 minutes or four minutes after five have any amendments to the agenda not for me I just want to good I'm good amendments okay guess we have we have Randy we're expecting Julie Moore and we may get we may get a few others who knows but with that why don't we have there I'm sorry who Victor I don't really consider our road commissioner to be a guest but I guess he is he's not a select board person so anyway we'll formally welcome him in the dark and we do have Shane with us also so why don't we and I'll be the first to admit it I printed out those five pages of minutes this morning and I haven't read all the way through them yet so yeah I've only read I don't know if people want to here's Julie for approval or we can approve those minutes Peter Julie's list did you have a chance to read him no I mean first game to us I think didn't you give us already yes Julie Julie's here Peter I know I just I just welcome her hello I didn't want to interrupt sorry to be a few minutes hi Sandy so should we approve the minutes or defer them I've not had a chance to review them so let's defer them I'm sorry Mary I didn't say anything that was Liz I said let's defer them okay is that fine with everybody else yeah over the minutes for tonight I want to be sure I would prefer that because I would like to have a chance to read him so Julie welcome thank you it's nice an important statewide figure here with us tonight in our little town and also a town resident it's a pleasure to join you and I'm happy to know I've been asked to talk about sort of some of the funding that's available I believe related to road and road improvements from a water quality perspective I'm happy to share a little bit about that but also answer answer questions and see how I can best be a resource to the town that sounds great I mean I I would just love to make sure that your organ you and your organization are on board and the our road department is on board with the various rules and regulations that we're supposed to be following I know there's been some discussion in the past that we weren't doing some things correctly and we don't need to go into great detail of that tonight but I do want to make sure that you're collaborating with with Vic and Shane and that they are collaborating with you to make sure that we're doing things in a proper way so with that turn the microphone over to you and again well thank you very much I appreciate the opportunity to be here so I am the the secretary of the agency of natural resources also a civil engineer by training with a long background in water quality and water resources work so this is sort of a nice joining of my current professional responsibilities and and some of my training and expertise there is a lot of attention that's come to be paid to stormwater runoff associated with roads and back roads in particular as part of the larger work that the state of Vermont is engaged in around clean water and specifically water quality concerns in in Lake Champlain and the reason that is important is because we have an agreement with a number of accountability measures contained within the agreement that we reached with the EPA back in 2016 regarding different programs that the state of Vermont would put in place and many of them are regulatory in nature included amongst those programs is is what we refer to as the municipal roads general permit or MRGP that's actually a statewide regulatory program with each town having a permit and having completed at this point or should have completed in middle sex has a road erosion inventory so looking at which road segments are generally are steep and are close to a receiving water body and I know that the town is completed that inventory and begun the work to address some of the higher priority segments. There are different financial assistance programs that are available to the town. Two of them are now administered by V trans and one continues to be administered by my agency. The ones administered by V trans is the very long tenured better roads program. It used to be called the better back roads program but it's been expanded a little bit. It's primary focus at this point was there at least over the last several years has been to provide support to towns in developing their road erosion inventories and it also makes resources available to implement best management practices and it those are sort of can take a number of different forms but oftentimes include work related to culvert replacement ditch stabilization and the like. In addition there's a program called the municipal roads grant made and that provides cost share to towns to upgrade road segments to meet the requirements of the municipal roads general permit. This is a program that had been administered by the Northwest Regional Planning Commission statewide on behalf of the agency of natural resources through last year. We've just transitioned this work to be trans and part feeling that it made sense to have one agency sort of administering the vast majority of the financial resources financial assistance resources that are available to help do road projects. And so that that will be coming online I think in the next few weeks is my understanding. And then the small piece of your hand. Victor. You're muted. I think it's not. Go ahead. No, I wasn't. OK, I got it. OK, thanks. I thought I was trying to pay attention in the dark to you, Victor. I got to tell you I got a little word. Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three charges. Yeah, that's what Mary is telling me. Guilty on all three charges. So there's there's some big national news in our select board meeting. No, I lost my train of thought. The last one is is the program that continues to be administered by the agency of natural resources through the Department of Environmental Conservation. And that's a small equipment grant program. And it provides grants to towns to purchase equipment that may be helpful in implementing different requirements of the municipal roads general permit. So things like hydro cedars and hay bale shredders, plate compactors, etc. So trying to trying to help get that equipment into the hands of road crews so that that they can use it. And that's a program that continues to be administered by by DEC. I did do a little work looking just to see where middle sex was in terms of the overall efforts and frankly the the amount of work that that remains to be done. Middle sex has quite a few miles of road. I'm sure that I'm not telling you anything you don't know. We break them up into segments for purposes of our management system. And the town has about 900 road segments and about a third of them either don't meet at all or only partially meet the requirements of the municipal roads general permit. So there's there's quite a bit of work to be done. There's also a considerable amount of time provided to do that work. It's intended to be accomplished over the next 10 years, not overnight. And so it's sort of making that plan and bringing these funding sources to bear to hope with the hopes that that we can be successful in achieving our clean water goals. I think that there is the strongly held belief both within A&R and VTRANS that many of these practices also make our roads more resilient. And that the the road erosion inventory serves as a good tool in terms of helping prioritize and understanding which segments are having or have the potential to have a significant impact on water quality and trying to create a framework that helps see those addressed first. While still honoring the fact that there's a larger capital improvement plan that I know the town crew has in terms of how to go about doing the maintenance on the road segments and trying to overlay and intersect those two and not unintentionally alter priorities away from road segments with other needs. So maybe I can pause there, answer questions, but also happy to engage in a larger conversation. So do we have a report which I know from time to time we've gotten indications of areas where there are problems, but do we have a comprehensive report which tells us all the areas that we need to work on? You do. So there's a DEC maintains a website that has compiled all of that information, but I also saw Shane nodding his head. And so maybe there's a hard copy that exists if you don't access it through the web interface. Okay, thank you. Do we have a do and I'm addressing it to whoever knows the answer. It could be Shane, it could be Vic, it could be Julie. Do we have a timeframe for those one-third of our segments that either don't meet it or you said they don't meet it or they're close to me? You had two different components in that one-third. There is. They either don't meet it at all or they partially meet it, which means generally roads that are well crowned partially meet the requirements, but may have other needs. And then there is a requirement that 15% of road segments are brought up to meeting the municipal roads general permit standards by 2022. And I don't know. It looked like Shane was saying something before, but I couldn't hear him. I don't want to cut him off if he has more detail information. Help me out Vic and Shane and maybe Steve. So I believe that our road plan does incorporate doing that work or does incorporate doing some of that work. Is that true guys? I hope it's true. Shane or Vic? We have been incorporating, in the past we've been incorporating that work with the projects that we have been doing. We do have a long ways to go. I think we have to get together and prioritize what we can do most easily and quickly to reach that 15% as soon as we can. I don't think we should wait till 10 years or nine years and then try to do it all in one. Well, she said 2022, we have to get 15% of them done, right? Right, Julie? It is. And I'm going to paste into the chat the link to where you can actually pull up the real-time information we have on all the towns that have completed their road, erosion control inventory, which I think is now more than 95% of towns. But it provides a real-time assessment of what's going on in Middlesex. And if you click on the baseline summary tab next to the town of Middlesex name, it will give you a list of what was found in that initial road erosion inventory and then the work that needs to be done by the different dates established in the municipal roads general permit. Julie, I have a question in terms of the sort of capital spending plan process that we're going to be doing. So is there money that we need to reserve specifically for this? Is all this stuff sort of grant funded? But is it extra money that we need to set aside to do this? And then, so we really should have a plan of how we're going to get to 100% in 10 years. Correct. And the grant funding is intended to be help and significant financial assistance, but it is unlikely to meet the full cost of implementation. I think the challenge with many of these practices is there's been very little argument that they're sort of the right things to do. They are good for water quality, but they also tend to improve the resilience of roads and ditches to more extreme weather events. The challenges, they tend to cost a little bit more upfront. The grant funding is intended to help cover that increment, but depending on the current condition of the road network in a community, it may or may not be sufficient to cover that full increment of costs that'll need to be absorbed over that 10-year time period. So having that kind of capital investment plan, Liz, is very important to understand what the total cost is and what you can likely anticipate in terms of financial assistance. And are there fines if we don't meet our goals by certain time periods? I mean, that's always a possibility that I would say that the state prefers to see what steps are necessary to help bring folks into compliance. Our goal or our need overall, frankly, is to reach these water quality benchmarks that have been established by EPA for Lake Champlain. So it doesn't do us a lot of good to be fighting with municipalities and not making forward progress towards those goals. So we've got a dedicated staff person within DEC. There's a three-person team within the Agency of Transportation to provide technical assistance to complement the financial assistance with the hope that we can really help move things forward. Julie, who are the people in the Agency of Transportation? That's a great question. Alan May is the one who I work with most often. Let me see if I can bring that out. Where's he at? Well, we're all out of our homes currently, but he works out of the Mount Piliar office. Joel Parago is the lead of the team that puts together the Better Roads program. And then Ross Gouin, who I can't say that I've met. I've worked extensively with Alan and Joel. Alan really functions as sort of a circuit rider and so is happy to come out on site and look at specific projects and provide direct technical assistance. And then Jim Ryan is the gentleman in my shop that also oversees implementation of the Municipal Roads General Permit and is also available for technical assistance. Yeah, I spoke