 We're recording is now in progress, and we've met the open law conformity by posting the agenda in three places, right? Yes. And on the website? Yes. And emailed to interested parties? Yes. So we can continue. I'm going to start off the prior meetings minutes from August 8th, and they look pretty representative of what happened then. It's a good meeting. Yeah, I've moved to the doptos. I second it. All in favor? All right. Okay. And we have some guests here, Nick Darblough. Yes. Can you call that? Yep. And Catherine and Vick's not here. He's coming later. So yeah, I guess Nick here, this is on the first topic on your new business is the Rogers Peak access discussion. And your potential request for improving of the legal trial to use it as a driveway. But there's, there's, I guess, several different options that you're weighing about how to access the property. I guess I will give my understanding summary of it first, and then you can correct me if I'm wrong, but he's bought interestingly shaped piece of property that is, it touches on as a picture of it in here. No, that's not that one. It's in here and touches on Route 100, which is what allowed it to be probably subdivided in the first place. It's really unusual a lot of creative spot makers. And this is bisected. Well, I don't know if you call it bisected. It cuts, it's cut through by a legal trial connecting Jerusalem Hill Road and South Hollow Lane. And that's where most people are familiar with that. It's jeepable, but a little bit rough. And Nick's question was to what extent could he improve that legal trial as a potential access to a home site. Now the home you've decided on a home site now, which is kind of on the height of the land, close to the height of that road at its highest point, is that right? Yeah. And so there were extensively four options that I see of how to access that one from below at Jerusalem Hill Road, one from above from South Hollow Lane, which would both involve permission and use of the legal trail as a driveway, which is questionable. The other possible way in would be to negotiate with the neighboring property owner. He gets almost touches Bethelmont Road, but doesn't. And that would be probably a relatively long drive into the spot. And then looking at the maps the other day, what looks to me like the most practical way would be from the top of Jerusalem Hill Road, but not using the legal trail heading, kind of doing a dog leg off to the south and back up, looking at the topographic map that looked like the most gradual approach to your potential house site. So that was my thought. I hadn't talked with you about that. I don't know if you've investigated that or not with that. I haven't walked that land. Help me understand what you're referencing. I'm referencing, like, so if you get to the top of Jerusalem Hill Road and where the big clearing is, and then there's a road that cuts off to the right, if you travel down that just towards Super Hollow, just past that first wet spot where there's, I don't think there's a bridge there. It's just a crossing and looking at the topographical map, if you then started working your way up, it looks like it was a relatively gradual, you know, looking at the topographical lines. That would be, that was, and that would be pretty much that's on your land. Pretty much it is. Well, that from, yeah, it is pretty, for the most part, pretty much, yeah. I mean, we're looking roughly at maps. So that was, that was my, my take, and I'll let you fill in some other, other thoughts and, you know, with some. Well, maybe I'll, maybe I'll just introduce myself quickly. Yeah. Nick Darvaloff from Massachusetts, my wife, Joe and I, looked at Landon and Vermont. We're sort of of that age where we're thinking about what's, what's next as, as the word retirement comes into view. And as we thought about Vermont, Rochester, Lume Large, because I've been coming here for about 30 years, visiting a childhood friend with Nick Gato, who's married to Pam Hubbard, and so we've been going to the Hubbard place on North Hollow for, for what seems like forever. And was sort of excited to see this parcel. And we certainly had hoped that we would potentially wrap up some of the, or at least figure out some of these issues before we had to sort of pull the trigger and actually close on the property, but competitive buyers emerge. And that wasn't, that wasn't an option. So here we are. I mean, I think that the three access options that I've put forward, and you raised a fourth, all have their pros and cons. Obviously, the big plus with either South Hollow or Jerusalem Hill is that you are, you're leveraging the legal trail as, as, as access to a driveway that would then come off the legal trail. And we've actually cut a driveway there tentatively as, basically as a way to get into test bits. So that's, that's sort of as far as we've gotten thus far. And the test bits look promising. So that home site looks like it might have been, might be a good choice. How far to the south of the legal trail is the perspective home site? It's pretty much exactly what you see on the map. It is that, it is that peak or plateau. So you're saying how, you know, I mean, here's how far off the legal trail, like how much more of a driver would be. I would say 300 feet, maybe 400. Yeah. But it's to the east, to the east. To the east. So yeah, if you look at that, if you look at that access options, it still climbs. Still climbs. Yeah. So you'll know that they need to be visible. It probably wouldn't even be visible for the trail. Oh, no, no, no. And the whole goal for my wife and I is to find something in Illinois where, where we would be, where we would be, yeah, when we check that box. And, you know, where you wouldn't be near other houses and be quite quiet and so forth. So that's really the goal. It's certainly not to develop the houses anywhere near, anywhere nearby. And the notion is, if it were possible for the, for us to improve the legal trail such that we could get to the driveway, that would be ideal. June, as per the note I sent, I sent, actually to Julie, was it to Julie? We, I mean, I did a bunch of digging and just sort of looked at other towns and saw to see what they allowed and didn't allow. And it seems like, it seems like there's some common language somewhere along the line. There are all, a number of towns are borrowing common language that do seem to allow legal trail improvement. But the purpose here tonight is simply to sort of respectfully ask if, if you might consider the improvement of the trail without reclassification. Because I think that petitioning and reclassification would be that would be a much more significant improvement that would be required. And I think that, you know, our view is that legal trail is a public way and we would be improving some portion of it. And it would continue to be legal trail with public access, just that some part of it would be a little, a little easier going than it was. So I think that's... And you'll be living there for a time? Frankly, we don't know. When we talked about selling our home in Massachusetts, there may be grandchildren on the line that will probably be Massachusetts-based. I think it's unlikely we wouldn't have something there. But the notion that we would spend a heck of a lot of time in Vermont is absolutely... Okay, so improving the trail also means that you would have to keep the trail and your driveway open. I don't think access... If we cut a driveway off the trail, I don't think we'd keep that open. I don't think we'd gate it. But in other words, legal trail would have to stay open of course. It's a legal public trail. Okay, so check with your insurance company and make sure that they're okay with that. Because you wouldn't have access to fire or emergency services. Get a big oil tank if you're heating it with oil. Because they won't go up there in the winter. So just make sure the house can sustain itself in the winter without services being readily available to get to you. I think the goal would be to have an ability of plow to the house. Right, that's what I'm asking. You would maintain that trail in the winter? We would maintain access to the house in the winter. I'm not sure that would be winter number one. I mean, there won't be a house there winter number one, which is this coming winter. Next year's an open question. But yes, eventually we would maintain access to it. Okay, snow travelers use that in the winter. