 Anyway, the authorization to conduct this meeting remotely through the Zoom platform because of the COVID emergency and everyone is in here so far. There's someone else comes in. Yeah, gotta keep on that. So do we have any additions to the posted agenda at this time? Yes, I have an addition. Okay. I'd like to talk about the town roadside moving to the roadway in Greenhawk. Okay. And anyone else? Nope, got everybody in here. All right, so we'll start with the meeting minutes from the prior meeting of August 24th, which I read through and seemed to be pretty clear and right, so I'd move to approve those unless you guys have any corrections to them. I have read them and I second your motion. All right, all in favor? All right. Okay. All right, we've got someone else coming into the room here. So why don't we just start right off with I think we have a large contingency that are here that want to talk about the recent roadside mowing up at Hawke. And it's, I understand that it's, I'd be surprised if it was a surprise that it was done, but some people are upset by the extent to which it was done. Norm, do you want to speak to that? Yeah, yeah, I have a little write up here. And yeah, dude, we've already briefly talked about this, but maybe I'll clue other people in. You agreed with us to maybe meet a little bit later and come to some solutions for moving forward. But I also want to bring up that we understand that the town has obligations to keep the roads clear and they work within a limited budget. So it is sort of a pickle. I mean, we understand what you guys are going through, but we're hoping we're here to hopefully find a better way. Many members of Greyhawk were upset and just heartbroken at the degree of destruction this year and the amount of branches that were left on the road. And we were saddened about seeing certain types of trees hit, which include the pine trees. They're very slow to grow and they grow at the base. They didn't really seem to be a threat to the road, but they were really just sheared off. They looked kind of funny. We had some apple trees that were hit, sort of older apple trees that are very hard for them to grow back and we had some ash trees that were hit and we have had ash borer problems in Greyhawk. We had a big problem with the ash borer a couple of years ago. We're a smaller and dense community. We have much smaller lots by and large than a lot of Greyhawk. We've been a lot of people from Rochester. Our lots are about 1.2 to 1.3 acres and our houses are very close to the road. So we see this a lot of times we see the destruction right outside from our windows. So we have a sensitivity to it. We have a lot of people that walk on these roads and the first thing they see are the roadside trees. We see that, actually we see that the town takes into consideration these kind of factors with other neighborhoods that are a little more dense in Rochester. And we're just hoping that Rochester or that Greyhawk can be included in that group of more dense neighborhoods that the Rotary Blade doesn't hit quite as harshly. Greyhawk spends a lot of money every year taking care of our roadsides. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but each year when the fallen trees fall over the winter, a lot of times they're quickly shoved to the gutters or the washouts. We hire contractors every year to cut up those fallen trees and put them further into the woods. We have chip offs for our homeowners where they take branches and land them up by the side of the road. We also cut live trees quite a bit that are hanging over the road and do pose a threat to both the road and our homeowners. So on a lot of levels, we are actually kind of helping the town, the way we take our roadsides seriously and we try to keep them tidy. But to live in kind of year after year, like as you mentioned, this is a yearly thing where certain trees get hit on certain years, but there's a certain fear up here that, oh my God, the blade's coming. And we're just hoping that somehow we can get together and collaborate and do better. We're basically looking for three things. The first is hopefully you guys can clean our gutters, our washouts. Hopefully pick them up, either pick it up or chip it up. Hopefully instead of blowing them up, that's just gonna blow branches into our yards and we'll just have to, our homeowners just have to pick them up for the next chip off. So we're hoping for that as number one. Number two, again, I hope we can collaborate doing it. It would be great if we could meet, if our board could meet with you and just strategize, just come up with some sort of way where we can meet halfway or how we can get our ideas together to mitigate this problem. So it just doesn't happen again. Again, we're keenly aware that you have limited funds to work with, limited resources. But maybe given our resources, we can help you out where needed. And thirdly, we'd like the select board to consider Rochester as a whole to consider phasing this form of cutting trees. We gotta find ways to just not do that anymore. I feel, a lot of us feel that the beauty and the nature of Rochester is its greatest asset. It is, it's probably number one. That's why people are here. And then to see something come by and just hack up trees like that is incredibly disappointing to a lot of people. So we want, we just want, hopefully you guys can consider this in the future. I know it takes time to figure these things out. But let's look for alternative methods. Let's look for other resources to maybe get the job done another way. It's a long-term idea, but we should start now. There's just no reason to look at broken trees. So I'm just thinking one term, Rochester as a whole. I know other towns have stopped doing it because I'm not crying from the townspeople. So I think we should start thinking in this direction as well. Thank you. Does anyone else wanna make a plea on this behalf? So I guess in response, the idea of stopping cutting is pretty much a non-starter. I mean, it really is, I agree with you that the local natural beauty is why a lot of people live here, but the safety of not only the residents up there, I'm just gonna take this call in case there's someone that can't get onto the meeting just to make sure it's safe. Are you looking to get into the Zoom meeting? Okay, then I'll see you tomorrow then. I'll be around. What time? Okay, we'll see you. Thank you. Yeah, we had some people having trouble getting into Zoom, so I'd go over if I don't see the caller ID. So as I was saying, the safety is the number one priority why this is happening. I know it's very... I don't know if we just will stop cutting. Well, you did say that. I mean, that kind of cutting, but if we had gone up there to cut individual trees and branches, we could have spent three months versus three days doing that. And I know it looks harsh and I beg you to not feel singled out that Hawk is getting a more brutal treatment than the rest of town because three weeks ago, we were getting the same calls from up in the North Hollow and I remember driving up through there and it was very obvious where that was done and already three weeks later, it's hard to see where that happened. Now I know it's... And I agree, I drove through there the other day and it's very 90% of the area is hard to see what was trimmed. And then there are some definitely glaring brutalized trees and branches. And I would encourage, there's one dangler up there that is just too high, could not get the rest of that off, but the reason he could reach it in the first place was because it was hanging down over the road and when you drive in a car, it may seem like it's totally clear, but when you're in a plow truck, another six feet in the air and with the snow bringing these branches down, it's downright dangerous not to mention cutting the branches. So I totally feel for the, I'm a tree hugger, I'll admit it. I think that the thought that we can work together in terms of mitigating the intensity of the impact is, I mean, you had mentioned in our conversation before that maybe we would not mow and then hawk could do the mowing up there, but I think that more of a hybrid is like when we have to do a mow like this, then property owners can go and team up or whether they clip off the badly damaged things or what have you, it's a hard, but it's, in terms of cleaning out the branches, they did follow with a chipper and get all the bigger pieces as they went and the rest of the branches that are out there, and I talked with Cooter yesterday and he's planning after the leaves are off, they generally go with the blower and clean out the ditches so they can drain properly and that's his plan is to deal with them. We're gonna blow the branches back into our yards. Into the yards and into the woods, yeah. That's probably not what we control. No, that's not what you would like, but you live in the woods and you know, I mean, I live under a 100 and the amount of snow that I have to