to Jim Ryan. Now this... Alan May and Ross, what did you say his last name? I believe it's Gouin, G-O-U-I-N. Yeah, okay. Do you know what division or what section you're working in? Well, they're doing a little restructuring at VTRAN, so I can't answer that. It used to be the Municipal Assistance Bureau when it was headed by Sue Scribner, but she retired maybe within the last six months and they've made some changes and I can't tell you what the Bureau name is at this point. Okay, we'll just have to do a search. Yeah. Yes, Tara. Julie, could you just slowly go back to the pertinent detail? I'm sorry, I know you just talk about this all the time, so it just rattles right off. But I want to get into the minutes. We have 900 road segments. Of those, one third meet the standards or are close? Are you saying that we have one third that have left to do? Could you just clarify that? Sure. The town has 930 road segments specifically. Of those, more than half of them aren't connected to a receiving water body. From a water quality perspective, Agency of Natural Resources is not concerned, but there are just over 300 road segments. Right about a third that either do not meet or do not fully meet the requirements of the Municipal Roads General Permit. And what do we have to have done by 2022? Just very high priority segments and it looks like, God, that's really hard to read. I believe there are 18 in middle sex. Let me bring up the... And there are 18 high priority segments that need to be brought up to code or standards by... Oh, so my apologies. The 18 very high priority segments need to be brought up to standards by the end of 2025. You've actually, I believe, already met the goal for 2022, which is there needed to be at least 47 segments, so 10% that met standards by the end of 2022 and the town has 68 segments that fully meet MRGP standards. Thank you for clarifying that, Julie. That's all in that report that I put the link into in the chat. So then, Julie, we're doing pretty well. Would that be fair? Yes. The town is keeping up with the work that needs to be done, but it's also just important, I think, to have that long view because it's a considerable amount of work. So, Julie, am I right in saying that the road sections we're concerned about is anything where the drainage, and I'm thinking of the various brooks we have in town, and we basically have water sources that go down to the Winooski River, and we also have water sources that go to, I guess, the north branch of the Winooski River. Correct. I think that's pretty much it, right? So, as far as I know, it's pretty much it. And so roads that don't have ditches, culverts, whatever that run into those waterways, they are obviously less of a concern because they don't affect the stormwater runoff issue. Correct. And so, you know, I mean, all of the landmass of Middlesex is in the Lake Champlain watershed, but there are road segments where the ditch may turn out into the woods or into a vegetated area and just sort of spread out and diffuse. And those segments, right, don't pose the same kind of water quality concern as a ditch that either intersects directly with or ends up in a culvert that's conveyed to one of the streams or brooks in town and directly into the water. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Julie, can I ask a question which is not so much with roads? And I may be playing a little bit of Devil's Advocate here. Peter is right. I guess the two streams we have is the Great Brook which runs into the Winooski River and the Martin's Brook which runs into the right field watershed and then down the north branch to the Winooski River. But then I realized that we have to do our part, we have to keep the runoff from going into the streams that lead to that stream. But you know, I've been talking about this with, I don't know if you knew Barry Kahoon or not. I did. You might climb. Yes. And nobody wants to do anything about cleaning up like the Great Brook. Does that come under roads or does that come under, I mean, is that too big of an undertaking? I mean, you don't have to walk down either one of those very far until there's hundreds and thousands of trees that are in the stream and it's causing the water to run into the real clay banks which turns the brook mud brown, you know, for days after it rains. What's the answer to that? So that's a great question and I expect you may have had lengthy conversations with Barry or Mike about it because I know they both feel passionately. We describe our overall approach to river and stream management such as you might call it. But as we're trying to move towards equilibrium and so there's a lot of work that's been done by humans on our rivers and streams, oftentimes sort of picking them up and moving them over to the toe of a hillside or a slope so that we could take better advantage of the valley. And rivers don't really like that and over time they tend to respond by re-establishing their meander patterns and trying to move out of the places we've put them. The challenges is the rate at which that occurs at times and you're right, there is erosion and sedimentation going on. It's a natural process but the rate at which it's occurring in many of our streams is unnatural. One of the challenges is that most of the time, the things that have fallen into the brooks, particularly trees, maybe less so human built infrastructure are actually helping re-establish that equilibrium. We don't want to leave them in places like when they're hung up on bridges or culverts and clogging and preventing flow but other places they're creating habitat and snags, slowing water down, helping absorb some of the energy that would otherwise be coming down the channel and creating further erosion. So it's both an art and a science. We have a team of river management engineers that can come out and look at a particular site and provide advice about whether what's going on in that stream is problematic or it may not look great but it may be actually the process we want to see underway in helping return our stream and river systems to equilibrium. Yeah, it would be really nice if we could have about three miles before we got to the Winooski River that was all level and grassy ground that the water could slow down on it. But now, is there anything that, like I'm thinking on the Brook Road down by actually down in the back of, well, by Phil Hyde's house and just above that, that's right in, that's running right towards the road and every year it gets closer and closer and closer. And I remember in the 90s, there was some time, we put these on the Winooski River and back of the high school where we were building the pedestrian bike path through there and it was under mining the Winooski River and we put these rock veins in that worked very well and they actually look at them today. That had some money that came from the agency and natural resources to do that and there was actually a gentleman, a young gentleman, Chris Achilles and I worked together and he worked for A&R at the time and so I was wondering, is there any way we could do that? Like you go out on a 45 and it kind of slows the stream down so it has a tendency to deposit any material that's in the stream and so it actually builds your bank up. So the Better Roads program does have a category of grants that will help support some of that stream bank stabilization where the streams are actively coming for existing road infrastructure. The agency doesn't tend to fund those projects, I'm sure to the frustration of some, but VTrans does provide funding through the Better Roads program for exactly the types of scenarios you're describing. So Julie, I have a quick question which I've wondered about for a long time and maybe this is a good time to ask that question. I'm very involved over in the Adirondacks. My family has a house on the northern end of Lake George and I've been involved with water quality issues around Lake George most of my adult life and what they seem to be doing over there and what the Adirondack Park supports is, for lack of a better word, I'll call them catch basins or settlement ponds or something like that. So the streams that run down into the lake or in our case into the Winooski River, you would develop a pond where the water would really slow down and be able to settle out and then yes, every once in a while you probably have to go in there with an excavator and clean it out, but it keeps all that debris and sediment from going down into the river or into the lake. I'm not aware that that's ever done in Vermont. I've never heard about that, I've never seen it and is there some reason for that? I'm just curious. Yeah, so we do build stormwater ponds to capture runoff from parking lots and other large chunks of impervious surface, but generally not on stream. One of the reasons for that is temperature, so that when you provide sort of a shallow but bigger surface area, the water tends to warm and particular any of our streams that support native brook trout habitat, that that can be a problem where we can actually increase the temperature enough and we have challenges with that actually with some of our stormwater ponds even, that it's heating the water up enough particularly during those hot summer thunderstorms that it makes it the water unable to sustain a brook trout population. So in general, we try to avoid what I would call an on-stream pond, so creating a stilling area or reservoir or some other place where the water would slow down and the sediment would fall out on stream because of some of the other impacts. It is staggering in Lake Champlain, the huge delfas that have been created by some of the streams that pour into Lake Champlain. I mean some of them are hundreds of yards. Why? A lot of material. It is. One of my favorite statistics is we had done a study on the Black Creek Swamp which is right at the mouth of St. Albans Bay and the flows from some of the small tributaries that drain largely the city and town of St. Albans come in there and there is an estimate that was made that there's 300 football fields 10 feet deep of material that's accumulated in that wetland over the last 100 years. It's just, you're right, there's a lot of sediment moving around and it's not, the erosion and sedimentation are natural geologic processes but we've got it going a lot faster than it should be from if things were sustainable. And I have, we're just about out of time and I apologize for that. I do have one other question which is we hear all the time about wastewater treatment plants and their effect on the Winooski River and on Lake Champlain. It is and this really doesn't have much to do with Middlesex since we don't have one of those which is maybe a blessing and maybe a curse just to my memory. But it's been frustrating to me that I think I've been in Vermont now for over 40 years and all those years there's been talk about separating the wastewater in Burlington and preventing the huge, the huge surges that happened during thunderstorms in the summertime when the wastewater treatment dumps, you know, plant dumps, thousands and thousands of gallons of untreated waste into Lake Champlain. Why? Why is a state and as a community, can't we fix that? I mean, isn't there some fix to that? There is. This is actually one of my favorite subjects but I'll try to keep the answer brief. There is a fix and we're actively working on it. There's been a significant and I'll actually email you. We have a little write up. We've prepared about these combined sewer overflows. There's significant improvements that have been made over the last 10 to 15 years. Each of the communities, Mount Piliar also has a combined sewer system as does the city of Burlington, St. Albans, Rutland, St. John's Berry. So sort of most of our older downtown communities or older communities with a downtown area, Berry is the exception to my knowledge they don't have a combined sewer system. But each of the communities with a combined sewer system has what we call a 1272 order. So it's a long-term compliance schedule. These projects are complicated in large part because those pipes are under everything in our core downtown areas. And so putting in a second system to be able to have separate systems for stormwater and wastewater takes time and takes in an awful lot of construction. We estimate the remaining work is probably has a price tag of probably right about a hundred million dollars statewide. As you may have seen the the governor's put out a package of infrastructure proposals where he's indicated how he would invest the the American Rescue Plan funds that are coming to the state. There's a significant line item in there for to accelerate work around combined sewer overflow control 30 million dollars. And so we know there's probably 10 to 15 years more work that needs to be done as communities sort of pick away at these projects over time. The hope is that we can can fairly dramatically accelerate that work by using some of these rescue plan funds. So it's something we're focused on. It's certainly a public health concern. It's not really a phosphorus issue. The amount of wastewater in those overflows tends to be fairly small compared to the overall volume. But the the public health issues are real. And certainly I think many people share your your reaction to those sewer overflows is just something we need to to do away with. And we're we're making progress towards that goal. Well it's very unpleasant when it happens whether you're whether you're down here on the Winooski River in Middlesex watching whatever flow by or whether you're out on Lake Champlain. So Julie, thank you. Thank you very much for being with us. Does anybody else have any last quick questions for Julie? Mary says Mary has a question. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, Julie. You and I've had a conversation in the past and I wondered if you could share with us all kind of your recommended way of doing erosion control on some of our roads. We tend to use large rocks and and then do the grassing. And I know that you had a different point of view or somewhat different point of view. And I can't remember exactly what it was, but I thought you might share it with us. Sure. No, there are a lot of check dams is is one of the sort of the low cost low tech approaches for helping slow water down. And these are rock barriers that are placed in ditches along steeper roads to help very much Peter to the what you described creating sort of pools where sediment can settle out before it spills over and continues on its way. There are some fairly specific construction practices around how those check dams should be installed. They both need to be keyed in like dug into the sides of the ditch and they're supposed to smile is what we say you want a low point in the middle so that the water doesn't try to eat around the edges. And at least historically, some of the check dams I observed around middle sex didn't have all of those attributes. And so we're making the investment in these large rocks and the work necessary to get them where they need to be within the ditches, but but not necessarily installing them completely correctly. And so yeah, I do think that there's opportunities. We've stepped up our training game from the state. There used to be work done out of St. Michael's College through their local roads program. And I know that went away, but VTrans has picked some of that up. And I know that there's also sort of opportunities for road form and from communities at least pre COVID to come together and discuss best practices too. And so I think there's a lot of learning as we go. But that is one of my my favorite practices. Thanks. Well, Julie, again, thank you. Thank you very much. And we look forward to just a minute, Sarah, we look forward to working with your agency and working on these issues. It all comes down to the money sooner or later, as you very well know. So absolutely. And I'm happy to come back and be a resource to you at any time. Thank you for your knowledge. Thank you. Are they Chuck dams or check dams? Check like CHCK. Yeah, gotcha. Thank you. They're habitat for woodchucks. Thank you. I'll have a good evening. Thank you very much for coming. My pleasure. We knew that we knew that permit when we did it was going to be trouble. And it's definitely trouble, but it sounds like we're we're at least on track to meet the goals we have to meet. So that's that's a good thing. Peter, what did we get that permit to recollect? When was it Steve? Three years ago? Four years ago? I can't remember. We had your muted. I don't remember exactly, but I think it was four years ago. I was going to ask her, but then I figured that maybe I was the only one that didn't know. So now we had to do we had to do an inventory, which is what started the process, right? Yeah, correct. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So moving along. Highway Department report and discussion of road crew hours. I was startled to discover we had we had shifted over to shifted over to summer hours in April. And I just wanted to have a little discussion about how that process how that process worked, because I believe our practice in the past has been that we shifted over to summer hours, either the last week in May or Memorial Day, somewhere in that time frame. When I look back, that's that's what I could see. And I guess, Shane, you made the decision that you wanted to switch over to summer, summer hours early. Is that what happened? You're can't hear you, Shane. I still can't hear you. I think you're I think your audio is Try getting out and coming back into the meeting. Sometimes that fixes it. While we're waiting, while we're waiting for him to come back. You know, my my point in this is that to me has always been a recommendation from the road commissioner that was ratified by the select board. So I think it's a way that that either either we should take a date certain when we do it, or that's the way the process should go if there's some reason to change it that it shouldn't just happen. I've gotten quite a few phone calls about the road group being out early, et cetera, et cetera. And people have been, I wouldn't say upset, but they're just wondering what's going on with Victor. I don't know what your perspective on that is. Um, yeah, Shane told me that that's what he wanted to do. And we had a little discussion about it. And I said, Well, you can try it. We'll see what happens. And it didn't last very long. And but I in all respect, I see both sides of it. The employees feel that that you as the select board have promised them that as part of their employment, I don't know if that is true. You do not have a I think policy is probably that by the select board that is the road commissioner. It's nothing I'm trying to get out of doing, but I just think I have to work more closely. It's easier if if the board decides what they want. And it is if I if if someone like myself mandates it, I understand both sides. I did talk with, you know, I guess Sarah and and the render looked it up and it didn't start. You didn't start from much before, like you said Labor Day. All right, Labor Day. Memorial Day. Memorial Day. I know I made a mistake. Sorry about that. It's tough getting old. You know, no, that's it. And so, you know, the Shane did say that he would compromise and go from the first of May to the first of October. But I don't know, I think it's entirely up to this select board what they want to do as far as allowing that to happen. I know last year that it went quite late. I know I don't know as I know that I think it just and it just it's been creeping a little bit more and more and more. Here's what I'm concerned about. I know the road crew loves summer hours. They like the four day work week. There are certainly residents in town who for one reason or another don't like the four day work week, which I really don't understand. They don't think it's effective. But for me, that really isn't that really isn't the issue. I mean, I like supporting the road crew. I hope we can always support the road crew. What I want to know is what's the most effective way to maintain our roads and what's what's in the best interest of the town in terms of maintaining the roads. And I think, you know, our practice in the past has been to be flexible just because every year the weather's a little different. You know, some years the roads dry out or other time years we have snow storms in May. Who knows what we have. So be be a little bit a little bit flexible. But all I'm all I was I was surprised when all of a sudden we change to summer hours in the middle of in the middle of April. And I don't know. I don't think it's the right thing to have a to have a firm policy because every year the weather is different. Right. Well, you guys hear me now. I know probably the road crew would date certain so they could plan on it. Maybe there's some maybe there's some compromise compromise on that. But I don't know how do other how do other board members feel? Um, can we let Shane talk? He can speak now. Yep. Hi, Shane. Hi, my video is not working now, but at least you can hear me. Yes. Okay. Now my apologies. I didn't mean to upset anybody, but I'm coming from marriage field. Okay. And I've called eight towns, marriage field, Plenty Field East Montpelier, Berlin, Worcester, Cabot, Danville, Berry Town. Everyone's May 1st to November 1st, Weather Pendant. And they leave it up to the discretion of the foreman. Berlin started April this year, first June to 10 hour days because the weather broke. Obviously, you can change if the weather gets bad like it happened to last Friday. Luckily, we didn't have to go out. So, um, I was just going to propose it's event. These guys are on call. Six months and six months, I think is fair. You know, Weather Pendant again, if it starts snowing in mid-October, if it looks like it's gonna, then we'll go to eight hours, five days a week then. But these guys six months and six months, it gives them a break. I mean, they don't have a life in the wintertime. You're married to the job. So my proposal would be to go May 1st to November 1st, Weather Pendant, leave it at the discretion of the road foreman after consulting with the road commissioner on it. And he can consult with the select board to see if we think that's the right thing to do on a year-to-year basis. I mean, if we're at the end of April and these roads have just started going with mud, then no, we'll stay going the way eight hours until, you know, mud season stops. But sometimes mud season ends early like it's most of the roads are pretty decent right now. Yep. No, I think something like that is fine. I just, again, I was just kind of blindsided by the fact that all of a sudden it had changed and I wasn't aware of it and neither was the select board. I mean, we get, as you know, and I know you get calls and Victor gets calls, but I get calls all the time and every time there's some change, my phone starts ringing. So I like not to be blindslotted when we're going to change something. Yes, Randy? So personally, I think having defined policy is a great thing. It lets everybody know what the expectations are. The other thing that I wanted to say is that, you know, through some of the previous discussions, you know, like when we were down at Town Hall and things like that, one of the things that we talked about while we were down there was being able to throw out a notice when there are changes like this, so that people are aware and that'll help alleviate some of those phone calls that everybody's getting if you're able to actually notify the residents so that they understand what's going on. So the, so here's the problem. I agree with you 100%. The problem is the only way to really reach all the residents is to do a town-wide mailing. And no matter how we do that, even postcards, what's the cost of sending out postcards to everybody, Sarah? Roughly. I'm not talking about notification like that, Peter, but posting it publicly, we use front porch forum a lot. Putting a posting on the town's website, you know, that's enough in my opinion. Okay, well, that was going to be my point. I think we should be, I think we should be doing that. Yeah. This is Liz. For some reason I can't turn my video on because the host has stopped me yet again. I haven't looked. Well, I don't know. This would have sense. Anyway, it's fine. You don't need to see me. But I just wanted to, I'm only going to voice my personal opinion. And that is that I personally would, I question, and I know nothing's going to change about this, but I do question how much work actually gets done in a 10-hour work day. I mean, the work that our road crew does is very physical. And it's hard work. And I would have a hard time myself. I mean, we know people don't work 10 hours straight. People that work in offices are working eight hours straight. But like, I guess, Shane, my question to you is, do you feel that they are, you know, on top of their crew for 10 hours and getting 40 hours worth of work done? Well, not 40, but let's say 35 hours worth of work. Or if they were working five, eight hour days, maybe we'd be getting closer to, you know, 35 instead of 30 hours or whatever of actual work. And so I think that's just my biggest concern of a 10-hour work day is that that it's a physically demanding job and that the reality is that we're probably not getting much more than eight hours of good work out of those 10 hours anyway. That's just me, just want to put it out there for the record. Yep, Liz, I would like to jump in on that. I've been in construction all my life. And over the past, oh, I don't know, 15 or 20 years, we have gone to four day work weeks a lot. And we actually accomplished more work with four 10-hour days. And they, the guys work their 10 hours. I mean, do they take a break and stop and take a drink of water or whatever? Sure they do, but they don't lose tempo in something they're doing. And we have found over and over again that we've accomplished more with four 10-hour days than we did with five eight. Well, that's good to know. Thank you for sharing that, Steve. I would not have thought that, but I guess if you're saying, if you look at it from