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, okay. So that would be kind of like on Cooper Run when they improved that. Now right on the side there. Yeah. On the side or if it made sense to cut another trail for vast, I mean that's an open possibility as well. In other words, accommodate those winter travelers in a way that made sense for all. Because it's noted that the trails are for recreational purposes in our town plan. So we don't want to cut off any recreational services on that trail. I don't know if we can rule on something like this tonight anyway. No, this is informational. Yeah, and really there is, you know, it is up to the select board to have the discretion to, you know, allow or not. Then you're right in looking at different towns. There's the full spectrum of, you know, go to town or no cars allowed at all. Yeah, I did bump into one or two that said so, but the ones I forward were of course the ones that said improvement. I think your dwelling will be off-grid. It will be off-grid. Actually, I run the commercial half of a solar company in Massachusetts. So you'd probably go solar. So probably as opposed to we, yes. Your choice of how your road comes in if you were ever thinking about bringing telephone-powered AC phone or anything like that. I think it'll be solar plus storage and it looks like it looks like satellite internet might just squeak in at the nick of time. Well, you're high up there, so you should have a good signal. So, Terry, we got concerns from the safety, the fire safety aspect of stuff. I mean, we have challenging roads all over the town. Right. So I mean, it'd be like any other road in the wintertime. I couldn't guarantee we'd get a truck here. Right. We talked about it. And, you know, we want to know if it was a fire. I'd want to know who we had sort of doing maintenance so we could have the ability to call even for an ambulance if you were there, you know. The ambulance doesn't change either. So they aren't going to risk. I don't want to have to go up and dig them out either. But, I mean, we had walked right away, so it's kind of hard. Is your intention to just build one property there? Yes. I mean, our intention is to build one home site and keep it very nicely buffered. That's the whole point. We actually live in a fairly, I'll say, sparsely populated town north of Boston. But it's loud and it's Boston's not far from you. And my wife and I both very much enjoy sort of the solitude of the nature that that site provides. So the goal and the intent is absolutely not to have. That's your goal. But what's the next owner's goal? You have to look at it that way too. Are you creating something that we have to service that off a trail, you know, fire subdivisions and all that? We can't. How do we look at that? Do we look at that? That is true. That once that trail is improved, it's probably not going to get unimproved in the future. It's a step into the future. There's no question that we need more tax base in town. So we welcome your desire to build and contribute to that. It's just finding the balance of that trail as a public resource and if it's to what extent that's it will be changing the nature of it for sure. Was it necessarily bad? I don't know if I would say that. But it's not just a quick jump and say, sure, go right and build that trail. We have one person that butts that trail. Do you have any input on this there? It so happens I have given this some fun. And I've talked with Nick numbers of time. I mean it when I say that my purpose is not to prevent Nick from building his house. But my concern is that the select board eventually makes the right decision in how to utilize this legal trail in terms of setting a precedent for this legal trail use and future legal trail usage for the next parcel when a different legal trail traverses. So just philosophically, what's the right way for the town to think about its legal trails and how they should be used? Should they be used primary well as to quote the town plan which the three of you adopted two years ago exclusively for recreational purposes, not for vehicular traffic. So you know so it means a philosophical question and then as Frank was referencing you know it's not just Nick's application. His family situation could change. There could be a new buyer in the near long future or near future circumstances can change. And this road traverses to other properties. I have a quarter mile of property along this road. Patsy DeSantis has a quarter mile along this road and the balance of Nick's property as well. So you know I mean so my concern is that the select board just make the right decision for this road you know for the long term. I have to be honest I'd be most happy if nothing changes past my driveway but I'm you know I'm not saying that that is the way it you know I'm not here to fight for that or against that. But there are considerations. I think the idea that you you know throughout tonight where you could reclassify a portion of the road on the Jerusalem side onto Nick's property. That comes to within just 100 I don't know. Yeah very yeah it's a time you could even extend it 30 feet onto his property so that he would then have legal frontage on two sides of a town road. So for future subdivision that would be a benefit because right now his only legal frontage is on route 100. So there'd be a benefit which is an interesting concept. And maybe it's something you never thought about and then swinging the driveway around on that far side. Anyway I personally think that just dolling up you know doing a minimal improvement to the this is just my own personal opinion. Just doing a minimal minimal improvement to the legal trail especially all the way to the height of land is if I won't say it is the least best option just my personal opinion. Is this trail on the mountain biking trail map or slated to be on a map? No. So it's just a snowmobile club that uses that trail. Yeah and unofficially it's used. It's a mile. I've been on it with the snowmobile. So it's a mile from my driveway to the height of land of where Nick has proposed this. So the snowmobiles now would have to come from the whose driveway do they come out on now? Well Terry's new driveway. From Terry's new driveway so it'd be a mile and a third on a cloud road now to get to the top. Well I guess I don't know to what extent have you had any communication with the land owners that block you from Campbrook Road, Bethel Mountain Road? I've had conversations. I've gotten to know Jerry O'Grady in email and one meeting last winter and those conversations will continue but Jerry is not lunging at the opportunity to figure something out and I'm not pushing him on it. And of course as you can see on the map it's 40 whatever it is over 4,000. So it's a you know it's a hack of a it's a brand new road and it's a hack of a path. The topo the topo's not bad although you know raising a look and have to figure out just just how challenging it would be to bring a road in there. And there is also the factor of ongoing you know separation of what's the word wild lands, breaking up the wild lands for wildlife movement and such and to make another road when there's already a road that kind of does the same thing I can see that the fact of that's a little to be considered redundant and maybe um you know excessive it would make it easier for future subdivision if you did have that access from Bethel Mountain Road coming in there but that's that's not your purpose and that's not our guiding well unfortunately it's not a legal option until yeah until it's it's not yeah yeah yeah so what's your time frame what's it you know you um what's your what's your schedule I think that we um you know I think next summer the the thought is to see if we can't make good progress on septic and well and set up a maybe a couple of nice tents and then the following summer we wouldn't start to see it we start to think through construction yeah it's not it's not crazy to think we start next summer but it seems especially given how how slow supply change your movement right it might be a hard part of the road out so I think you know it's it's allowing improvement without reclassification or I suppose perhaps reclassifying as class four and allowing you to do the improvement under that um we have a class four private road maintenance permit and policy I don't know if that extends to legal trails also I doubt it I think it was just specifically the class four so so right now we don't even have a vehicle in place to go ahead and say yes you could do that but that's you know and I tried to presume that yeah if it was class four that you would maintain it um right no plow it right my understanding is that a class four road is essentially anything that is in class three and the town is not in any way obligated to maintain or block except for um controller okay yeah and so so perhaps improving the trail with no reclassification which to me would be ideal um might be something you consider is um the beckers uh a budding landowners as well or are you giving me a tax map I think I have here somewhere well they could be maybe they could be now but I don't think they are I don't think so it's possible but I don't think so either I don't think it might be just that road bunch