualify ourselves for that particular program right internet installation this is the this is the bit having to do with the doing drops reserve fund we don't have a net right anything any difference between the total expenses and total income goes into our reserve fund there is no net surplus or anything do we need a do we need reserves we have to demonstrate when we go to the go to the bond market that you know we're we're sustainable right we're profitable we're a nonprofit but we can cover our bonds because the coverage is like 1.25 so if you borrow a million dollars you have to in your paying you know $10,000 a month you have to actually show that you're bringing in $12,500 a month right so you have to have that 1.25 coverage so this is a kind of a quick overview for the for the public comments questions and if the right to any we can end our public hearing not that i'm pushing for that but i'm happy to talk to anybody individually offline any of the members of the board or uh be happy to talk to you folks separately if you'd like are there any any questions any questions from the public any discussion input from the public I hear none thank you Ray that was uh a very good walk through our budget I guess I'd moved in the public hearing second I moved in a second got a second from Jeremy any opposed well we well we never had a motion to open it what was in the agenda yes but we never had a motion do we need a motion to close it let's say we don't okay let's let's move on to the next level of business then second hey i heard you second sharon sharon sharon heard the word move and it was like the awake word for a lecture or something you know it's like all right well with with with with that done we can we can Ray you can take this down from the uh from the screen thank you the last item on the agenda before we adjourn is the discussion of our subscription rates uh I do believe that we've done as much discussion as we possibly can without being in uh executive session so we we do need to show some numbers in executive session uh so is there I have a motion for the executive session what a good idea yeah um are we are we at the tipping point god we have the tipping is there is there any other discussion to be had on the subscription rates outside of an executive session I hear none yeah we can possibly have it on the other on the other end but uh move the pursuant to one vsa um section 313 alpha one alpha we find that premature public knowledge of our discussions relating to the cv fiber subscription rate plan would put cv fiber at a competitive disadvantage second ship on come on second by jeremy I want jeremy to feel good about himself I get it okay is there any discussion of the motion are there any opposed to the motion any abstentions all right the motion passes there's a separate motion now to actually go into executive session this is a two part two part of i'm sorry move that we enter executive session discuss the cv fiber subscription rate plan pursue into one vsa alpha section 313 alpha three and invite cv fiber staff treasurer delegates alternates committee vice chairs and okay who am I leaving out the cat anybody the cat if I'm not if I don't hear anybody that I haven't covered here just then we can end whose information is needed according to one vsa alpha section 313 bravo shawan second rd rd second I'm sorry I didn't mean that that my trigger finger went off shaman I'm sorry no it's fine I had forgotten I muted myself are there any opposed to the motion any abstentions motion passes give me a moment please while I stop the recording and I guess we ask our friends at orca to please stop the recording well I think we need to boot them and also just wanted to point out for the minutes that it is 7 14 p.m