the standpoint of like, here's the job that needs to get done and you're not getting interrupted because you're doing it for like the full 10 hours or whatever and you're not having to come back the next day or do it over three days because you have a longer time period there. I guess that makes sense. So the other comment I would make, and now this is maybe backing up what Steve said, but as much as working on the road crew is physically demanding, and I'm not saying it isn't, for the most part, what our guys are doing is operating equipment being the greater or the excavator or a heavy truck. And you know, it's not like they're out cutting brush and operating a chainsaw every day for 10 hours. They do intermittently do that kind of work, but most of their work, which is maintaining the roads and ditches is backhoe, excavator, grater, dump truck, et cetera. And you know, that's a different level of work than picking shovel work or chainsaw work or whatever it is, which we don't do a lot of. How long has the road crew been operating on a four-day work week during the summer out? As long as I can remember, Randy, which is quite a while. I don't know exactly how long, but definitely back in the Walter Kelly days well into the Walter Kelly days. So it's been a long time. Certainly went into the Gary LaMell era. Gary, just to make the point that you save 20% of your travel because you're only traveling to and from your work site. And in other words, if it took you all week, five days, and you did it all in four years, saving 20% of the wear and tear on the vehicle. That makes sense too. There is some truths to that. There is, yes. And what happens when like last year we had, how does that work? And I know Shane has been more than generous of saying that he would be flexible as far as if to answer his question about grading and the rain and stuff. That if it looked, if they watched, we all watched the weather. And if it looked like it was going to be better at one end or the other of the week that they would be flexible enough to work when it looked for good drying weather for grading, which I thought was good. But getting back to like last year when we have people working, contractors that come in and work with us, and they normally work 10 hours anyways. So what happens there? I mean, do we just get more overtime if we're working four, we work four 10 hours, and then we have to work one whole day on overtime? Or I mean, conversely, if we worked eight hours, we'd be working two hours overtime every day anyways. But so how did that work out? How did you handle it? Well, it's not like that happens every week anyway. And it's basically great. So we did do some overtime. And as far as that grading thing goes, I mean, I had authorized some overtime for the greater operator to come in on a Friday. And we did that a little bit so that they were still, he was still doing his four 10s. And then he would come in. But that wasn't all the time. I mean, it might be that he took some time on a Thursday and then came back in on Friday. So that was kind of left up to the road foreman and to work that out with the with the greater operator. And that's, and that, and, you know, an all fairness to Shane, or, you know, he said that he would strive to do that. So, you know, one person wouldn't be working a whole bunch of overtime and then, you know, they would swap. It's no different than in the wintertime when we know there's a big storm coming and it's going to be on the weekend, you know, maybe we'll send the road crew home on a Friday to nothing else get a little rest before the onslaught of a big storm. I mean, that's part of the road maintenance scenario. And I think the road, the road crew understands that. Yeah, I think the bottom line to get to the end of this is it all comes down to good communication and good common sense. And all I would say is, you know, number one, Shane, you, you and Victor, you, you make a recommendation to Victor, Victor lets us know we're, we do not want to micromanage these decisions at all. We just want to, we just want to know what's going on. And I think the idea of posting when, when we change from winter to summer hours, posting that in front porch form and putting it on the town website is great. I do like the idea of saying our standard change over dates or May 1st and November 1st, subject to change, I think that makes sense. And I think I don't know whether we, whether we need to have a formal policy on that, but I would say what we should have is a sense of the select board and all agree that that's the way we're going to do it. Does that make sense? I mean, we can also do a motion and have it, have it formally in a minute. I don't know. I mean, I kind of like the old way where we started Memorial Day, although if the, if the system warrants it, then the roads are dry enough. Then I suppose we can do it a little bit earlier, but I think it's a big jump to go from the end of May to May 1st and to run it. Because I don't think we've really gone that many times to November 1st. Have we Steve? It's varied a little bit. I mean, I don't see anything wrong with the May 1st and November 1st and, and depending on the situation and weather. And I think that's something that the, the road foreman and the road commissioner are going to sort out. And if we are all generally aware that that's the timeframe they're working, and then we're all made aware of, oh no, they're not going to start their 10-hour days until May 15th because the mud is still in there or whatever the reason. And also I agree 100% with Randy that, that we just need to keep people informed. And I think that's the biggest thing right there. Just if people know that's when they generally do it and it may change because of the thing and we put it on front form, I think it's all good. I know, but I mean, what troubles me is, I think Vic and Shane Bo said it is that the people we hire assume it's part of their, their rights as an employee of the town. And we're expanding it from the, we used to do it. And if we put it in, see, it's just, I just don't agree with it. I guess it's the way I feel to have, it expanded so much so that anybody who comes on and one of our employees is leaving in about a year, am I right? They're gonna, they're gonna own that for six months, they're gonna have a four-day week. And I guess that, that bothers me. I would just, I would just say, and I've had quite a few meetings with the, with a road crew over the past, over the past year, not so much in the last few months. Thank you, Shane and Victor for that. But you know, what I've always said to them is it has been our practice to do this. We're not guaranteeing that it's always going to be this way in the future. And, you know, they very much want to be on 10-hour days. They like it. I understand that. But to my knowledge, they have never been told that we're promising them that it's always going to be 10-hour days in the summer. I know, but that's what both the road, or the road foreman said that they think it's part of, that that's one of the benefits they get when they get hired by the, by the town. It is a benefit. It's a question of whether it's guaranteed or not, Mary. And it's a nice I know, but if we have a policy that we're going to announce, then we've kind of said it is. No, but we're going to qualify, we're going to qualify by that by saying subject to weather and future best practices or whatever we're going to say. It is not guaranteed in their employment contract in any way, manner, shape, or form, verbal, written, or otherwise, that it's always going to be 10-hour days in the summertime. I would just, harken back to the issue, which I guess is why I support, I support May 1st, is that if the road road is more productive in 10-hour days, which what we've heard from Shane, Victor, and Steve, then it is to the town's benefit to have them on 10-hour days, not to the town's disadvantage. So if we're, if we're truly gaining benefit and not losing, why not, why not do it sooner rather than later as long as the weather allows it? That's what I would say. Plus, Mary, my fear would be that people, you know, if, if there's a job opening in another town, it's hard enough to get road crew as it is. And if they find out that all the other towns offer the May 1st to November 1st, and we're the only one that doesn't, they may take a job someplace else. Can I ask a question? When they do the four hour, the four 10-hour days, when do they start and when do they stop on those days? 6 to 430. 6 to 430, okay. I will say, I will say the calls I got were people hearing the trucks and machinery moving around early in the morning, they were just surprised. Not really bothered, but some of our residents who live right on the road, when the greater rolls by, believe me, they hear it, as we all know. So select, how do we, how do we want to handle this? Do we want to say that that is going to be our practice? Do we want to have a, a motion and vote? So it's actually in the minutes. How would you like to handle it? I'd rather not have a vote because I would probably vote against it. That's your privilege, Mary. No, no, I'm saying if you want to have a committee. Here's what I would suggest, since I'm not hearing much else from anybody, and we need to move on, that Sarah memorializes in the minutes that we've had this discussion and that our practice, I like the word practice because it implies flexibility, not policy, is that the road crew will be on summer hours, 10 at four, 10 hour days, starting May 1st, until November 1st, unless otherwise changed due to weather or other road related maintenance issues. Make sense? So I guess, Sarah, you can, yes. Another thing is that probably in our select board goals, Dorinda asked that you include the road, the person, an updating of the personnel policy. So you could theoretically just put that into the personnel policy. See, I don't want it in the personnel policy. Then that, that gets right back to Mary's concern. That's like it's a condition of employment. Okay. So I'll just put in the minutes that the practice is of the road, that the road crew, it goes on summer hours from May 1st to November 1st, unless other factors such as weather, plague come into play. Yeah, I think that's fine. Okay. And that the, yeah, other than, Shane, you're good with that. I'm good with that. Victor, I'm good with that. Okay, great guys. Thank you. The only other thing I'd like to add on that, Peter, is the part about just notifying people, put it on front porch forum. Yep. Yeah. Oh, the foreman checks with the commissioner and the commissioner checks in with the select board. So everybody gets notice. Right. Right. I apologize again for that on the website. Anything else from the, from the highway department? Did we get any word on the, on the greater delivery, Shane? Right now it's mid July, 90 days from the time we ordered it. Unless they happen to make one sooner, sometimes they do, they're in the process of making one that goes on a lot somewhere. And if that's the case, they'll shift it to a sooner. So I've been calling them once a week counting in. Good. I like that. Keep right on top of that. If it came out, for instance, that they had a greater, but it didn't have the roller on it, and they could bring the roller later and install it. Well, the roller gets, the roller gets installed here anyway at the North tracks in Williston. Well, that's what I'm, that's what I'm saying. I just, the sooner we can get it, and the sooner the old greater rolls away, the happier we're all going to be, because I'm worried about breaking down. Oh, I've been making sure Jay's keeping it maintained, checking oils, checking fluids, greasing. So hopefully she'll ask us. You look at me, you'll see my fingers are crossed. Yeah, I can see you. And my toes. I'm not going to show you my toes, but anyway. Peter, to put your mind at ease, I think that it's easier to get the roller attachment than it is the greater. Yeah. That's my understanding too, Vic. Yeah. So all I'm saying is if there's something like that, I mean, if we're only going to get it a few days sooner, it isn't worth doing it. But if we could get it two weeks sooner, it'd be worth it. Anyway, okay. You guys can manage, manage that prospect. But the most important thing is to just okay. And maybe Shane could give you give us an update there. I think we looked into doing some sweeping. Isn't that yes. Eric called me back or emailed me back today. The quote is $3,000 and that is sweeping every intersection bridge we have, every piece of pavement sweeping the edge of shady, real and center road, sweeping all the dirt off and cleaning it up. So I don't know. Tell you as a motorcycle rider, I think that's a great idea. Yeah, I didn't know. Sarah is a scooter operator or whatever you call that thing. I would think you'd really like to do. Yeah. So I didn't know if you guys want to spend that or not. So, but that's a quote. What you're saying is that it's not budgeted, but we can move money around and probably it might be because I mean, there's some lines that maybe fall under. I don't