it comes up from Jerusalem we might go across it's always they own just the other side of that road is where we go through the hooper hall yeah they own like 20 feet down the markers right there and it runs right down so that road so I'm pretty sure it doesn't get that right it could be some part of it just touches but you get better eyes than I can't read that from my life she owns the Frank's property on hooper hollow now too yeah she does right that's down below or something yeah that yeah he owns up through there yeah that doesn't last for sure it's a bus park property still out by the way I don't know I'm a bit confused as to what the Jerusalem hill is class three or four is it Vermont roads has it as kind of both it's got it's got a section of class four well there's some four in it I talked with the road foreman and he went up and he's under the impression that the class four starts somewhere this side of Stuart Brown's home is his idea it doesn't even go to the end of Stuart Brown's property so the class three so I don't he was unsure and we'd have to check on that again he drove it out there one day and looked at it and I didn't go with him but that's what he told me and I'd have to look at it again with him I think in order to see what's going on so that's all I can tell you on that does that help at all the town map no it just shows that it's gravel the other map in the office is a better map there and it shows a lot different but it's it when John drove it out from the road it's pretty hard to get it exact I'm sure with just the truck so you'd have to really look at it I mean we pretty much go up there and turn around with the truck no but it's not may not be classified as class three where we turn around but it's pretty much built a class three there but it's and it's been treated as class three forever for a long time forever ever since they got machines so yeah so I don't know if the reclassification there is that big a deal it would the real part would be where the where the issue of going up the mountain there and is really that's the issue so you've got that steep mountain from the Jerusalem hillside but then you've got a substandard culvert on the other on the north side that is on south hall on south halloween which would be yep so there's and it's and it's longer yeah so it's um in wetter too and where steep steep on one side and wet on the other the only thing I would add in in terms of going back to just improving it's not a critical point but just about improving the uh legal trail is the the only section of the road that's ever had any road like characteristics is the first section of the road from my driveway up to the log landing where there's been some ditching in culverts because it's been used for logging access right and after the ice storm in 98 and then the most recent logging once you're in the log landing and beyond there's no road base no ditching no culverts the soil across the field is just native you know material clay and and and then the road as you leave the log landing there's ledge and slash buried in a permanent wet spot at the base of the hill um and and then it's just a single track right you know up the you know the hill the last pitch of the hill itself so um you know it's it's it really doesn't have any road characteristics beyond the first section you know beyond you know my house there's no real road no real road steeper that section from the top of Jerusalem hill up there is actually well the Jerusalem hillside yeah it's just never gonna be a road I should say that I mean you know Bill Kent drove the mail his mail car over into the 60s he was driving that road every day delivering the mail into the 60s do you know when they made that a trail it was in 1948 it was reclassified it was yeah 1940 we should have a record of that yeah that was a big year for reclassifying yeah well um yeah I don't think we can make a decision right this this evening details yeah well I will say that my you know my wife and I are very excited to be be property owners in Rochester we're looking forward to the the the journey of making it out yeah it's a beautiful spot enjoying it I sure hope we get access for our plans well yeah we'll look quite different this is always the helicopter pad but I would I would encourage you to explore that that loop around option that seemed like topographically it looked you know a little more reasonable than just going straight up the road from the bottom but just another excuse to go hike around the property how much of the trail is used once you take that loop does it where does it loop off it's pretty pretty quickly it's right after Stewart's land really yeah where it comes off of there that would at least affect Stewart as far as I mean the other possibility of course is to come in on the legal trail head up the legal trail and before it becomes challenging from a from a toko perspective movies to engineer and you're gonna do one switch back of course I switch back and I still plow this looks so not good friend they know how to do it but we could do some options there's some options there no there's definitely a way to get you in there I just want to let's work through all the options understand we're going to be setting a precedent whatever we do so that's that's that's the big thing there well that's a different topo can you send that to me absolutely great to have an electronic thank you we're just telling you where you're on it it's just that it says it says review okay so to be continued eh to be continued thank you but in a positive way yeah in a positive way yeah good well I very much appreciate your time this evening we want you to develop to give you the same thought and we're working with you to find you look forward to having you okay thank you thank you and I don't know that Larry is going to be a good neighbor because I'm a real state broker and he was the first one I called when it got listed so I know I've already enjoyed good news thank you all thank you thank you take care we've got a quickie to break up the meeting we have the north hollow farm lease up at the Severy pit for a period of five years from July 1 to June 30th 2020 second 27 from the 22nd to the 27th and this is the second renewal yes right yeah so I moved to enter into this agreement with the north hollow farm once again I think it worked out well I second that on favor all right okay it was a quickie yeah we need um 22 we need two signatures on there there's two lines all right so that was a quickie now on to the next topic on the discussion on date for the high school building acquisition vote and um Vic is um coming here you said what 7 30 7 30 all right well I can um I can just I was asked to give an update on the project so far so I'm happy to do that I'm happy to come up front so people can have a great next round yeah it's also welcome my I hear you better so if you were at the conclusion of the feasibility study on July 13th you will be aware of what our next steps were there were to complete the environmental study and also to deal with the flood way slash floodplain issue and a few other things but the most important thing right now is that we have started the process of the environmental study the select board and the school board signed off on the eligibility site application which approved which approved state monies to pay for this process to rivers is do it has hired a consultant and they are doing um the hazardous materials assessment as well as the brownfields assessment that left me with quest of finding out what for the rest of the NEPA NEPA being the national environmental protection act because it's all under that for regulation to be eligible for federal funding which is the archaeological historical assessment of the site so I was asking grace vinson who is the state environmental officer exactly what in my proposal for an environmental consultant am I asking them to do and she responded that we may not need an environmental consultant for archaeological and historical history because the building is less than 50 years old so she sent the preliminary review form that was to be completed by the town uh which I sent on august 5th and I brought a copy here because that would be the first piece of actually waving us from having to do any of that part of the NEPA so there might have been some understanding misunderstanding rather about what that form meant but that is what that form means it in no way obligates the town to purchase the property it is just covering that aspect of the environmental study the historical and archaeological history and site I've completed it to the best of my ability and as for input if I've answered anything incorrectly it's done like all of our applications on behalf of the town as the prospective buyer the floodway and floodplain issue has been taken up by Dick Robson he's our