take off my front porch that the snow plows dump on it is, you know, I'd rather they didn't do that. It's a fact of life, you know. We're talking about the trees. Yeah. We don't understand where the chipper behind it didn't chip more thoroughly. I mean, the chipper was there, you had work crew there. It's like they did half of the job and then it becomes more, it becomes more of an expenditure to the town to come back and blow it out and that becomes more of an expenditure to Greyhawk. That's something that's already gonna happen. That's already on the schedule. It's not an additional expenditure to the town to come and blow it because that's part of the winter maintenance. But one of the reasons that this seems so intense this year is this year we hired a machine and the town crew did it themselves as opposed to hiring an outside contractor to do it, that which basically gets paid by the mile and what we discovered in doing it this year that these contractors were doing a quick job and a minimal job and there was a lot of catch up in terms of beating stuff back. So it was definitely more of a dramatic, I wouldn't think that it's to be so intense every year. I thought last year they did a great job. I talked to them. I didn't feel that there were immediate threats of branches hanging over the tree, hanging over the street ready to whack somebody. And I felt a lot of these trees were way deep in the woods and it was sort of arbitrarily selected which trees and where he wanted to go. And it was, it was harsh and didn't need to be there. There are areas that just weren't, they weren't threats. And what I would like is maybe we could talk, we could go up and down these roads and say, you know, we'll look at that tree. That tree is gonna be a threat in three years. What do we do about it? And I think that would be part of the collaboration where we can go through this stuff and really be selective and see where the threats are as far as what is going to grow and get in people's way when they drive. I didn't see anything beforehand. Right, but you're also driving in a car and not a, not a, you know, a five ton plow truck. So it's, I mean. Yeah, I can see like the edge of the road and I look up and how far it can go. It's pretty clear. And then those plow trucks, the blades out there on the edge, it's not the person. Plow trucks are 12 feet high. I would like to know what the parameters are. Is it 16 feet on each side? Do we know how high? You're talking about higher, the right away, the town right away. If we actually cleared the town right away, it would be a much more dramatic and posing trimming. Exactly. That's why we're scared to death. Well, we are scared out of our minds, you know, if we say something wrong or, you know. I really beg you to let go of the thought that there's some vengeance happening here for the road trimming. I mean, it's really there, this is the guy that's going to be plowing your roads in the winter and, you know, getting the phone calls in the middle of the night that there's a tree down. It's really as intent was to make that, make that possible and doable this winter, you know. It's, Pat, you had something you were going to say? I was up in Great Hawk. I think I saw Norm out walking the roads last week. I am in Great Hawk at least twice every week doing home inspections. And during the winter, I get to ride with a snowplow guy. He doesn't have a truck as large as the town does, but the visibility and the ice storm possibilities are very real up there. And when you're sliding towards the side of the road, the last thing you want to worry about is having a tree slap your windshield. Kind of look at what happened. I wasn't as shocked because I had seen the trimming down in other parts of the town. So I knew what I was looking for. I really just compare it to getting a crew cut because the hair is just out of control. So you just need to start over, push it back. And I go- The crew cut they cut cleanly. This is not clean. The flame branches is not clean. We just can't go all the way back and start cutting trees. It's better to cut branches than to cut the entire tree. So what we're trying to do is save trees that are growing into, they're growing towards daylight and that's where the road is. So other trees are pushing the branches of the trees on the side of the road into the road. Good to hear that. So could we hire our own contractors to cut some of these branches hanging over the road? Sure, sure. And I would be sure that we could get Cooter to ride with them and point out things that needed to be done. I mean, there's no interest here in making the world less beautiful up there. There really is not. It's just really about the practicality and the safety. And it's not a one-time thing. As Pat pointed out, the trees are growing towards the light and the opening in the road and it just naturally happens. Yeah. But yeah, I like what you said, where Cooter could be in the truck with a contractor and we could go down the roads and locate the problem areas and maybe we could have our own guy cut selected areas. Maybe Cooter could cut other areas. But if we can come up with a plan, maybe each time around this year, we just arrange for a little drive by and we come up with just a little bit of a plan, a little more thoughtfulness and planning ahead. And I think we can keep everybody happy. We could do some work where it would keep your workload lower and you guys can go on to other stuff. But again, if we can kind of collaborate, we can keep, everybody can be happy if it's done right. And I think what you mentioned is the first need. Yeah. So could we meet and talk further about this? Yeah, I'd be happy to. Yeah. Great, I'll contact you. Okay. Thank you. Can I say a word or two? Yeah. Ken Yellen. I don't think anybody's arguing with the fact that it needs to be cut back. I hear Pat, I hear Dune, that it's necessary. I think it's really just the method, the way the trees and the branches are just pretty much butchered. I don't think there's an obverse on this earth that would think that's a good way to treat vegetation and growth if you were concerned about the health of the tree. So I think it's just not the question that it's cut, it's the question of how it's cut. It seems as though the only solution is to have those of us up at Hawke, perhaps not to speak for no one, but to incur some of the funding to do some of the cutting in a more kinder way and still get the result of town once and at the same time not to have frankly, the ugliness that's created by this cutting blade that just basically butches the branches. That's all, I think if we could do it neatly, I don't think there's a problem with cutting it back. You agree, Nune? Yeah, that was well said, but better. I was trying to say the same thing, I guess you said. No, you did, you did, you did. We're just hearing Cotton doing it as clear that it has to be cut, we just wanna do it. Yeah, I understand, we all understand it has to be cut. This is Vermont and things are gonna look crazy. Yeah, okay. No, I think that it's the collaboration would be the key and to get on that mid-summer so we can plan ahead before the fall comes and the trimming. So I'd be happy to meet with you and like I said, I did tour the place and look and it's definitely some scars up there, but it's, I will stress that within a month there will be much less apparent, but that doesn't, but it is definitely not the best for the health of a tree to have a branch shattered off versus cut off. So that's absolutely true. It's just a matter of the necessity and the practicality of how to get it done. So it's good to have this conversation and maybe we can have a more teamwork attack on it. Well, it may be, as you say, an overwhelming job to try to do it ourselves and pay someone, but right now we're gonna put a little of our money where our mouth is and actually this coming weekend a bunch of us are gonna get together and try to repair the cuts by doing cleaner cuts behind the angled end. So we may find, we're agreeing with you that it's just a much bigger job than we can handle, but I think we're willing to try. Yeah, well, I'm gonna have to do some of that on my property that is not facing route 100 that got the same treatment from the same truck. So I've got some trees to clean up also, but it's up. I will tell you that anytime you cut any brush like that, you get a magnitude of more brush. It just comes in heavier and thicker. In my experiences on the power lines and cutting brush in there, doesn't matter what you do, it's gonna grow back quicker and thicker. So whatever you do, you're gonna have to keep doing it. So maybe with some of what we've done up there, it may look terrible at this point. And if we go back through as a group and clean it up a little bit, I think we're gonna still have to use a rotary down the road because you're gonna get the fine stuff that the simple mower isn't gonna take care of. And you're gonna have to continue