know. Well, I think it should be done. I listened to cars skid right into center road off from Brook Road every day because of the sand that's right here. Yeah, that's probably a good idea because there's a lot of sand on the roads. And the bottom of Culver Hill is another one. Well, thanks. I think we got our answer, Shane. Yes, we did. Thank you very much. Would we wait until the end of mud season to do it? We have mud seasons coming to an end, I hope. Cross your fingers. Some of these roads are drying up pretty good. We just have a few trouble spots now. We're maintaining, trying to maintain, keeping an eye on. And you all got the notice that Shane put out that we're going to do the speed limit signs in Putnam'sville. What was it, the 26th? That was the original date. And I emailed you and Peter earlier because I called because they want to do some guardrails on Friday that you guys had put in for last fall. So they're going to do that on Friday. But the guy that does the signs is working in southern Vermont and he's behind because of the snow. So they said it's going to be the first week in May. Okay, that's what I was trying to get. Yeah. I did email the two people in Putnamville who've been emailing me about those signs to let them know that it was being pushed back a week. So they should be aware. Okay. Okay, almost. Anything else, anybody? Was there another bidding thing like to mow on the side of the the size of the road? Or is that premature to do that one? To get that taken care of? We go ahead, Shane, if you want. It's contracting the mower, right? Yeah, the roadside mowing. Yeah, we renting one from Fairfield for two weeks for the same money that the guy from Williamstown does it for one week. Yes, someone has to run it, but there's enough guys, three guys can do ditching. We can make it work. And it's unlimited hours on the mower, renting it from Fairfield. And that guy, he only does two passes, and he's gone. And from what I understand, three to four days. So I think we'd be more beneficial just to rent the one. We have him booked right now. Perfect. And our plan is to do the roadside mowing twice, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay, thank you. He's got it lined up two different times this summer. So it is weeks each time or a week each time? A week each time. That's it. Thank you. Okay, if there's nothing else, I think we're ready for everybody's favorite subject, select four goals. That's when everybody's turning in and tuning in. Well, I meant to dig them out and I couldn't find them. I apologize. I got sidetracked. But do you have our last year's goals, Sarah, somewhere? Oh, well, just give me a little bit, okay? Hold on. Do you guys need me anymore? No, I think we're all set, Shane. Thank you very much. All right, you guys have a good evening. Keep up the good work. Thank you. I'm not sure you guys have done select four goals last year. No, I think we didn't. Remember, that's what we're getting used to Zoom. I don't think we have had that. Oh, right. Because that was right after Tom meeting. We shut down. Well, that could be true. Wasn't it a nice break not to have goals and never feet held to the fire? I'm just looking through all the minutes and at every single one of them, it says they passed over the minutes that passed over select for goals. They passed over select for a goal. Can I recommend that we let Mitch make his presentation because we're going to be on goals for a while? And Mitch probably has something pretty straightforward on summer mowing bids. I knew there was something else. That's fine with me if nobody else objects. No, I'm fine with that. I knew that mowing. That's why I asked Shane about it, but I was looking at where the agenda. Okay, Mitch. Well, hi, everyone. Hopefully, Sarah, I got a little, let's see, we got three bids for mowing for this year. And I sent Sarah a little PDF summary of the bids, which she was going to forward you. Hopefully, I did that soon enough that everybody has a chance to look at that. No. No. I said it at 445. That's when I got it from Mitch. Yeah, my apologies, then. Okay, I have not had a chance to look at it. So just give us the... Well, let's see. We got three bids and two of them are close. One is a little higher. If I just go right to the bottom line, I estimated mowing the three areas maybe 24 times during the year and doing brush hogging once or twice depending on the area. And I got one bid that totals about $8,000. One is 51, 20, and one is 45, 95. So two of them are close. One of them is a little high. Is one of the lower bids the person who did it last year? Yes. Corey Michaud is the one who has been mowing it for the last three years. He submitted the $5,100 bid and we have two other bids. It doesn't have to be confidential. I can give you the names. If you're interested, they are all Middlesex residents. The bid that was higher than the other three was from Craig Cain and full disclosure, he's a neighbor of mine, but we're not drinking buddies or anything, but he's a neighbor of mine. And the other guy is Randy Richardson. I don't know him personally. He's moved to Middlesex within the last couple of years. I think he's on portal growth. Well, the question, I guess I have a couple of questions. First of all, were we satisfied with the person who did it last year? Were there any issues? Well, I don't believe so. Last year was kind of a funny year because we didn't hold bandstand concerts and that sort of thing, but I have not heard complaints from either the bandstand folks or from the baseball soccer field users. I think people tend to be, have generally been satisfied, I believe. And you know, personally, I found probably easy to work with. He's responsive when I call him and say, Hey, I have a question about this or that, or I'd like you to mow every other week instead of every week because the weather has cooled. He's been, he's been responsive in my opinion. I mean, my, my feeling would be, and I'm happy to hear what everybody else has to say, but for that relatively small difference in money, I would rather stay with a guy who's been doing a good job. When I think of the problems we used to have in particular with the rec field, but also the bandstand, I'm not aware that we've had any issues in the last few years. Things have been pretty smooth. So I haven't received any complaints that always makes me happy. No, this is good news. Yeah, I think, I think that's a good answer. So the only other thing I have, and I don't know how everybody else feels about this, but the firehouse, which of course is occupied by our fire department, and we're not talking about the fire department much tonight. But my recommendation is that we add to our mowing, mowing around that's building, that's our building. And for whatever reason, the fire department doesn't seem to be able to mow it on a consistent basis than it looks like out. And I think it's bad. I would think it reflects, it reflects poorly on them, but it reflects poorly on the town. And I'm not sure to tell you the truth that it's really their job to mow that, but it certainly should be mowed. I don't know how others feel about that. I agree. I agree with you, Peter. Me too. I think it's pretty small. I mean, there isn't a large area to be mowed. It's just around the edge of the parking lot and around the building, I believe. Right. So mow that, I would say have him mow that in the same schedule that he mows around the town hall or something. Yep, that's fine. So I realize that's going to mean a little more, a little more money, but I think it should be done. Yeah, he might charge slightly more, but I will talk to Corey and we'll work something out. We'll do something he'll be happy with. Okay. Does everyone else agree on staying with Corey? Yes. Yes. We object to staying with Corey. We're good. Okay, I'd say we're good, Mitch. All right. Thank you guys. Thank you. I will check out. I'll talk to you all later. Okay. So now we are back to our dreaded, uh, your credit goals. Well, a lot of the goals have, you've, you've asked, I mean, you didn't do them in 2019, 2018, you had goals such as putting up a discontinuing roads, updating the personnel policy. There was, you know, things like reviewing the town hall to the town clerk's office. So those things have kind of been addressed in your capital plan. But you know, I would make a broader statement that we devise some kind of a schedule to review all our town policies, our dog policy, our junk policy, our road policy. It's been a long time since we've looked at any of those. And certainly we have not done the comprehensive review of our personnel policy that we intended to do. So I would say, you know, the goal should be develop a schedule to review all of those, uh, policies. I think it's long, long past time. Yes, Mary. I agree. I agree with Peter. Get out, get out of being doing anything with Welch Park. Put it to bed. Well, unfortunately, I don't think that's going to work, but Welch Park definitely needs to be on the agenda. I had a, I had a long conversation with our attorney who reminded me of a discussion we had a couple of years ago. And the issue is the permits that are associated with Welch Park. His, his view is, and he's since confirmed it, that the state is very much going to want the town of Middlesex name on those permits for all the reasons that should be, that should be obvious. So um, dealing with Welch Park should certainly be on the objectives, but I don't think we're going to be able to get out of it completely. But yes, it needs to be on there. And obviously the fire department is, uh, is a goal. We don't need to say much more about that tonight, but it's, it's going to take quite a bit of, uh, however we go, it's going to take quite a bit of our time and, uh, and effort. We are in the, we are in the throes of redoing our zoning regulations, correct? Yes. And when do we expect they were saying vote at 10 meeting day next year? Was that the plan? Um, I do not have, Sandy was here. I don't, I don't know where they are on that. I do know that the planning commission's voting on it. And I do know that they would like to have, uh, the planning commission, I know would like to have the energy portion of the town plan, the amendment that would like that to be voted on this year. So that would require a special town meeting by Australian ballot. And I assume that if they could, they would love to have the zoning regulations at the same time or maybe town meeting 2022 after that energy amendment is, uh, voted on. As in our, how about, isn't there some deadline when we have to amend the zoning regulations? Maybe not. I don't know. I thought, I thought we were already passed due to update them, but I could be wrong. I could be thinking about the town plan. Well, we're okay with the town plan. No, we're good on the town plan now, but we weren't. At any rate, I, my guess is, I think there has been discussion with Sandy on, uh, on having a special town meeting in November to have passed something having to do with it, either the town plan, definitely the energy portion, which is, you know, how, uh, to address such issues as solar siting. And then the, um, and then the zoning regulations need to follow, but I don't think the zoning regulations can be approved until that energy component is voted on. Yeah. Makes, would make sense. What else do we have, ladies and gentlemen? Well, we're going to complete the capital spending plan. That's a goal, right? I agree. We have a zoning this week, correct? Yeah, Thursday. Yep. Thank you. Oh, I didn't get notice of it, did I? Well, I didn't tell you, but I did ask Sarah, Sarah, was it too late to warn it when I sent that to you this morning? Uh, no, it's, it's not, as long as it's set, it's fine. But, you know, we've, um, I don't wonder if you guys want to rotate having three select board members on all the time. So you don't have to worry about this. No. Because you're having a mini select board meeting and it's, and it creates, creates complications. Yep. Well, we can talk about that. We can talk about that Thursday. Well, the meeting is warned, Mary, if you want to come. What time is it? 6 p.m. No, I'm sorry, 5.30, 5.30. Liz, send out the Zoom link today, Mary. Yeah, I'll send it to her because I don't think- I'll put something on the, I'll put something on the, on the front page of the website before I leave tonight. Okay. Thank you. How about our favorite that we have had on so many years? The old fire department building. Oh, Mary, you're tough. That's fine with me. Well, I don't want to push it, but I mean, you know, we always like to have both reach goals. That's definitely a reach goal, especially since, since the last few years we put a bunch of money into painting the roof of that building and, and partially painting the, painting the sides of it. And we have been using it for storage. But we should revisit that. I don't think it's a bad idea to revisit that. But I mean, if it's, if it's, it's keeping some of our equipment from getting rusty, if it's used by the, by the road crew, then I think we should keep it. But yeah, we can, we