point person on that uh and uh he's been in touch with DuBois King who did the original survey when we separated the property boundaries and we it took a while for them to get back to us they've gotten back to us they've assigned a person to do the survey and the Loma which is the letter of map adjustment to remove the sliver of the highway the high school property that is in the floodway the issue is not being in the floodplain the issue is being in the floodway and there is a sliver of the property that is in the floodway a very tiny sliver and so this is about removing that which will get us out of that dilemma so um Nathan Cleveland from the community development board has approved uh from the balance of our feasibility planning grant funds the money to pay for that so that's not any cost to the town for the to do the survey and the letter of map adjustment so that's going to be covered with the balance that we have remaining on those funds so it's been said that with the NEFA there's the phase one which is the document review and then the results of the phase one would determine the extent of or need for a phase two which is site testing well we know we have an underground tank so there will be most likely um site testing around the underground tank uh the town can proceed with phase one and phase two of the environmental study right up to the results of phase two which would indicate any kind of remediation and and not by the property you you are not obligated to purchase the property because you're not the property owner you're eligible for the brellett program all of these programs are very important the school board is not eligible because they're property owner and i think that um doing can speak very directly to being a property owner who discovers they have a brown field and that has to go through remediation it's better that the town be doing this because you're not obligated in any way for remediation and all these programs actually are designed to absolve responsibility once ownership is acquired if there's any future problems with the site so it's very important that this process be allowed to continue now around the first week of august i heard from sarah right she's already appointed the consultant that consultant thought they would be wrapped up in seven weeks we still haven't filled out returned this preliminary review form to grace vinson so i don't know how much more time that's going to add to it i hope not any more time um but at any rate we had i would please ask that the board reconsider and sign this off so we can do the last piece of it and then hopefully everything gets wrapped up at the same time in terms of phase one which is very important and having a vote in november i can understand logically why you would do that but if you have a vote i don't see that you could have a vote and so the vote says to acquire and then you tell the school board well we're going to wait until the phase two before we acquire i don't think that's going to go down very well and we would not be looked at as good faith from us so i would advise really that we not have the vote until march at our town meeting which is also a very well attended vote because then we'll have a chance to wrap up the whole environmental study so that's a little kitty um that's what i'm suggesting and thank you welcome i agree so that's that's what i was asked to do at the public meeting to give an update on all that if you have any questions i'm going to go back to my seat yes okay yes what happens if the loma does not agree to do an adjustment if the loma does not agree to do the adjustment i've never asked that question but you know if they don't agree to do the adjustment then we're certainly out for any kind of federal funding we're asking um the agency of natural resources would have some say in that um we're not exactly sure how long that process is going to be uh we know that the boy and king is going to be doing their their survey and their um feet their their footage above the flood plain they're going to do all their assessment but um what if if it's found that there cannot be a letter of map adjustment um number one we don't know when we submit that how long it would take for that to be reviewed studied and granted or denied by whomever is the the the department that would approve that and um if it comes back denied um doing any of these environmental studies would just come to a screeching halt the environmental studies have already started and they're planning to be wrapped up in seven weeks and that's they started in the first week of august so that's already it has a lot of resources and some funding attached to it the environmental study correct yes and it's being paid for by two rivers it's state funding that's already been approved for this purpose and the hiring of a project manager that's a whole other thing that has nothing to do with this nothing to do with this um okay so so let's let's start first off just the issue of the the letter that um we hesitated on signing that because it was not not clear i guess by just by reading it it it seemed like it was um we were it was a semi-commitment to buy the property where we've been really holding on and now it sounds like that's not not the issue but we were the way it was worded in there it was and kind of um rose some some alarms on our behalf that we didn't want to sign something we didn't totally understand i'm sorry we weren't here to further clarify that we weren't on the agenda so we assumed that your agenda was full anyway anyway yeah yeah yeah you're now i mean it's still the whole environmental study would be a mute point if the floodplain issue is not remedied first well not really because the um it would just be would render the access to certain funding federal and state right off but the um but it's still um the information gathered would still be valuable to whoever does something with that building in the future we were very much encouraged that what they can or cannot do with the building in the future yeah it doesn't make any sense not to do it it really doesn't because you can say well what if it doesn't so we shouldn't do this i mean we have to proceed and all of our exploration to even find out if the property is viable for development at all i mean it's one thing to go through HUD money it's another thing to go through private money it's just information that's all that's only going to inform us the town doesn't have any earmarked money in its budget for any of this funding so if if we make commitments that would end up costing us money we don't have any of that funding in our budget so going down the road if we have spent money thinking that the Loma will work um we could be on the hook for that funding if it if it doesn't well i'm thinking further down the road down the environmental study when you get into phase two is there funding for that the phase two is the site testing and there is and our site testing very specifically is going to be around that underground tank and there is grant money for that that we've been told from multiple sources that is not a problem that's right yeah we have been told that is not a problem i'll check with josh handford on that because he was pretty clear about how there would be no state funding and then grace was the one that mentioned that there was no federal funding for the floodway floodplain so patty if you would like to put your very specific questions in writing and give it to us we will get the very specific answers all right because it seems like whatever i'm saying isn't computing in terms of an answer to you so if you could just put it down and i will put it out there to two rivers to to josh handford to nathan cleveland those are these agencies are all working with us with with a very optimistic attitude that we are not dead in the water because the floodway okay and so we have already signed papers authorizing moving forward with the environmental review this information came out true authorizing for the floodway floodplain but the paper that she's asking us to sign now is actually um it's basically um to wave another whole testing process so historical document so i i don't see any reason you know not to not to do that i don't i don't see it as triggering any any any financial repercussions for the town i mean that's the thing i want to stay away from until the town goes to buy the building yeah i i think if they want to buy the building they should and if this group can wants to continue going forward maybe they should put a coalition together by the building themselves we there is no no liability to the town at this point the property is not owned by the town the property is owned by the school district the school district bears sole responsibility for the results of the environmental study now you might say well we've heard from environmental assessments