to do some sort of it. I don't know what the extent of that will be, but I think you will have to do some. Well, am I correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the biggest shock here is some of the higher branches, is that correct? It's not so much the lower brushy stuff that is in the fence as much as the larger branches that got smashed back, is that correct? It's a case by case basis. Yeah, so some of the higher stuff was a little, we kind of, there was some deeper stuff. So some of that was a little bit deeper. And then again, the types of trees. I know that certain trees encroach more than other trees. It's almost like you have to go on a tree by tree and case by case basis. And I know, I guess when you're in the middle of the road actually doing this, that it's hard to make those assessments constantly. But when we reassess and look at it, we start wondering, why did he do this? Why did he do that? And there was no clear pattern as to how high or the brush down at the... Well, it's hard to see what the pattern is now because the branches that were there tracking his attention to cut back are now not there. So it's a little tricky. Yeah, yeah. And that way we can't gauge the stuff. But of course, the high stuff is the hardest to repair. I get a long pulse all up there, but yeah, we're just trying to, we're looking towards the future and hope. Yeah, especially that high stuff, especially could be something we could target where we could, you know, if we got to take a high branch down, we'll cut that cleanly. You know, and that way it'll look decent for the next 30 years, you know? That is an area that you see over a long period of time. Some of that lower stuff, the brushy stuff, heavy thick stuff does tend to grow back quicker and cover up the existing carnage. But there are certain high branches that'll be visible for years to come. So that's my take on it. We'll talk. Okay. Does anyone else have anything they'd like to say about this? Yes, Joan. This is Jamie Benson up at Hawke. Yes. I just wanted to just say I'm a little concerned on the overextended reach of the machine. I think the town went some places too far beyond their right of way. And a lot of the people feel kind of like their private property was violated and they're upset about that. And they're left with the exploded tree chute stumps that are left. To be honest with you, it looks like something that you see that the railroad does when you ride Amtrak, they just kind of pulverize and destroy everything along the railroad tracks. And the aesthetics really did hurt the look of Hawke. And it's going to take years for these scars to heal on some of these trees. My biggest concern is all of the brush in the hitches is going to plug up the culvert pipes. And we may have another rerun of Lower Maple Hill up here if we get a heavy quick saw. And we're going to start losing roads and stuff. So I'm not sure how good that blowing machine is going to work, blowing the stuff out of the heavy grass ditches because they really didn't cut the grass here back the way they should because they concentrated on the machines. And if we can pull this brush out of these ditches to try and save our culverts from plugging up, that's great. But to ask people to throw the stuff up into their yards, it may not work out right. I thought we could pile it up in decent piles and you guys could come back and chip it up if we accumulated it in piles. You know, all the real big pieces that are easily chippable or they took care of that. And I noticed that you pulled some brush into the road which is not the thing to do. It's the as they come and blow those ditches clean after the leaves come down. Of course, if there's obviously some big branches that don't want to budge out of there I believe they're going to pull those out. So I'm the main focus in the late fall is to make sure those ditches are clean. So I don't think that this trimming is going to compromise that. Well, I think you should come up and take a closer look with us on foot and see what's going on. And as far as the brush that is out on the edge of the ditch of the road that was actually laying in the ditch. And I was a little upset. I followed the town's recommendation. If you did not want anything cut in front of your property to put out no cut signs. And I had my signs out clearly a month ahead of this and I was not here when the brush cutting was happening. Otherwise I would have went out and asked them not to and they cut me anyways. They didn't do me bad but they cut me and I thought that was a little bit disrespectful. I thought we were kind of working together on the problems that we have with Austin Hill and the road and that to happen, it was upsetting. So that's why the brush is out of the ditch and on the side of the road. Cause I was hoping you were guys were going to come back and clean up your mess. Cause we do a pretty good job up here at heart cleaning up our own messes. Just to go over the policy of a no cut that like can Rochester resident declare their frontage a no cut zone and how does that work? Does that include trees or no or what? You can request not to get mowed but, you know doing a wholesale don't mow a hawk. I don't think it's going to cut it. You know, it's no pun intended. But you can't do a request to cut any type of trees. Well, the type of tree is irrelevant to the fact of it encroaching in on the road. You know, that's the main thing. It's not that type of tree. Actually, it was interesting Kudor mentioned he was surprised that he noticed how many oak trees he noticed there's a lot of oak trees and moving into the area. Yeah, there's a lot of little saplings on the road. Yeah, right. And it's unfortunately that's the nature of road maintenance. You got to clear that, you know? So anyway, I'll set a time when I come up and chat with you, Norman, whoever else wants to join in on that and walk around. Like I said, I did drive around and inspect the place but I guess we'll... Well, thank you. Thank you for listening. Yeah, I know it's hard work for the road commissioner to keep track of 60 miles of road. Yeah, well, next thing you know, we'll be talking about snow plowing. Oh, yeah, yeah, we haven't built a snow plow yet. Yeah. That's how hard it is to be a president of an association, too. Right. All right. Well, thank you all from up on the mountain for joining us. At least you didn't have to drive downtown. Yeah. Yeah, kind of nice. We're up here just like hawks in our nest. Yes. All right. All right, good night. I'll take care. Yep. I'll talk to you. You don't have to leave just because you're done talking, but you know. Yeah. Got anything interesting else to say? Oh, I'll start with that. Yeah. Planned out. Our next guest is Robert. Robert Merrick, you're up. Okay, thank you. Actually, the primary purpose for my request was to the, my last interaction with Jamie from the supervisory union was that he indicated to me I had to get permission from the select board to get access. I believe you've already taken care of that. Yeah. And I've heard back that they're looking for dates and such. I think we're other members of the repurposing meeting. I think we've sent out to the board a summary of all our activity to keep you in the loop. And Vic or Catherine, do you want to speak to those reports? Sure. Let me start in as Robert said, there are Catherine and a few other folks who've been working on this project are also present. They may want to chime in with other comments. So I've been chairing these meetings and I just wanted to take some time to bring the select board up to date and also pose a request. You might recall back in February, we had a community Envision Rochester meeting where we looked at a number of potential projects for community development. One of them that emerged was repurposing the vacant high school building. And we had gotten to the point of a blessing, if you will, from the both the select board and the school board for this volunteer group to develop ideas and come back with recommendations. And just about that time, the pandemic hit and we paused and went on to other priorities. And but then back in early June, I think it was, we reconstituted some additional people joined our group and we got going again and began developing a list of ideas to explore for what might be a good future for that building. And if you have had a chance to read through the update report, you would have seen that a number of ideas have begun to be explored, ranging from an arts and learning center to a maker space to housing, some things we've looked into further than others. And there are other items on the list we want to get to yet. So there's been a lot of enthusiasm and activity to date, but we've also come to a point where we want to check in with both the school board and the select board around what's your level of commitment to this kind of development of this building. With the school board, the school board has not yet