should talk about it. It's a good thing. It's a good thing to revisit. There's also one bay is taken up by all the churches stuff. And I don't know where all that's going to go or what's going to happen to that. But at some point, I think we should gently remind them that they need to remove and dispose of that stuff. Yes, Sarah. I think that you should make mitigating Radon in the town hall, a town clerk's office. An issue I did have drew in here today. And it's going to be a bit of a challenge because the vault is the vault small. And it's, there are some complications about how to remove some of the, how to get the mechanisms in whatever that is to get to to remove Radon. It's probably going to mean totally emptying out the vault and doing some work with a slab, but it's doable. And I think that's something that you guys said you wanted to make a priority before. So why don't you add it to the list? Great idea. I'm fine. I'm fine putting on the list, but basically we've committed to do it. So we're, we're doing it. But now it's a goal that you can reach. You'll feel really good. You can just check it out. There you go. I'm fine. That's Sarah. So the other thing I have with regard to the town hall is considering replacing or starting to replace the upstairs windows in the town hall, which are terrible. And now that we're, now that we're using that as an office, it's like a hall of the winds up there. And, you know, we, we, every year we have a budget for maintenance of the town hall and we never spend it. Now the Radon should be the first priority, but we need to be repairing those, replacing those windows. We can start in the corner where Sarah works. Sarah, do you want any dividers or anything up there that we should put money in as part of that? I don't think so. I mean, I would like to, if you guys are amenable, I think that when we start meeting again, maybe this summer, I would suggest meeting upstairs in town hall, because you're going to have much more room to spread out and we can put up, I have a flat screen TV that can be used as a monitor so that, you know, we can continue the zoom aspect of meetings as we go forward. But meeting down here is cramped and, you know, I don't think it's really conducive to getting the public in. So if you guys are okay with that, I don't think I need, if you don't mind looking at my desk, then I don't need dividers. I don't have a problem. We can talk about that. Yep. I think that's a good idea, Sarah, other than the fact that it's hot as blazes up there in the summertime, but we can put in a couple of fans or do something. All those new fancy windows, it'll be on. No, they'll just keep the heat in. Anyway, other, other goals. Want to continue to pursue upgrades to the town garage insulation improvements, etc. Is that part of your schedule plan, isn't it? Yeah, it is. But I mean, if we don't, if we don't have it on our goals and objectives, it's going to slide off into oblivion. So I'd like to put it on there. We'll just put it on town garage. Right. Yep. I mean, we have done some work. I think we've replaced the heaters, which were horrible. We've done some work to the doors. But we've never, we've never resolved the issue of how to make it more, more energy efficient. We had that survey done and we're told basically that the way that building was designed, it was impractical to, to make energy improvements because the roof structurally cannot support any extra snow load. So you need the heat from the building to melt the snow on the roof. What a concept. There was something that made it difficult for us to do the incident we wanted to do. John Radial did bring his favorite engineer in there and he disagreed with the assessment that we had previously received. He said there were reasonable ways to reinforce the roof and provide significant energy improvement. So, you know, maybe we need to pursue that. But we need to try and push forward on that. Right. Is there anything else we have to do that we, we were doing with, was it the oil tank that we were putting all the stuff around outside? Is that all done? No, well, there's, there's a plan to, to build a roof over that. And the, the pillars are there. We've just never built the roof. Right. So that stands and we, or Rector, you are still here. Oh yeah. Is that on the radar screen for this summer? Yes. The pillars, like you said, the pillars are up there. And I think they were going to try to do that themselves. But then they got a hold of a, I don't know what the estimate was, but Shane got a hold of the guy that lives just below Charles' father. Here on McCulloch Hill. I think he took a look at it. Well, as far as I'm, I'm concerned we could include that in, in Tamper Eye. But yes, we should, it'd be good to get that project completed. Yeah. I do like, by the way, just as a side comment that we, I thought our system this winter of gating off the back of the, of the town garage and creating a sand pile out by the old town garage for our residents was a good improvement. I never liked it that we had people shuffling around behind the garage when the road crew wasn't around or wasn't, wasn't working because we've got a lot of equipment out there and a lot of stuff out there. So I thought that was a good improvement and people seemed to like having that sand pile right out by the road. That was me back in the day with my kids climbing on the giant sand pile. Well, I got buckets of sand to put on my driveway. Well, you're welcome to climb on the sand pile as long as you, as long as you submit that liability release. Probably now it'd be more dangerous for you to be on the sand pile in your kids. Anything else guys? I mean, we can, we can add to this list as we go along, but I think that's a pretty good start and it's pretty ambitious. If we, if we can manage all of that, I think we'll be doing really well. As usual, we'll probably only complete two thirds of it, but with our new four meetings a month plan, we can zip right through it in no time. It feels like every Tuesday I have. It has been for four weeks in a row, right? Yeah. But this is not normal, right? Right. The new normal. The new normal. Normal. We're going to call it the new Steve Martin normal. That's right. No, we are not. It is, it is not, it is certainly not my intent to have four meetings of a month, but we might have three meetings a month for a while. We'll see. I just, I am just very motivated to get through some of this stuff instead of pushing it off every year, because we never seem to have time to deal with it and talk, talk about it. And some of those, some of those policies, I think we can, oh, look at that. Phew. So what is that? Is that a wire hair Fox terrier? What is it? Is it Jack Russell terrier? Yeah, there you go. Cute. He's cute. Yep. Does he chase girls? I bet he does. Anyway. Oh yes, and porcupines. No, porcupines are bad. I've had my porcupine experiences. Does he bark a lot? He does. So are we all set with goals and objectives for now? That took a lot less time than I thought it would. Now, we got a lot of work to do. Yeah. Writing them down is easy. Accomplishing them is not quite so easy. Considering the listeners request for additional mapping funds action likely. Do we have anybody here representing the listeners? Yes, I'm here. Oh, okay. Thank you. This is Dave. It says, oh, but it's Dave. Yep. And I'll do the best I can here. I've kind of been dropped into a crash course on being a listener the last couple of weeks. But basically our maps are out of date. I think everyone knows that these are, I'm talking about both the printed tax maps and the online maps. And we sought a bid from the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, which you all should have a copy of what it's going to cost to update that. And there's been an additional sense of urgency due to another project, which is the state is moving over eventually to a new software program for Grand List called Axiomatic. And the first phase will include bringing GIS maps into that system. I'm not exactly sure why, but it would be good that, you know, the information on our tax maps matches what's on our Grand List, obviously. And so it's important. Apparently we need to have the whole process of updating that map in progress. It doesn't have to be done by the time the first phase begins. But we want to get that started. So really, we just wanted to show you all the bid from the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission. And you can talk about how you want to do it. Basically, you get 12 hours for free. So if we do it over two years, it comes out to a total cost of about $4,000 or about $2,000 per year. And there has been money budgeted for updating maps. Over the last few years, it has not been used. That's just kind of fallen off of people's radar. So I've got a couple of questions. And I don't know, Dave, if you know the answers to these questions, a little bit of it again is just expressing my frustration that this is the second time you guys have come to us. And I realize the first one was not on your watch where we haven't even started our fiscal year yet. And you're asking us to spend what's basically unbudgeted money, real money. Now, I will say, I know we have, I believe, and I don't have a financial report in front of me, but $26,000 of extra money in this year's budget, which we have not spent. So there is money there to do that. But that money is going to get spent next year. So it isn't like it goes away. These are truly extra expenses, which somehow we don't get to talk about or know about during our budget meetings. So I don't know what the answer is. I mean, if these things come up and you guys truly don't know about them and aren't aware of them and nobody tells you, I guess there's nothing you can do about it. But it's frustrating to me in terms of the budgeting process that we're doing it this way. So my other question is, when you say pay for in two years, do you assume that half of that is in this budget year? Are we talking about next year and the following year? I think it's next year and the following year. Okay, because there you go. There's no money. Eric, we were hoping to pay, we're not going to spend anywhere as near what was budgeted for the salaries for the present year. And $750 that we have had budgeted for this in the past hasn't been used. So we do have some catch up here, but this really isn't new spending. It's spending that we've done in the past, up until the last couple of years, we've had some help turn over in the last couple of years, which is part of the reason why all has been kind of dropped on this. And axiomatic thing from that the state is pushing on us is in pressure on us to get this caught up again. Is this Eric? Is that Eric? Okay. Mary trying to ask me something? I'm trying. Is this Eric and you're on something that says Charlene Bowl? Okay. I'm Charlene Bowl. I know you're identified there, Charlene Bowl. Okay. So don't get me wrong. I understand all that and I appreciate it, but I would love to have been talking about this back when we were doing our budget last year. I know the whole business with the payroll, we budgeted all that money and it turned out you didn't need any of that. It just seems like for whatever reason, you're unable to follow our regular budget cycle. And I know some of it's beyond your control, but it's concerning when it's large amounts of money. And it's also concerning to me that we put $750 on the budget for maps, we should be spending that. I mean, once it's gone, it's gone. It's not like it's going into a fund. It goes into the fund balance if we don't spend it. So if, I don't know, I just, I'm disappointed in the process. Let's put it that way. So could we just get back to the subject of, of, uh, certainly sympathetic to those concerns, Eric or Dave, what do you expect we're going to pay this money next year in the following year? This year or next year? Wait a minute. I'm sorry. So by this year, you mean between now and July 1st? Right. So is there any way we can pay for all this year when we've got that extra $26,000 in the budget? I believe that's the case. Yes, it is an option. That's in the, uh, in the estimate. It talks about paying it in one year. Well, I don't, I don't know how the, so, so my feeling on this is, A, we obviously have to do it. And B, there is money in this year's budget, although it's allocated to a different account, but that's a relatively easy thing to adjust. And I would recommend we, we, we do it and get it over with and pay it this year. How does everyone else feel? I agree with that. I'm fine with that. As long as, uh, there, as long as the, uh, regional planning commission, their fiscal year 21, uh, 12 hours goes into that so that we're not paying the full $6,000. Right. Would that be the case guys? Do you know, Dave, Eric? Um, historically, they've always given us the 12 hours a year. I'm not so sure that answers the question. It says fiscal year 21 free is a credit and fiscal year 22 is they're, they're crediting it and taking it off that. So I don't think it is for 34. I think that if we paid for it this year, that's their fiscal year 22. I don't know when their fiscal year is. Right. We made the, I'm not so sure we researched that either. We made the assumption that, um, it was our fiscal year that was. But they wouldn't be crediting us for, we're not in 22 yet. Not until July 1. Right. Right. It's very well, it very well could be that we get, uh, 12 hours in fiscal year 21 and 12 hours in fiscal year 22 from the regional planning commission. That's our understanding. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if we paid for it, yes, but then we wouldn't get it next year. Right. Because we get the 12 hours every year. 12 hours less. So the 12 hours are the total of 24 hours should be subtracted from the bill. We, what I'm recommending is we pay the town's portion entirely in this year and we'll use up our 12 hours next year. But they may not give us 24 hours. Oh yeah, I do not. Here. I think that they're assuming that we're going to be starting this after July 1 and that that's going to be credited to this project because the year 22 is July 1 and that and we get automatically 12 hours. So they're crediting our our fiscal year 22, 12 hours to this project and fiscal year 21 that we haven't used. So we're still going to have to come up with 4,060, 3,960. Right. But that that's all that's full payment for the whole project. Is that your assumption, Eric, that it's full payment? Even if we pay it all before July 1? Again, I'm not so sure. Again, I'm not so sure I understand the question. We constantly have to do tax mapping updating. Eric, here's the question. The question is, if we sign this agreement and give them $3,960 between now and the end of our fiscal year, which is July 1, 2021, is this project paid for in full? And that's it. Done. They're going to contribute 12 hours next year and 12 hours the following year to complete the project. But we've paid our portion. Is that your understanding? He's going to have to find out. I guess the answer to that is yes. We've got catch up to do then once we're caught up it's $3,900 plus to $24 free hours cover and it'll just be maintenance. Okay. I understand the maintenance but I'm looking at the line that says adjusted total project cost $3,960. So my question is for this project, I'm not talking about the maintenance. This project, if we pay $3,960 by July 1, 2021, I'm presuming we have paid for this update in fall. I believe that to be correct. Okay. I think we should look into that because that does not sound how it was explained to me by Jarenda. We had a conversation about this. I had the impression that for a quicker timeline, it would be the full project costs that's $6,240 minus 12 hours or $1,140. That's the quicker timeline. Whereas if we did it over two years, two years slower timeline, the full 24 hours of credit would be applied to it. I believe Jade's explanation there is correct. Look guys, I'm not trying to make this more complicated than it is. I'm suggesting they do the work over the next few years just like they plan. All I'm saying is that we're going to pay the $3,960 this year and then our portion of that project is paid. Now the other question is, assuming we commence this project immediately, are we good in terms of meeting the state requirements, state deadline? I think my personal opinion is, and I may not be fully informed on this, I think we will be a little ahead of the curve. Okay. Well, here's my thing. I want to confirm that if we do this plan, that we will comply with the state requirements and also it will meet your needs as listeners. And as long as that's the case, I think this is the way to do it. It's the most economical way and we have money in the budget now. If the project needs to be completed this summer to meet the state requirements, then that isn't going to work. So what I would suggest is, is the understanding as we can pay for it now, or the choices, pay for it now, pay for it in two payments over two fiscal years, 39, whatever it is, the 39. Right. But my point is, we have the money now, I'd like to pay for it now. It's not a huge amount of money, but let's let's do it while it's in our budget and get it paid. I would agree with that. No, no, no, we want you to pay it next year. Then it becomes another unbudgeted item because it isn't in the budget for next year. You see what I'm saying? I think so. Dave? I'm trying to give their money, give them their money ahead of time. I can't, I can't imagine that's a problem. No, my understanding is that's going to be done. So the only question is, if we do this, we give them 39.60 before the end of the year, we sign this thing now, that will meet the state requirements and also meet the needs of the listers? Yes. I think, I believe it will. Yes. Eric, you agree? I think that's my understanding. Okay. So is someone willing to make that motion? I'll make that motion, Peter. Thank you. Is there a second? I second. Without further discussion, all in favor of the motion, which I won't restate, I've said it two or three times. I think you've got it. You've got it, Sarah, right? Sarah? I second the motion. So what I want to do is just write this as clear as I possibly can, suggested paying the Central Mont Regional Planning Commission 30, the full cost, the full bill of $3,960 to update maps, the town tax maps over two years with 24 hours of free service from, free GIS service from the commission, something like that. All I would suggest is that you say 12 hours a year for two years. Just to make sure. 12 hours a year for two years. Okay. That would be better. Okay. So with that, all in favor of the motion, please say aye or raise your hand. Any opposed? Okay, guys. So I think you as listeners can sign this agreement, correct? That's a good question. I don't know. I thought I had to be signed, but just says the copy of the contract that I have just says town representative. Just because I get tired of driving back and forth to the town hall to sign things. Why don't you sign it and send it in? And if they want me to sign it, I'll, I'll, they can send it back and I'll sign it. Okay. Okay. Yes, Sarah. The $26,000 you said comes from a different account. Is it all within the Lister's budget? Is it within the Lister's budget? It is. Okay. In the Lister's budget, it's just in a pay, it's in the payroll account. Okay. So we'll take, we'll take the $750, which is in the budget for mapping and take the rest from the payroll account. Okay. The render, the render won't care for that, but you know what? That's, that's the way the cookie crumbles, as they say. Okay. Thank you. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. Thanks everyone. Thank you for all your hard work. Hi. Thanks. Two minutes. So the next item is discussing April, April 13th special select board meeting regarding the middle sex volunteer fire department and planning follow-up action possible. So here's, whoop. You guys didn't vote on the minutes. No. Over the minutes. I said we passed over the minutes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. And I apologize for not, for not reading them. I didn't realize they were five pages until I printed it out. And then I, that's right. I got to page, but one and a half. So my thing on this fire department is, and I have been, I've got a call into Bill Shepplick. I hadn't heard from him. I have not called Bill Fraser yet because he was away, but I will reach out to him. I know the, oh, the fire, what is, he's not the fire marshal. Yes. You know, go ahead. Peter Lynch is what you meant. The head of the fire safety institute. Right. Yes. He's aware and he plans to, and he plans to attend the next, plans to attend the next meeting. The question is this, and it gets back to our, our previous discussion about our capital planning meeting. If, if the select board participates in this process as a board, or three of us do, then all of a sudden it's a select board meeting every time we bring this up. I'm not sure that's the right way to do it. I think it's important enough that we all need to be involved, but do we all need to go to all the meetings? I don't know. I don't know how everybody feels. At the fire department or the meetings about capital planning or both? No, no, no fire. This is the fire department. Just fire department. I think we should all be involved, whether we all go to those meetings, all the meetings or not, but we need to stay involved. I took a lot of notes from that meeting and, and I've started going through that stuff and writing up stuff and trying to come out with different scenarios. So, and I probably everybody's doing that, but I think we all, all the entire select board should stay involved. Others? I agree. Liz? I agree. Yep. And I presume, I presume Phil agrees. Okay. So we can look forward to some more, some more board meetings, but I think the concept is going to be when it's the fire department, that's the only only item on the agenda, except possibly for a few housekeeping items like we did, like we did a week ago. As an FYI, I had a call from CAX today and they want to interview me Friday at the town hall. So we're going to get a little TV coverage. I'm going to be on my best behavior, but if our goal is to get the word out to the community, that can only help. So we'll see what happens from that. It's the, it's the gentleman who, Joe Carroll, the guy who does the senior citizens pieces on, on WCAX. I said, well, I qualify in a couple of regards to give you this interview. I wasn't going to say that, but maybe we could talk about, maybe we could talk about my motorcycle riding and car racing and boat driving and some of the stuff I like to do, but he wants to talk about the fire department. So I'm going to do it. And I promise you all, I will be on my, my very best behavior. You think he's, with that, I think we need to, I hate to say this. I think we need to schedule our next fire department meeting. Agreed. I do not have my calendar up in front of me, but I can get it up. Hold on. Our next select for me is May 4th. Nothing on the 11th, May 18th, nothing on the 25th. I would suggest the 11th. Me too. Yep. So this is the special select board meeting for just the fire department. Yep. We would do it at the regular five o'clock time if that works for everybody. Yeah. Correct. And our, our goal is, is by then, I will have had a, at least a preliminary discussion with both the business manager or 10 manager in Waterbury and also the city manager in Montpelier. But this is just going to be the five of us. We're not having anyone else in, or are we having Peter Lynch? Peter is going to be there. He's already said he will be there when we, when we set up the meeting. Peter Lynch. What is Peter Lynch's title again? I think he's head of fire training for the Vermont fires safety institute or the month, whatever that is, and down in Pittsburgh. Yep. And we should basically invite the same cast of characters that we asked before. We should let the fire department know. But not here right now, or did they go out? But not Waterbury and Montpelier, right? Just our fire department and Peter Lynch. No, no, no. It's going to be, it's going to be, I don't know whether the chiefs will want to be part of the meeting or just the business people. But to them anyway. Yeah. I mean, the idea, the idea is to continue to explore options and try and put some numbers, some at least rough numbers to some of these options, because I think they're going to drive the future, future discussion. Well, we'll see, we'll see where it goes. But that's what I'm going to ask Bill and Bill to come prepared with. And I'm going to ask them for two. If it makes sense, if they believe it makes sense to divide the town, how would they suggest dividing it? And what would they estimate the cost to be based on our call volume? By the way, just on this subject, I spent some time going through those call sheets, which I got from dispatch. They aren't very revealing. What it all boils down to is different interpretation of how these things are reported. And it's like they do it in a secret code. So it's very frustrating to determine what's mutual aid calls and what is in it, etc., etc. And at this point, I don't think it's really germane. I mean, we know what the issue is and it isn't just a mutual aid issue. Well, it's how they feel like we're going to respond to their interpretation of some of it is what it seemed like to me based on some of the explanations that they put out there. So they're not even calling for us. Right. No, I think, well, I think there are a couple of things going, I mean, as I think you'll all agree, we heard a lot of stuff at that meeting. And I have a lot of notes too, Steve, and Sarah in her in her minutes has memorialized a lot of the stuff as well, which is great. But it's clear that for the most part, they don't need our mutual aid. Montpelier would rather call on Barry, the professional department. Waterbury, they've got 50 people. So yeah, they might need a tanker from us once in a while. They really need, they really don't need our fire department. And we didn't hear from Worcester, but I'll get you in a minute, Mike. But