that the previous owner could be possibly liable well the previous owner of the school building was the school Rochester school district the Rochester school district is not existed so therefore and even though it's the same voters there is no liability to the town of Rochester because it was the Rochester school district that owned the property and that's been said clearly we don't have any liability going forward in fact to me i don't even understand why we wouldn't go forward finding all the information to inform the voters a hundred percent of whether this is a good thing to do or not a good thing to do and then we still have the liability being one of two towns in the school district we do not get away from the liability of this building we are not immune from it but in terms of what your concern is as a select board the town is not liable we do not own the building it's in our village center it'll impact us the whatever becomes of it will certainly impact us but we do not have liability until we take ownership which is why i'm encouraging you to delay the vote to march that's what i'm encouraging so with no liability we will go forward with no obligation to contribute to the heating of the building this winter if that's your position however uh and that was something that we were going to discuss later with you all um you know we understood speaking with erica hoffman geist or geist hoffman and he's hoffman geist that the school board is liable for the upkeep of the property because they are the owners of the property um we have said that we are trying to do this mutually that we're trying to work together for an outcome that benefits not only the school district but also the town so even the issue of who needs the building that is something that should be fully discussed after all as a member of the school board we are paying i believe don't quote me but i think it's two-thirds of the of the school heat because we are the larger town in the in that district so if the town is clear that they do not want to contribute anything towards this season's heating then we have to go back to the school board and see what other way we can do it and we can also raise private funds for that which is i mean last year it was the public trustees that i approached after speaking to this board about the fifteen thousand dollars for that that the uh the school board was making the condition by which they were going to make that building accessible to the consultants right and as i understand it they contributed to fifteen thousand dollars so i don't think that it was a problem last year if it's a problem this year we'll go about looking for funds for it um before we get into the heating let's um terry that's what my question was because heat is going to be double this year or it was last it's five bucks a gallon we understand this five bucks a gallon right now because they've purchased it at five bucks a gallon yeah but the heating prices are going down so let's go back to the the question on the table about are you guys okay with signing off on this form that will waive the requirement for the historical as long as there's no obligation financially to the town yeah if it doesn't appear to be if if what they're saying is utilizing our our our money through grant funds anyway so it is coming out of our pocket but that's it's not coming out of the rochester budget park pocket just the you're right when you say out of our pocket you mean as taxpayers yeah so is everything including everything that's why we're nice to tighten our belt whenever we can i just hope that excuse me um if you're going to sign something could you be a little more specific about what it is that you're actually signing i'm sorry didn't you we we already signed it no we didn't this is the one that we didn't this one so this is i'm going to um move that we signed the vermont community development program housing and community development board section 106 preliminary review form community development block grant c dvg home investment partnership program and national housing trust fund comes from the federal department of housing and urban development hud section 106 in the national historic preservation act of 1966 nipah requires that federal agencies such as hud take into account the effect of their projects on any historic property including historic buildings and archaeological sites to start the review process please complete this form you submit it with the information requested below so this is basically um yeah the um the uh historical to evaluate whether we need to have the historical make sure there's no indian varial right indian varial no so just an old mill with a bunch of farm cows move um all in favor hi hi okay i move it pat you're abstaining or you know i'm not saying hi not saying hi okay well two out of three i'm not going to be easy down the road you know that actually i am not um i'm not seeing exactly where they want do you know where he signs again because on the last page i believe down below last page down below it's a development division for historic preservation for okay i'll pass it yeah all right here you go i still think we hold tony hold it in merge right mark yep i think that makes sense um i don't care as long as they don't have to heat the building yeah you said march did i'd rather do it in november but that makes sense to do it in march tony we can mail out now so yeah um as much as i'd like to see it overwind what are you before that yeah you run the elections i do have a dream yeah that's fine march won't be a bad deal for you will it no and the whole point of this has been to gather as much information as we could so that we could march makes us we'll have time to warn it too and all that so so what will happen at town meeting or would it be a separate election i think it'll be a bad australian ballot election it should be and we would probably look at mail and ballots out to everyone so that they can make an honest assessment and go from there i think that's probably written summary of all the information that we have at that point right and the town that's as much information as we can even distribute with the ballot town would pay to get the mailing on that and all that yeah i think so we'll have to yeah we'll have to come up with some funds somehow we'll figure it out okay so um something so um what else oh tony sorry hand up yeah i i think it's really kind of short sighted not to at least take a decent look at the value of that property to a tower there's the auditorium there are other parts of it if only we looked even at that much and of course it costs money there isn't much there doesn't cost money but to take a very negative attitude this early in this thing is is really very very short-sighted spent four years yep yeah um rox isn't the first year i've been doing it i have two questions one of them is their plan if the vote is no um the school the school keeps the building well if the building's not going away the costs aren't going away the problem's not going away the problem but is that the answer the if the vote no then it's the school board problem and that's the biggest thing i have with it rob to be honest with you is if the town elects to buy this building and we go forward with this whatever it is and it fails and we dump four five hundred thousand into it and we're left with a decision on what to do with this property and the answer is going to be of all things we're going to have to tear it down that's the worst case scenario but so with no grants for that so you're looking at by the time this goes through you're looking at dumping five hundred thousand taxpayer money into it and in five years maybe looking at having to tear bond it and tear it down anyway so then you're looking at a two million dollar bond in the end so that's the worst case scenario i understand but you plan for the you know you hope for the best but you plan for the worst so to me it makes more sense for a group to get together and purchase the property directly from the school board leave the town out of it and go forward with their plan and if it fails the taxpayer money is not into it and then we have to make a decision on what to do with the property and that's the way I look at it and Tony if you perceive me of being negative that's okay but that's the way I look at it and I don't think we have a choice with that and I'm all favored to Catherine and Vic they put a hell of a lot of time into this and I respect that greatly but I do think if there is a group that really wants to purchase this thing that's what they need to do deal directly with the school do all this stuff leave the town out of it and that's the way I feel about it so you're not going to convince me any other way even if the town votes to purchase this building I probably won't be involved with it at all because I'm