made a definitive decision about what this building plan is going to be. And in fact, you might have seen a questionnaire that was sent out on front porch forum last week, asking some very fundamental and very important questions like, should the merger continue? And should we keep the high school and should we keep the elementary school? And really fundamental important questions, though we'd wish that those had been addressed earlier, but we are where we are. So we have some concern about that uncertainty. On the select board side, we view this high school building, if indeed it does come to pass, that it's available for repurposing as a really unique and valuable asset to the community. And we'd hate to see it either torn down or left and abandoned like the warehouse or building in Hancock or sold off to who knows who for some purpose that may or may not be in the best interest of the community. So we're looking for any kind of indication of intent by the select board that you might be able to make about acquiring that building for the town. Recognizing that nobody knows yet what the best purpose is yet. It's a work in progress, but we'd sure love to hear what your thoughts are about that and what questions do you have? And finally, how might our three organizations, the committee of volunteers work in repurposing the school board and select board, how can we work in closer collaboration because it really takes input, I think from all three parties working in a coordinated fashion to get the best result in a timely way. So let me stop there and see if I can be helped. Katherine or Robert or Jeff or Robert has anything to add to what I've said. Well, thank you, Vic. The one thing that I would add is that yes, we are looking for a commitment. And but what we also want are the steps that the select board feels need to be in place before acquisition. So that would give us sort of the objectives towards the goal. So yes, we have an intent to acquire the building, but before that acquisition can take place, ABC, we need to see ABC, that kind of thing because the group has been working diligently as the report indicates, but they feel right now that they're working on less firm ground without a stronger commitment from both boards. And we don't wanna dampen the enthusiasm of the members. We wanna keep it this work, but at our last meeting, the group in large basically said, we need these boards to work with us in partnership and to indicate the level of commitment for what we're doing. Okay. Go ahead, Robert. I just want to also add that we are fully aware that the once acquired, that the town won't have a lot of money to devote to this project. We will have to come up with alternative sources and be very inventive. And that certainly is on our mind. So in all of this, since a couple of our members of the budget finance committee, so I just wanted to mention that and we assume that's going to be part of the criteria that you will for accepting the building is having a plan of how this is gonna be financed here to here in the building upkeep. Well, it seems that I know we gave our blessing and encouragement to explore the situation and explore the options in terms of asking us for a definite yes, we want to buy the building. I don't think we're ready to say that, yet I think that we're still really, there's so many unknowns out there. Like even I'm looking at the third paragraph and the introduction about Rochester's slowly shrinking population, I'm not sure that's gonna continue to be the case. And we're in two, two and a half years into this five year cooling off period. And it seems that, and I know that we wanna be prepared if something's gonna happen and not have five years is up and now we need to start thinking about it. All this work is critical and much appreciated, but I'm really curious how this whole evolution of our society here in relation to the outside world is going to relate. I'm not convinced that we don't need to flip the bubble and use the high school as a school and repurpose the smaller building. It's just, I'm not sure if it's, well, I don't think we can say yes, we wanna buy that building right now. Well, if you look at the entire school campus, there are two buildings and there's land associated with it. So even in the scenario that you reference, the possibility of the high school becoming the elementary school, that is obviously part of the conversation where you'd be potentially repurposing the other building, but we need to have the conversation. And we can start right now applying for feasibility grant money, which is the logical next step, really. But on what ground will this committee have it? If we don't have a more or less firm understanding that there is intent for town acquisition, and yes, the feasibility study will delve into a lot of things. There are grants out there, you know this, and we're prepared to pull all those pieces together. But we need to know where you stand with this and what it is that you need to see before that dollar purchasing of the school takes place of one of the two buildings. And the conversation really needs to happen with the school board. And we just want to be, you know, in the conversation, we want transparency about what's going on. And, you know, otherwise we're feeling marginal. Like we're out there, you know, spinning our wheels and we don't wanna do that. Yeah. So one of the concerns I have simply is somebody striking a match to the project and then just passing it off. And I think that's something that's of concern. It's gonna take a monstrous effort to bring this through. And I'm just unsure of how the rest of the community feels about the whole thing. I'm not sure we've got enough input from the whole community because it is Rochester that would be responsible for that. And that is a financial bearing that we just can't do. I mean, I don't believe as a community. I mean, if we were a high school and it was associated with the school, that's a whole different process. And also the high school building, to me, once we stop using it, it's considered not a school anymore. I'm not sure what the ramifications are of that, of reopening it as any other thing, but a project of some other concern. And that's one of my biggest concerns to the whole thing. And I guess I've told you, Katherine, in the past how I felt about the whole issue. And I would really like to think that we have this five-year merger with Stockbridge, whether we like it or not. And I think we need to see that through. And just I'm not sure what wheels we need to have in motion for this, but I think we need a five-year commitment there. And I think we have to see that through before we make any sort of decisions about that. But I do think we need more input for more of the community. Well, I would agree with the input from the community. I think it's important to get a sense of the community. I was disappointed to learn that only 29 of those surveys have been completed in return to the school board, which is kind of shocking to me. They were passed out hard copy at the polls and there was an electronic link on front page forum. And I guess the September 4th deadline has been extended, but where is the community involvement and just even taking a survey? I had the sort of serendipity to run into Ethan on Labor Day walking around the school. He was hammering tent posts into those tents. And he basically said that the school board has already hired a surveyor. They are serious. They are going ahead with the idea that the property will be divided. Where are we? Are we even in that conversation, Frank? Because we need to be in the conversation and it needs to be active, not just about being fearful, but about literally keeping the lines of communication open and talking through every single issue. If you drive by there during the day now, Catherine, you'll notice the parking lot is full at the high school. And if we subdivide that property, and I'm not sure what the road frontage is there anymore, I'm not even sure we have enough road frontage for subdividing that property anymore, for that type of use. But these are all things you have to figure out. If we subdivide that property, you're going to take up both parking lots on one thing. Yeah, I think, yeah, we're so early on the process. I know we are. It's, we don't want to jump to conclusions where the other. I think all we've all we've done so far is really just sort of put our toes in the water to see what kinds of ideas are out there, develop them a bit. But there's a whole lot more work that needs to be done to figure out what makes sense both economically as well as a good fit for the community and good fit for one building or the other as the neighbor to that building. And, you know, financial feasibility has to be done. We've indicated in the report that we do want to involve a lot more community input in terms of program planning for what might become of that building. And all that is yet to come. But, you know, what we're concerned about right now is just the uncertainty of where this availability of building is. And maybe it's really, it's more of a school board issue right now. And the school board has to decide what buildings to keep and maybe both of them at the end, who knows, maybe one or the other. Maybe it's the elementary school that's available and a surplus and maybe it's not the high school. So that to me is the more fundamental question is, you know, what's the availability? The school board wants the select board involved. Amy has said, Amy said to us at our last meeting, the school board wants us to work much more closely with the select board. And Jamie, when he gave, you know, responded to Dune's email today, also said, Dune, would you please come to our next meeting? They want us to work together. That's my strong impression. And I feel like it's our select board that, you know, fully knows what, you know, the risks are, but we have to explore the risks. That's the whole point. We can't just say, we're gonna wait to explore the risks. We have to explore the whole potential now. And then come to a place where we're presenting it to the town with, so the town can have some, you know, hard facts and answers. Okay, I have met with the school board a couple of few times now. There are 13 points that I discussed and proposed to them of all different types of issues that need to be addressed before we can even start the conversation about transferring either of the building. Most importantly, the subdivision underground fuel tanks and the underground tanks, state waste water permits. There's a lot of very important things that need to be worked out in addition to how on earth are you going to divvy up the parking lot and whose responsibility will it be for the school buses to go through the time we're talking about to celebrate it. So out of those 13 different points that I've made, we've only actually got answers to about four or five of them, the others are being explored by the school board right now. If you're saying that they are talking to a surveyor, they are working on those other 10 points that we brought up. They need to do their due diligence. They are the seller and the buyer. So they have to present us with a marketable title, a subdivision, flood zones need to be addressed. All of these things have already been discussed in a couple previous meetings with the school board. So the ball is kind of in their court right now. And I don't want anyone to think that we are not addressing the needs. We're doing our due diligence in a slow methodical fashion, both the school board, the SU and the select board. And it is proceeding. The questionnaire that went out that I saw on front porch forum was kind of concerning for me. And it almost made me want to take pause with what was going on. Like should we continue with the merger? There are some pretty deep seated things going on there that I was like, whoa. We may not all be on the same highway, let alone even going in the same. We had the same reaction, Patty. So, your committee is charged with working for us the select board, but keep the faith the select board is in conversations with both the SU and the school board about how we need to proceed to go forward and Bonnie Bourne as well. Yeah, and Bonnie is on our committee too. So, but you bring up a great point, this is good news. I wish that this information had actually, we had been included in this loop of information. It would have been very informative to us to know that the select board has actually even put out the 13 points. We never heard about these 13 points. And it's great and makes logical sense, but until just now we had no clue. And that's what we mean by working in partnership and with transparency, so that we all know what's going on. We need to be informed too. Could I ask something? Just very briefly. Patty was in order to discover all of the different options that we could do with the building after we acquired it. I thought that was what you were charged with. Could I bring up two little things very quickly that concern me? One is, and I haven't heard them discussed, so I don't know if the committee has discussed them or not. I haven't been to any of the committee meetings. One is the auditorium space that is very valuable to the White River Valley players and also to the town, because as a spot to hold town meetings, what would happen with that? And also the skate space area is used a lot by people in town. And if the building belonged to someone else, what would happen with that? So anyway, those are just two things that I have been thinking about and wondering. Well, of course, those are good things. And what we've been thinking in terms of is town acquisition. So, and we all regard that the auditorium space is beautiful just the way it is. And we would like to have the elementary school resume access to that next year, as well as the community for using that space. I sent you a PDF of our progress report, Martha, during this meeting so that you could refer to it. Hey, thank you. I appreciate it. It was that and the skate space thing, just wondering about, because I look down there all the time and see people using it. And I don't want that to be a problem in the future. It gets used in the winter and the summer. Well, yes, you know, and talk about community engagement. And I agree with what Frank said, it is essential. And one of the things that is very essential is that we have engagement with the younger generation. You know, one of the, we all realize that we're an aging town, but when you put all the energy that it will take to even pull this off, you wanna make sure there is buy-in from the generation that will be carrying it on. So we're very aware of that. And we want to proceed with community engagement. We've started focus groups, but we need to have more focus groups. We wanna engage a broad community support. It's hard to go forward with that with enthusiasm if we don't know where things stand. And it's all dispiriting to recognize now that the school board has all these major questions yet to be answered. And we don't know when that's going to happen. But in a couple instances, you know, we're not even a hundred percent sure we can subdivide that property, you know? And what are the repercussions if we do subdivide because it's all sitting in a flood plain. So would the high school building, you know, it has, it would then have limitations as what could take place. A four-year housing is clearly off. You don't put a pillow in a flood plain. So that all needs to be worked out. We're at a higher level than, you know, we wanna keep the auditorium or that. We're trying to discover if this property separation can take it. We're working on that level too, Patty. And we do have, we have right now, just the beginning, but we have people representing different skills and aspects, professional aspects. Robson is also on this committee. And we'd certainly, and you've got the list of all the members, certainly we've addressed the flood plain. And there were things after Irene that were, that could have been done that weren't done because I guess the insurance company didn't wanna pay for it, but there are mitigation measures that could be taken with respect to that flood plain. Isn't this to some degree a little premature because if the merger with Stockbridge doesn't work or it gets nixed, then the schools come back to Rochester anyway. Is that, am I wrong assuming that? I don't think, I think that it's still the supervisory union, whether or not we're our relationship with Stockbridge, I'm curious for it, but I don't think that the schools come back to town, no. Robert, I believe that the only implication would be that we would each be responsible for our own elementary school. And there's a very possible likelihood that the Stockbridge school would be considered too small to be supported by the state, in which case they would probably go choice, in which case we would possibly get an increase of students. But we've examined that of what would happen in the scenario if we had to accept quite a number of students from Stockbridge. And the strong feedback I get from the school board is they do not want to support two buildings. However, having access to some of it, such as the auditorium and such, would be something that they might be, at least some of the board would be interested in. So, and that's always been on our mind that whatever we do that we, as a community want to share our resources with the school, to whatever extent that they need. So. Can I make a point? Yeah. So I'm very, I'm gratified to hear what Patty said, that the work is, that she's done, which sounds very smart to me. But what really impresses me is that you have these different groups, the school board, the select board and the committee, and nobody's really in charge of anything. So people are burrowing off in their different directions. We didn't even know