against it so the other question I had is is there a plan to inform the voters about the entire landscape of what we're looking at here that is their plan and I mean what I mean and I don't want to preach about this but I stood up at the last town meeting and made a public spectacle of myself asking for transparency on the part of this project and it didn't happen and now here we are today we're talking about downstream making a vote on this this is very very complicated no extremely complicated and there has to be more to this than this report you know the people voters in this town and people that I talked to most people have the simplest understanding of what we're looking at here so I'm asking I'm asking I know everybody is that if we're looking at a vote with a kind of money what we're talking about people have to really know the entire landscape of facts good news and bad and I'd like somebody to have a plan for that that's why we were just saying when we send out the balance for this vote and we'll also go with the information packet with the everything up to date and everything that we gather right up to that day before if I got a thing in the mail day for the vote and I think if you're given the gravity of this that there should be more even more public meetings there's more information on porch for twice in the last week to touch base with a media that touches a lot of Rochester people so we're throwing it out there as much as we can to have people come in and participate in my view this is every bit as important as informing people about COVID I mean this I mean I'm a little surprised this is such a big deal at least in my mind that the cost the risks the opportunity is such a big deal that I don't feel like it's getting the kind of informational voltage that it should be and I saw the stuff on front page one but in a way there is this you know this this expectation that people are going to do the work to come and go to the websites and find they're not going to do that they're not going to do that and and they're not going to show up for the meetings and and one day there's going to have they're going to have to take a boat and you can't force them to there is a link on the there is a link on the town website right on the front page to information about the study I mean it's we can't and you're not going to force everyone to to delve into this you know who can make it um I mean here we are talking about it again on zoom how many times in the last four years when you say that it should be like as public as COVID was like do you think there needs to be more frequent mailings about this or what do you during COVID there was a going website there were mailing a lot of mailings here for that you know well I'm just I'm all of you I understand everything you're saying it's absolutely true I'm not arguing with that I'm just saying that for most of the voters most of the voters do not understand the gravity of this the potential graph how complicated it is what the history you know it's very complicated and and um and there has not been an effort to inform people in my view and most of people I talked to it's been insufficient you know yeah so you know uh I think somebody I think somebody ought to ought to make make a plan that says this is what we're going to tell them here's how we're going to tell them here's the schedule plan to do it because if you don't do that as we saw from the last time I had this tantrum it doesn't get done it doesn't get done so I don't want to take everybody's time up I think this is vitally important to the voters and a hard job of work and if you're going to ask people to to make what sounds like a pretty easy decision should we buy the the the building or not when there's so much emotion to be invested in it it's somebody's duty to inform them and I'll I'll quit this has been one step forward and two steps back right through the whole process so to have something solid that you can stand on a platform and say this is what we know as soon as we think we know something something comes along to you know set you back a little bit so you really didn't know it all so it has been a complicated process for us and we don't want to plant seeds of bad information either and lose credibility so um as soon as we have something solid now we have to go through this environmental study which is going to be months gone by again and meanwhile we do have a lot of impatient people that don't understand the process of the wheels of government which turns slowly or backwards and but we are we're trying to put that out there we're trying to put it out there my problem is that it's it's that it's um not ended by by by a vote of the town to buy because we are the buyer and the seller and so the problem doesn't go away and it doesn't you may think it goes away from the select board and and I respect that but it doesn't go away for the taxpayers because if we may not we may it may go away as buyers but it doesn't but but we also still own the building so um you know it's a vicious cycle it's you know it it's not it if it was simple enough that it would end if you vote no it's just the beginning sorry I do have someone on zoom go ahead Mitch I would just like to um but rob a little bit as far as information that's available and out there there have been public meetings everyone has been informed about them there were questions and answers anybody who was wished to know about it could attend nothing has been opaque about this it it's a very complicated process so as Patty said you know things do change along the way but none of that has been kept secret from anybody and I believe that both Vic and Catherine have really gone to great ends to make sure the people the that the town knows about the information the meeting that we had what a month ago or so it was open to everybody it was advertised uh to all the forums and if someone chose not to come that is not because there was not an effort to put this forth so I just really feel like there have been many opportunities and Catherine and Vic and anybody on the committee is available to answer any question for anybody who wishes you can come to any one of the meetings and participate just listen in it is not a closed door situation and what Catherine and and uh is really making an effort to do is to see that as much information as possible is available so everybody can make an educated vote on this they know what they're doing they know the ramifications behind it and I'm sorry there is no guarantee in life so Frank you're right it may not fly in five years but we we are a community that has an aging population but we also have a lot of young families coming up through and if we don't build for the future I'm not sure how we're going to keep anybody here so I feel like the efforts that are being made to put something together that could be viable for the future of the town is a worthwhile exploration and so far it hasn't cost the taxpayer any money and and the amount of effort that's going into see that grants and funding is available and and received is tremendous and all of that is with the intent that this does not cost the taxpayer any more money than it absolutely has to so I think there's a real conscientious effort to to have this come through at the as little cost as possible and yes there will be costs but there's also would if it comes through it could be a tremendous benefit to the town and so Rob I I challenge you on this bit that this is opaque because I've been in all of these meetings and there has been nothing opaque about any of them and the information is there for anybody who wants it you just have to come to the meetings participate thank you thank you thank you mid yeah this is back I don't know if you can see me or not but I appreciate your comments I want to just talk about the communication side just for a second and we learned in the covid the peak of covid that we had to meet people where they are you cannot expect people to just automatically thank you website and we did a lot of work putting pushing out male newsletters which were pretty effective because they went to every home on regular basis we could we could shake our message and two sides with a piece of paper and if we hadn't done that I think it would have been a lot of confusion in this understanding so you know I totally agree with the notion of doing something like that and not on the day before a vote is decided all the other things you said are absolutely true amazing I mean the meetings are open they're not opaque public meetings are certainly open available but I think we have to meet people where they are with such a complicated and really kind of issues so we do need to do more I certainly agree with that Julie you have something I do Kristen and I put together form that we set out with the taxes and basically that was to