about Patty's effort, which is really important. The school board has their own political problems with Stockbridge, which may end up sinking the whole merger, which changes the whole game. So this is very, very complicated and nobody's in charge of it. So, my immediate thought hearing all this is somebody needs to be in charge of this. Somebody needs to be in charge of channeling all this different information and different concerns that people have serious concerns. Otherwise they're all just flying around bumping into each other. And to me, it's the select board ought to be in charge of this, but it's not like the select board doesn't have anything else to do. Well, in terms of in charge, I mean, right now the property belongs to the school system, right? So, I mean, in terms of official capacity, it's the two boards that are the main negotiators, so to speak. I'm talking about somebody taking responsibility or seeing that certain tasks are done that the thing moves forward in an orderly way. Because now my feeling is we're all going, we're bumping into each other, it's a lot of confusion. I mean, why is the committee running off coming up with 17 different possibilities for this place if the floodplain and the political situation in the school board is gonna sink the thing anyway? Seems like there needs to be some sort of process. Well, we're in this problem solving process. I think we're really in the information gathering age. And one of the things I noticed in the summary that you sent us, which is I think a good idea, is to make sure at least monthly that the repurposing group and the select board, you know, we meet like this and have this connection, not just incidental walking down the street, hey, what are you guys doing? But, you know, this is a good step to have these conversations. But, you know, it now is the more information that we can gather and eventually, yes, Rob, it does have to focus to some leadership and essentially really when we come down to, if it gets to a point where there is something happening and something is going to manifest in that building that that's gonna take some leadership, someone's gotta take the hold of that. It's not gonna just be a, well, okay, now the town owns this building, let's see who wants to do something. You know, if we're gonna take this action, we really need to have a clear view of who's gonna take that ball and run with it and what that ball is, you know. And that entity will evolve when there's a firmer idea of what that repurpose is going to be, that entity will emerge. Right now, we're essentially a steering committee and we're working with two boards, you know, and all we want is to work in partnership with transparency so that we're all informed. And I am glad to hear what Patty said, very glad to hear. And I hope in the future that, you know, those kinds of loops of information are shared, so. But this is a mammoth job. It is. Huge. It really is. I mean, it's, and it touches on so many different sensitive areas and any of a number of them can sink the ship. So. So, the, Catherine, you've been talking about the grant money that's out there for feasibility studies and such. I mean, why not start applying for some of that? I mean, it just will be giving us more information. It doesn't, you know, is that premature? Or is that worth trying to get some of that? I mean, I'm not a big fan of the endless engineering studies that spend all the money for a project on the study and then nothing gets done. I've seen that happen a lot. But in this situation, maybe there is some monies out there for the, you know, development of this unfolding of this idea, Robert? Yes, I believe the money, I believe there would be money available and I think we would have to do it through the town. And the types of things that the early stage feasibility include getting input from the town members, right? So, I mean, they're doing surveys and strategizing on how to get the best input and funding more focus groups and things like that. But we need to have at least the commitment from the town that if we can pursue the finding these grants that the town would want to go down that road. Do we have that sort of? Right, and we also would like to pull in, you know, the regional and state stakeholders because that's important that they're also at the table with a project to the size of this. So it's, you know, it is important that we understand that the town, you know, in its current demographic is limited. But we're thinking of something that will have a more regional aspect to it. And we're hoping that, you know, as this project, if it can be realized that it will actually help to be an economic driver for the town and pull more people into the town. I mean, things are happening in Rochester. I know that we talk about the shrinking population, but I also see so many indicators of growth and it makes me feel quite optimistic for what our future looks like. And so this is an opportunity to, you know, build towards that future. So if you wanted to go in for a visibility grant from whoever, who is the agent that's asking for the grant, the town? And if it's the town, then the select board has to be integrally involved in the process of developing that grant proposal, I think. I don't know if we can ask for a feasibility study on a property we don't own. That would, these folks that do it would answer that question for us is we could probably do it, but we would just need to have like a permission from the school board saying that they can enter the building. We're also having a walk-through sometime in October with the Supervisory Union and they are bringing in a gentleman from up around the Burlington area that has been involved in a few of these school repurposing building things. And we were invited to join in on that walk-through sometime in October. We can make that open to a couple of the committee members too. That would be great. I also want to mention that we've got Jeff Gephard on our energy coordinator. He's our energy coordinator and he has a wealth of information. If he's not already involved with- Well, we've got Jeff Gephard too. So you didn't, I take it you didn't read the report because it's about the other side of the page. Perhaps they share it, Jeff. Well, as long as you're happy, Jeff. I know I am. I would think that would be important to do if we're gonna do much of anything is to work a little bit closer with fixing some of the maintenance issues of the building. And so that if it does come to the point where the town has to possess the property that some of these things are addressed because they're things that will need to be addressed regardless of what happens to the building. And I think that's kind of an immediate thing as far as the functionality that's gonna happen down the road regardless of what it's used for. Some of these things are gonna need to be addressed. One thing that concerns me with the whole project would be we would probably have to jump on to the town septic. I would say with the change of use that it would happen there if we did do the high school or even the elementary school no matter what building is used involved it's gonna require a change of use and a change of septic I would say it may not be permitted to have its own function. And also addressing the buried oil tanks those kinds of things are things we probably should be looking at now rather than wait to see what kind of grants we could get for studying what kind of purpose for the building but maybe there might be some energy grants that we could get of repairing the maintenance issues that we have there and maybe looking at long-term issues like maybe some solar power or just something to that point I'm thinking. There are grants for the undertown tanks and I've written a few myself for residential people but definitely we plan to pursue all those kind of line item issues that would affect any ownership and what can be done now and what can be done later but it would be helpful to know the criteria or the aspects of importance that a Patty and you and Dune have listed already so that we can incorporate those concerns in what we're doing. I mean, if we are able to do a feasibility study which would be great we would have to do it in partnership between the courts. Because right now it's not our building. That's right but if there is an intent to acquire that building then there has to be a partnership. Now, I don't know whether Robert is suggesting that there be some sort of executive committee that has membership from all three boards because I can't imagine that we're gonna take this much time at select board meetings but there's gonna be work that has to take place and there's gotta be people that represent these two groups on officially on that that report back to their groups. I mean, you can't expect everybody to be involved with every information processing there is. It's just too much time. And so you have to have a group focused on