gather in all emails of all residents in our town and it kind of was a basis to like any kind of an emergency or any kind of notice or any kind of information that needs to get out to the to the taxpayers or to people and I just feel like this might even be a great way to send out an email to all of them it goes out as one email and ask if anybody wants to be on their on this mailing list we can certainly send without having to do all of that through paper we could do it through a mass email I wouldn't even dare to guess it's been a lot popular yeah yeah I don't know I think that's great so are you thinking like a separate a separate well I'm thinking if we send out an email through that mass yeah really and asking for anyone who wants to be on a distribution for to email back and then we have them all separated out and the people who are really want to collect that information right because you can say that we did I'm Robert Vic and I were all on that COVID task force and we chose the mailer because not everybody had email on everybody has access to our line so we decided that that the pandemic was a significant issue and I think it cost about 200 dollars in mailing something like that the town did pay for this and we were doing regular mailings and we started early on I'm up for whatever the town wants us to do about this but I do think the starting with an email list is terrific at least polling who wants to get updates even putting out some sort of a sign-up sheet at the town office you know so that people can either buy mail or buy email receive updates on the high school project that's a good idea let me just say thank you miss for your honest vision of what's going on but I think it's important as Vic said if you're counting on people to come to you to get the information you're going to fail there's a reason that you know Becca balanced sends four cards to your house hoping you'll pay attention to one of them there's a reason in advertising that they beat you over the head with this stuff I would I would go back to the merger the time of the merger when everybody in town would needed to be told and there were a whole series of pretty active meetings or things were explained and because it was so important I think this is more important than the merger potentially I mean the risks here are so great the potential is so great and I just people that I talked to I am not having people say to me oh and I'm totally informed they are not totally informed and when I first moved to this town not not to preach my impression was there was a philosophy of public information in Vermont and the philosophy was you want a meeting you have a meeting and if you don't show up to the meeting too bad for you you know there wasn't the duty of the town to communicate to the people it was the duty of the people to come and get the information that doesn't happen anymore that doesn't happen anymore the the number of people to show up in meetings is small you want to get information these people you're going to have to work at it you have to make it a job or you got to go to where they are I think this is really true and I'm not knocking Mitch for this I think Mitch makes it makes a good point but that's the end of my standard so um there are people running campaigns have campaign funds we're talking about just eating in high school I mean I I'm happy to do this but so far all the the um the percentage of uh costs for feasibility study and and the magic funds have come from the committee out of our pocketbooks so I mean I think it's time to start some sort of a campaign for even this level of development even prior to acquisition and to put that out there because if there's people who want this information in a lot of the publication forms or in all the forms it's going to take money just to do it but it also takes money to do a lot of the other aspects of this too and we the committee have been has been doing this ourselves paying for the money and there there comes a time when that may dry up you know so just putting that out there so um that's the uh discussion on high school building acquisition right now for something completely different we've got a um paving contract um proposal from Kingsbury and this is for the um saw cut edges and remove existing asphalt from area discussed area discussed being the down by the town garage and the um the storm water um remediation project that um was placed in the ground um through the efforts of the um partnership the white liver partnership um that included redoing the paving over the stuff they put in the ground but and reality that we need to address the wider area that that is a part of which has been falling apart forever so we're looking at a bit of 37,100 for that paving basically that paving will run from where the where the tanks are for the septic field it'll run about 12 8 to 12 feet i'm not sure exactly how wide all the way through and after the screed for the winter sand it'll be all new pavement there the the project itself called for 25 feet from the building out which is takes in about a third of the screed that's there and it goes from the edge of the south side of the building to where the catch basin is on the north side of the building but if we don't do the whole yard it makes the project move really because you can't channel the water and it's just going to make a mess in front of the place this bit is for taking out the old stuff to make it slope towards the drains that are in place the reason why the original contract didn't have this included is the partnership does not do paving and the only reason why they were doing the 25 feet was because it was originally paved and where they had to run their pipes and everything uh i talked it over with john cooter and we all felt that it was the right thing to do is to make it work because it's a hundred and forty thousand dollar project that the the partnership put in down there with the cost of the town was only the work that we did ourselves which was take out some material and bring some material in so that was just our cost and so this paving piece would would be our cost at 37 000 john and i talked about using some of the paving budget that he has set aside for this year and we thought we'd supplement some ARPA funds in it so we haven't figured out what exactly we how we would split that but we will definitely do that and i i think it's needs to be done in order to make the project complete are you moving to approve that i am else second long term all right okay do you have anything to say did you want to say something i was thinking a part of your little discussion that was part of the process uh i think is christin on there uh the guy yeah maybe he could speak to that yeah yep hey everyone i'm christian peltier and i worked for the white river partnership um this whole project was put out to bid um to kingsbury and so this additional paving um would go under the scope of the the entire project that was put out to bid and um um in earlier this year when kingsbury bid on it so be an increase the scope to the work that that's being completed right now so what are you saying as it was put out to bid and this is just increasing the scope not really not really at all it's an extra we should go out and bid the black documents all together a different situation on what kingsbury bid on kingsbury bid on what was there and now they're adding to the whole project and that should have gone out i'd like to know uh a little bit more of a percentage of the ARPA funds and i i'd if larry has that information where do we stand with our expenditures so far you're asking me yes i am asking you i was actually thinking of asking you guys um i i think that we're up in the 75 000 we're right about 100 yeah right about 100 right now yeah so i know that we had um uh kind of a a pie set aside for ARPA funds and i just want to make sure that what part of the pie may be suffering from this yeah i i'm i'm clear what my uh my exact role is and and longer in it but um uh i haven't had any real uh any real recent update from the select board on uh some of your decision making on where you're spending it or plan to spend it so that's a discussion i'd be happy to have yeah okay let's do that um just so that when we are faced with the next vote decision um where we're standing on some firm ground about what we're spending especially for the ARPA funds yeah and just so you guys know as a board there's like currently 61 000 left of the first two installments after that um 52 and five that we just used for weaver used to with about 61 so we had about 37 would come out of that 61 not all of it we take six however we have we got to sit down and i've got to sit down and talk to john yeah i'm thinking we haven't received this year's portion the second half should be do i would still like any day i think it's coming very