that. Robert, mayor, you wanna say something? I just wanted to mention that to Frank I'm not sure if you've, have you studied the engineering report that was done for the school? It has an extensive fixed list. And that in fact, what part of what started this is we were looking to gain access to the school to review for myself to review the electrical situation to see if there is how extensive that particular fix had to be made. So I mean, these are all subjects that we're looking at and we're step by step going through and planning for as far as maintenance. I'm impressed with how pragmatic the select board seems to be Frank and Patty and how more blue sky the committee team seems to be and I mean, different styles of looking at information and there needs to be some way to kind of bring these together because the foundation of the pragmatic concerns of the town can't afford to do it plus 40 grand a year to heat to place. There's a gigantic amount of maintenance that's been deferred. These are our real things. And then those all have to be addressed addressed in some real world way before these other things can be realized although they really kind of need to happen at the same time. It's very complicated. But I really, I come back to this thing and I feel like we have different points of view that need to somehow be brought together in a clearer consensus of these different power centers the school board, the committee and the select board. I have a question. This is Burma. I think Rob is talking about a coordinator someone who coordinates these three entities which would be a good idea. And I also have a question about the town vote wouldn't the town need to vote on the purchase of the building? Wouldn't that have to come in March? Just a question. No, you voted on that when you voted for the merger. Though part of the language of the merger was that the transfer of the building I'd already asked this question myself. The merger, the transfer of the high school building was in the merger language and you voted on that when you voted for the merger. So when you voted for the merger you voted for the transfer of the building to take place. Thank you, Patty. Yeah, just following up on Rob's wise suggestions that needs to be better coordination among the three parties. One way to do that would be to have some small representative group of one or two people from each of the three groups get together and put together a work plan timeline of what needs to be done and what sequence and what do we know, what do we need to know so that there's coordination and knowledge across those three entities about what's happened and how do we get this done in the best way? I would put that as a recommendation. Yeah, I would be more than happy to be the point person when the time is right for that to take place. So there's two reasons for executive sessions and real estate, discussing real estate is one of those reasons for a board to go into a session. It's basically because if you're talking about a negotiation, you don't want it to be public so that somebody could offer a different price for a piece of real estate. This is not really the case here because we're buying it for, so the fact that it goes into executive session and discuss real estate matters at times may not be necessary in this case because we're not revealing any facts about selling the school that other buyers could jump in on. So probably a little more public with what they're doing. I'm so glad you said that, Patty, because we also have felt that way. What's going on here with executive session? Thank you for that. Robert? I had a discussion with Ethan on this and pointed out, I mean, certainly as a purchaser, the town can go into executive session, but I pointed out to Ethan that the statute reads that you are allowed to go into executive session for a purchase or a lease. That's not what they are doing. I mean, that's not the situation that they are in. I also pointed out to him that the open meeting law states what you are allowed to do, but it's not that you are required to. So the, and I pointed out to him that there's really nothing at this point. I mean, there may have been some procedural stuff between their lawyer and them originally, but there's really no need to be an executive session that this really needs to be discussed by the public, the whole public, even if it's politically inconvenient. So I'm for transparency. I tend to agree as well. I would say also that the transparency issue is a big sore point with those in Stockbridge that are hostile to the whole idea of the high school existing at all. And that's a powerful thing that the school board has to deal with. The reason that they lost their first vote on their budget was because these angry people in Stockbridge angry about this high school. So it's a hot button. And every time there's a perfectly, however reasonable it might be executive session, the conspiracy mongers are cranking over there in Stockbridge. So I just think that's a reality. Well, I just, I just filled out this. Yeah, go ahead, Barbara. That was for Stockbridge and the nature of the questions. I found it to be a little confounding and very difficult to relate to. I don't know who set up the questions or the questionnaire, but I don't really understand what they hope to, whoever distributed it and reading these responses are hoping to achieve. It seemed not very productive in my humble opinion. My feeling is that they came at questions from multiple perspectives so that people who were responding were really examining their position. And the results from all of that is what? We haven't gotten the results yet. Okay. I think what we were told was that it was input for the board. It wasn't determined in and of itself, but the board wanted more input from the community. And hopefully they'll get a lot of good feedback. And they're extending the deadline. Well, onward to the fog, huh? So may we feel confident that if we can go find some feasibility, I mean, in the short term, find some feasibility grants that you would be open to pursuing those? Yeah, I believe so. I think without a, it's really this feasibility is helping to study even making the decision, you know? I don't think that it's, we can say definitively right now, yes, we want to buy that building. I think the feasibility will show whether even that's, that's the particular building that ends up being up for sale. I mean, there's so many, so many questions here, but I absolutely think that reaching out for some feasibility study and that can nail down some of these gnarly questions that we're not gonna be able to root out ourselves in our spare time. If the town decides not to buy the building, what happens to the building? And then in the merge agreement, it says it reverts back to the school system's property disposition policy, whatever that is. So they'd probably auction it off. Right, but we have some years before it gets to that threshold, I understand. Right. Yeah, so I mean, it's good that we're digging into this now. Is it just, I've had some discussions and voiced my own personal opinion, but my personal opinion is, is that this is a long term and the fastest we could possibly come to a decision is certainly a year and a half because there's certainly no way we can have enough information in the upcoming budget preparation process for, you know, in the fall of this year. So we're certainly a year away from that, from, you know, before we can address, you know, address the financial aspects of it. So, I mean, the, we're really talking about somewhere in the fiscal year of 21-22, actually, yes, 21-22 before you could possibly make a decision. And that would be after the five-year term on the merger anyway. When is that, when is the, when is that term? That wouldn't be after that five-year term. We're just barely into the third year now. Yeah. Right, but the thing is, is that they can, if they, if the school is not using the building, they don't have to wait till the end of the five years to sell the building for a dollar. It's if they're not using, if it's not being used. So the transfer can happen before the end of the five years. But it doesn't, but the, if the select board hasn't, is not at the place where it's ready to do it, they can't sell it to an outside interest for five years. Isn't that correct? So, yeah. Again, I'm just really stressing the point that going forward from here, and I'm very grateful for the select board's time on this subject and for, you know, it seems like a unified opinion now that it is time to start really digging into the exploration on a larger and more in-depth means so that we can really figure out what this building means to us and what it means to the community. I may do. So I think just from our conversation, it sounds like the, so the, this repurposing committee is interested in a three-way coordination mechanism. And it sounds like the select board is too. I think if both of us would send a letter to our friends at the school board to recommend that we form a three-way working task force or something coordination group, I think that would help create that. Yeah. Mechanism, right? You're right. I agree. I mean, you know, we had, we had things in the works in July, but then things backed off a little bit because the school board was trying to get school back in session. Yeah. And they've been a little, you know, busy with the tents and how is this all gonna work? So yes, there was, there's a furlough in this session point in time. And, you know, we're just keeping our fingers crossed that we keep those kids in any one of those buildings right now. Please, then we don't want to be facing a different type of crisis, right? Yes. Yep. They're putting all their effort into how are the kids functioning in the school and is this working and what changes they need to be doing? So, you know, we're not abandoning the discussion, but we just gave them a little time to do something a little more. A little higher priority right now. And we still have winter and winter weather and what's gonna happen to that social distancing. Yeah. Because we're not gonna keep them outside all winter. No. Nancy, did you have something that you wanted to say? No, it got answered. It got answered. Okay. All right. As a military, I'm working really hard to bring families into this valley. I have brought a few more kids in and I think I'm about ready to bring a few more in. So, you know, I'm working towards making this a family oriented valley. Not that I don't like, you know, second home owners or anything like that, but that's what we need right now is more families. And I also think as I drive by the library and see all of the people parked in front of the library just to use the internet, if those people do end up moving to Vermont, we would have a definite need for incubation space, you know, workspace. Unfortunately, everybody's signing up with EC5 or so that they won't need an incubator office to go to unless they have screaming kids or something, you know, but the internet has arrived here and that's why we're seeing this influx of people that are working at home. So, our town may turn around and see it both first and who knows what that'll lead us to. That'll be wonderful. A little bit to see might be a positive thing. So, moving forward, Pat, you're willing to be the point person on the select board for communications with the repurposing committee and the school board? Certainly, it's probably why I'm for select board. Yeah, yeah. So, I think we've made a little progress here. Yeah, is there anything else anybody wants to point out before we move on? I would just say that if we're gonna look for a feasibility study money, which we should. Yeah. If the town is gonna be the recipient of that money, if I were the select board, I would really want to be involved in the process of what's that proposal was lie. I wouldn't want to come in the window after it was done. So, maybe this small task force that we're talking about would help to solve that. I mean, that's sort of the first thing that could actually be done that could be a question. And the feasibility study might say, oh, you're on a floodplain, forget about it. I mean, it's a good- I totally agree with you, Rob. Of course, it has to be working together with this. It has to be. Yeah. Okay, thank you all for your thoughts and passion and patience. Thank you, Dune and Frank and Pat. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks to the select board for doing this work. I really appreciate it. It's important. Well. Thank you. You guys keep pushing us along. That's all it takes. Yeah, Robert, you have something you want to say? Just one ask, would it be possible, Pat, to share with the committee the list of points that you asked you gave to the board, the 13 points or 14 points? And technically, my point person on the school board is Ethan. And so I did summarize all of that discussion and I can forward that email onto you and Catherine and Rick, whoever else. I could do that. Thank you. Thank you, Patty. All right. So, Joan, you've been very patient. All this out. What have you got for updates? I know we have a bid opening tomorrow. Is that at one o'clock? That's correct, yeah. You won't be making any decisions there, but... What's the bid opening for? It's for stream alteration repair work on the Mendel property on Route 100 South. It's being funded by USDA NRCS, Natural Resources Conservation Service. And are we, is this going to be a virtual bid opening or are we... Yes, yes, it's on Zoom. Okay. You can have the link in your email there. I sent that to you this morning whenever it was. Yeah. Otherwise, I don't really have much of an update. I'm still working on the same stuff I was working on last week and the week before that. Things are just moving along slowly, so nothing new. Is there any update on obtaining the rest of the funding money from the Bethel Mountain Road project? Yeah, I was working on that this afternoon. No, I'm about to send them an email. I needed to do a rundown of how much money the town has received and how much we still need to receive. And part of the delay, I'm not sure if I told you, I think I did, maybe it was a few meetings ago, was that early on in the process, they put in a request for funding from Federal Highway Administration, and it was before they knew how much this project was gonna cost. They didn't ask for enough. And so they need to put in a new request, which may have gone in by now, but what I was told about three years ago by VTRANS is that due to COVID and people working remotely in VTRANS and other departments of the state that they're only allowed to submit. I'm not sure exactly how this works, but somehow they're not allowed to submit more than one funding proposal at a time. And so this one was in the queue. So I don't know for sure whether it's actually been submitted for a Federal Highway. And the amount that they gave me of $94,000 was a number that didn't sound right to me at all as an additional amount needed. I thought it was considerably more than the original grant amount. So I just finished my numbers this afternoon. And there is indeed a difference between what I think the town still needs and what I believe they say they still owe us. So I'll be dealing with that tomorrow. Oh, good. Okay, thank you. Yeah, it'd be good to put that one to rest. That sure would be. Yeah, it really would be. So, that's it? Yes. Is there any, any word from the state on the tax rate from the school? Do you know, Julie? Julie. Yeah, I have not heard anything today from Brad James. So he said it could be up to Tuesday before I hear anything. So we're gonna be pretty much prepared to send those tax bills out. As soon as we find that out. We will need to, if the amount comes tomorrow, the percentage, I'll need to put a quick meeting together with you because I think that it still has to be, yeah, you will have to approve it, correct. And then we're ready to go as soon as with printing and getting them out hopefully by Friday. Does that still allow us to use the October 15th date or do we have to extend that? Is there a 30 day wait period before that? The bills would have to be 30 days by law. So if we print, yeah, see if we print on Thursday, that'll be the 17th and mail out on Friday is what I'm hoping. So that's the 18th? 17th for printing, so it'll give us 30 days. So it'll be October 17th would be on the bill. Okay. I guess that'll work all right, pretty close. Yeah. That's Saturday. Saturday? Yep, you're right. After Saturdays. So you can go either one day before or push it off to Monday. 19th isn't gonna work. I'd rather go the day before. The 18th? 16th. 16th? If we can have a meeting in the morning, we can start printing in the afternoon. If we get our percentage on Tuesday, we can start printing Wednesday after a quick meeting. I could do like a Zoom, a quick approval and... Yeah. Do we have to form that meeting? We could do an emergency. I'll warn it tomorrow. We already have a meeting warned for tomorrow at one. If you get it earlier on, we could fold it in on the opening meeting. That's a good idea. That is recused from that meeting, though. We have to invite her after the bid opening. Okay. So I guess we'll keep in touch and see if it does come in in the morning. Yep. Nope. Excuse me. All right. I think we talked enough about the highway tonight already. Is there anything else we need to talk about for we're gonna adjourn this meeting and go into executive session, talking about employee issues? I think not. I think not. Thank you all again for joining us. Thanks, everybody. Good night. Did you say you're discussing... Dune, did you say you're discussing an employee issue in executive session? Yes. Okay, thank you. And am I correct that the next meeting is on the 28th? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Good night. Good night, everybody. Have a good evening, all. Yep. Thank you.