soon very soon yeah kind of late from last yeah it is still doesn't mean you need to spend it left me in prices i understand that i agree with that one of the things the problem is though you have two different pavers down there too and you're going to run into an issue with that if there's a mess up you've got no one to back you know you can't go to one and say this is your fault because you didn't do a good job and they're going to blame the other guy so you're going to be faced with that too and that's one thing we talked about with john and i talked about with that clarify that the paving in front of the the building the 25 foot width and 125 feet is going to happen regardless that's part of the current non-expanded scope of the project and the projects at the point where they're ready to pave that area right now so regardless of this decision that that would be what would would happen moving forward that would or would not be what it would it would that foot is Kingsbury does their own paving Kingsbury no sorry does Kingsbury do their own paving no no no they they subcontract out their paving we don't we wouldn't know who they would be using so we could contact them directly i can get that information for you yeah i believe the paver was present and met john when they he walked the site to create a quote but we i can i can get that information now it would just probably be nice to know who the paver would be in case there were issues in the future yeah we've already got to do it so this it's a mute point it's 10 grand that's for someone else just for for when we first the white road partnership explored this project as frank said the the funding source doesn't allow paving it's a dc clean water block grant but we still when we first explored this and there's either 2018 or 2019 thought paving the whole garage would be a good idea so we got a quote then which i know outdated but it was $35,000 to pave the entire town garage parking area so just for reference that's a quote we got a few years ago just just looking at options but at that time as it was decided that the town wouldn't be able to support that so we just move forward with the grant funded portion of the paving okay so it wasn't the original agreement to have done the whole parking lot no no it never was we just explored it to have the information to bring to the town as a potential option with the project when we first pitched it but at that time there weren't funding sources like arpa and such around um so we decided to make do with just the the grant funding that we had to do the small path all right so moving right along we have Joan on zoom here yep what you got for us Joan um i'm just sort of taking care of few remaining loose ends um because my last day is this coming friday so i've got the contract for the tank removal that's out for signature so you should have that back pretty soon um i did some work on the paving issue with the town garage i just want to make a comment on that we really should be looking at this as a change order to an existing project as opposed to something brand new which is something that we do encounter from time to time when we do projects and under those circumstances we don't typically you know insist that it goes out to bid because you're in the middle of the project you're not forces in the middle of the stream with contractors or anything so i understand your concern about wanting to make sure uh you know the price thing you're getting is is the right one but uh just want to make that point um a summary probably tomorrow uh remaining information that i want to get over to you regarding what's left for reimbursements from FEMA um which includes FEMA refunding and as well as the matching amount that comes from the state uh so you'll have that by the end of the week too um i'll be handing off my laptop on friday um and um otherwise i'm pretty much done well thank you for your years of work there pat you're raising your question uh john did you have the opportunity to meet with the gentleman from skate space yes i did i met with them with them a week before last i was eating and norm and was they and was in my point of view on timing or their fundraising uh because apparently the main grant they've applied to from the state i forget which the name of the program recreational program um requires that they have the matching funds in hand and they submit the application and uh i admire their efforts to try and get $25 by september 10th but that would be this week um and so i advise them to um instead of submitting an application that would be rejected because they don't have the funds in hand that they get their you know their docs more in a row and submit a really good uh achievable approvable grant application to the state in the next funding round which would be next year which i i think they took my advice on that um and also gave them some tips tips on bidding which is not something they're going to be doing right away and also places to look for other funding sources supplement what they've got already so i think that was useful too yeah sounds like wonderful guidance thank you well now's your chance if you have any final words of wisdom to share with the leg board and from your your um your podium there oh well i don't i don't know uh i think the the wisdom's all on your side i admire all the work you will be doing um and it's great working with you for the past seven plus years oh you'll have to come and do some ice skating and watch the storm water go down the drains and don't forget to use bethama road every time i can every chance i get right well thank you joe okay um tony uh once again i'd say keep reading the paper there's several things that are going on and uh we will have a booth at the iris fair many things i guess all right that's good um don't have anybody here from the highway department and you got i guess we talked enough about the garage yeah uh the other just a couple things uh there's been a request for the use of the trail over in gilead for logging access i plan on going over there sometime this week and just to check it out to see it's been used before i believe and it's part of the gilead road there is a landing there previously but i'll go look at that and also the the tank removal for the town office will be doing that on wednesday charlie's going to pump it out and i'll check on that to see how that's going and uh wednesday we'll plan on removing that underground tank linkin technologies has been notified and dave harvey's going to do the work and charlie's going to take care of the take all right um terry got anything on the utilities front well just when i meet with the state marina uh they're going to take from front of pierce hall down to the bean house and then across the place they're going to do that so is the um the state you're going to paint the hydrant black across the river to say no i ain't gonna do that yeah it makes me happy yeah so it won't be officially a fire hydrant it'll just be that's what they say yeah but we can still have it there just in case he is calling flushing right instead of a fire because it's only a six inch main i've been fighting this for 20 years no i gave in at least you don't have to take it out that's not a matter of the fire chief oh joey did oh okay you were on vacation to keep everyone informed there are billboard signs at the edge of town saying grinding starts on wednesday so you will have traffic delays again but they're starting down here they're starting in stock bridge right they've started everything else in stock bridge yeah they are starting there and they do about a mile a day he said a little better depending on how the cup is in the road all right um when you flip the computer around it didn't look like jeff get part is here no he's not no he's not he's spending his energy somewhere else tonight the west coast man yeah he's on the west coast um and in the old business we had the master financial policies and for sections one three and four which i looked at but then it looks like jim barlow has chimed in with some things that he would like us to look at so i guess we'll which i received today we've got that today so we'll table that and and look at those suggestions all right one more time this is really perfect it looks pretty good yeah i thought so too any other public comment from the room or zoom martha has something on zoom yeah um i noticed that the next thing before you close out is that you have an executive session to talk about something to do with real estate so obviously i can't attend that so um i if that's okay i will call the office tomorrow and just ask if any decision was made made sure that all right sure okay thank you okay thank you um so with that i guess i'd move to conclude this um open meeting part of our meeting and um going to executive session thank you thank you all