it's kind of the kind of the same kind of the same story. But I think if we had a good active fire department, I mean, one of the things which happens in Montpelier from time to time is that the Worcester fire department covers the station when they're on another call. Well, could we do that for them? I think potentially we could. We had a properly trained, appropriately outfitted fire department. So, you know, I don't think, I mean, what I get is they're not looking for a lot from us. They're just looking for something. So we'll see, we'll see how it shakes out. Yes, Mike. Yeah, just to try and we'll use just that Peter, no sex did get called a lot to cover Montpelier back in the days when everything was going good. And over the weekend, there was a fire in Dallas and Woodbury and East Montpelier covered Calis. Woodbury had to have hardware come down. They also called up Plainfield, East Montpelier, Worcester for Manpower. So that left Montpelier not calling Worcester because they called Montpelier too. So what ended up happening is they didn't call them in a second. They went right over the top and called Waterbury. So Middlesex didn't get called. Well, that's, you know, a lot of that's because of the issues we've been talking about. You know, the good news that came out of this came out of our previous meeting is nobody meaning primarily Waterbury and Montpelier has any intention of not responding to our calls. So, you know, from a public safety point of view, we're going to have a pretty good fire response no matter what our fire department is able to do. So the issue primarily, ironically, isn't so much a public safety issue. The way I see it is just it's a use of town resources and use of city resources in the case of Montpelier and town resources in terms of of Waterbury that there needs to be a little better balance than there is now. But, you know, we're just we're just in the start of this process. And it's going to be very interesting to see what these numbers reveal when we start to get some numbers, even if they're only preliminary. I mean, I did tell you, I believe at the last meeting that what Frazier had said to me that he thought pretty much for the budget we have, Montpelier could provide fire service to Middlesex. Well, it was afterwards that I realized that they have no tankers. So how are they going to provide fire service to Middlesex? It's going to be very limited. So we got to have somebody with we got to have somebody with tankers. Anyway, we've got to work. We've got to work our way through the through the process. But again, I promise you I will do my best to behave myself in this interview on Friday. If anybody wants to come watch the action, it's going to happen at nine o'clock at the town hall. So are there are they interviewing anyone else like our fire chief or president? They are trying to reach our fire chief who so far has been unresponsive. I did not suggest to Joe Carroll, Letty, call the president of the fire department. So it might be just me or it might be the chief and me. We'll see. Good luck. No, no, no, it'll be it'll be fine. But anyway, a correspondent, Sarah? Discussion of April, what's discussion of April? I think my finger slipped. I was discussing the April 13 special board meeting and following up, which is right above that. That's all right. We'll forgive you. All those minutes, I worked hours on those minutes and no one read them story of my life. We're going to read them in vivid and explicit detail. Don't worry. And I appreciate that By the way, just as a humorous aside, did anyone see Mary Hood, Alexander's sister's obituary in the Times Argus? I heard your thing that you posted. It was hysterical. I mean, this is, I forget her first name, her last name. Sylvia. Right, Sylvia. And I can't have any pronouncers. She's Frank's mother. Left, fore, bow. Well, you read through the whole thing. She's got a great life, very much an active community member, great faith. You get all the way down to the very bottom of the obituary. And this line is thrown in that Jess says, but she was a sword swallower and trap. She was a renowned sword swallower and traveled the world with their belongs in a brown paper bag wearing a babushka, just right in the middle of the obituary. And I just, I know, I'm just saying that's probably not true, right? That's not true, I don't think. But someone got, they wanted to make sure you read it all the way through. Exactly. It was right there. So I'm going to start putting those little lines in the, in the minutes, so to make sure that you guys read them. So it was having to. Anyway, I will, I will find out about that. I am, I am not related to but affiliated to all those hoods. So it's at some point I will, well, it's still up on the Times Argus website and it's just really delightful. So I think I'm going to send Amber a note. Whoever wrote that, that was very, very good. Yeah, I would tell you what reminded me when I took five years of Latin and grade school and high school, God bless me. We had a little conspiracy going in our class that we had to do these long torturous translations. What we do is slip little fictitious lines in our translations to see if our teacher was actually reading. And was he or she? I bet she was. It was a, hey, my classic line was, and then the red fox and her pups jumped over the fence and ran into the woods. You could do that in Latin, I'm impressed. We'd be talking about the Golic Wars or some hideous, horrible subject. And I'd slipped that in there and he never said a word to me. I did it for two years. I wonder if he laughed silently to himself. He was a snarky, he was a snarky old bastard. So I think if he'd read it, he would have said something. But anyway, I think, I think that is exactly what that is in the same vein. But anyway, Sylvia was quite a character and I'll miss her. And she really has suffered the last few years. Well, it's a lovely obit. I suggest you guys check it out. Is it in today's paper? No, it's in Saturday's paper, but it's still on the website. Gotcha. So ladies and gentlemen, I think that does it for tonight unless anybody has anything else. We didn't have any, did we? No orders, correct? No, there are orders. Oh, God, I didn't see those. And I have not, and I apologize. I have not signed them yet. Derrinda, of course, who was supposed to be on vacation is still doing work from afar. No. So if you go to Florida or something fun like that at least. Vegas for the family and grandkids. I didn't see the orders. Weren't there orders in that email? No, I didn't see them. I was on the minute. No, don't text her. She's struggling right now. No, no, no, she doesn't gamble. She's just visiting her sister-in-law. I'll just ask her. I don't see the orders. Okay, maybe there are no orders. I didn't see any orders. Okay, I'm sorry. I was so overwhelmed by all those minutes, I lost my train of thought. Well, it said four attachments, so I was expecting it was minutes, minutes, and more minutes. That's what I was too married, but I guess it was the stuff about the stuff about them happening. Victor, you had something? Yes, Peter. I was wondering if right after this meeting you'd give me a call. I would be happy to. I have some. Can I have a sip of my cocktail first? Would that be okay? You'll probably, after you get done talking with me, you'll probably need to. Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. Maybe I better, maybe I better. Nothing personal. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, it's something I got to bring up, but I don't think I can bring it up because we can't talk about it because it's not pre-warrant. Okay. Well, if it's in the area of discussion, you can bring it up. You can bring it up. You just can't vote on it. Yeah, we can't vote on it. Well, do you want me to do that now? Sure. Is it a personnel issue? Not at all. Not at all. No, it's a highway thing. As you know, Bruce was going down the interstate in the pickup, the town pickup quit, and had to have it towed to Cody's. And they said it was the starter, but then they put a starter in it, and then it wouldn't start. And now they say the engine is blown, and it's $9,200 to fix it. The truck has 92,000 miles on it, and it's pretty rusty. So that is, that is bad. Do you like us to do? Well, have we ordered, have we ordered the new pickup yet? No, we're going to check into it tomorrow. We've been going to, but you know, it's tough for Shane. He's just taking, you know, he hasn't been at this this long, and he's busy, and he has a lot of things he has to catch up on. We just haven't had time to, we've discussed the pickup. We kind of know what we want. But I guess we're just, we would probably have to do something pretty quick, because I don't think he wants to drive his pickup around. I don't blame it. Well, make sure he knows we'll pay a mileage if he has to drive his pickup in the interim. Oh, yeah. So anyway, I would suggest that truck, unfortunately, is probably, probably virtually worthless, but maybe not. I mean, if someone wanted to put a used engine in that truck, is it so rusty it's not going to pass inspection? It's getting there. It's getting there. Okay. I would suggest that. Hold on, guys. Darinda, I think she accidentally sent you the wrong thing. So if you can hang on, I'm just going to go into her email and see if I can forward those orders. I'm not going to give her a call right now. Just hold, anyway. Give her our love. Okay. You know, we've got to sort our way through this, but if the body of the truck is sound, which it sounds like it isn't, then it has some value to somebody because they'll put a used engine in it or even put a, you know, I love it when they say $9,200 for an engine. Well, what's blown up? Do you need a short block? Do you need a whole engine? Do you know who the hell knows? But we don't want to get involved in that. We're certainly not going to fix it. So we're either going to sell it privately, if that makes sense, or just trade it in for whatever residual value they'll, they'll give us would probably use it very much. But I was going to suggest that, I doubt if we can order a truck anyway, it's going to be whatever you can find on the lot. But I would suggest that Vic and Shane, you know, figure out what they want for, for the truck and see if, if Cody can find that vehicle for them somewhere, if they don't have it on their lot and what they would give them for. We were exactly, exactly what we decided tonight, but we wanted to pass it by you guys, you ladies and gentlemen of the select board. And just like you know, you know, we appreciate that. Well, let's hope that doesn't happen to the greater. Don't talk about that. You can't drive it between now and the four heads of life first. I believe, I believe all those vehicles, don't they have to come to share? Doesn't share, share, but we have the state bid. Do you know about that, Steve? I'm not sure if they have the state bid or not, but they do have vehicles that come to them. Well, that's where this one came, you know, this G8, right, allegedly. But again, I don't know what I would doubt if they have much on the lot. I know pickups are going, but Cody can reach out and I'm sure they can find you a truck that's at least close to what you want somewhere. Well, isn't it, isn't it pretty much a standard four-wheel drive, three-quarter ton pickup truck? It's nothing fancy, right? No, it's nothing fancy. Oh, no, leather seats. Well, you gotta have heated seats if the road commissioner's gonna drive it, right? Satellite radio? Satellite phone. I'll check with Cody in the morning with Shane and we'll see what we can do. We'll go from there and I'll call you with what information we have and you can discuss it with the board. Perfect. Okay. When are they gonna start making electric trucks for towns? They make them. They make them. Very good. I heard. Yeah, I would imagine the batteries would have to be really big. They wouldn't be Tesla batteries. They definitely make them, but I don't think we need to be the first hand to buy an electric pickup truck. No. They wouldn't be Tesla batteries because they catch on fire and they're hard to put out. 30,000 gallons of water to put that fire out to that one and caught on fire. Do you see that? I know that they spot 25% in one day. I think they spontaneously combust too. What's that? I think they sometimes spontaneously combust. They just started fire. Liz, what I would strongly recommend to you and then we're going to adjourn the meeting is that in the world, I'll get you, Sarah, in the world of driving on the track, we're all getting older. All these track rats, they have the regulation that we have to prove we can get out of our vehicles within five seconds or we can't drive them on the track. I would suggest you practice that. Can you get out in five seconds or less out of your car? Yes, I can. I think. I want to practice. I get confused where the door opener is versus the window opener. That's not good. Don't reach back to grab your purse. I will. Okay, good. Sarah, I just want to tell you that I went into Derrinda's email, found the email and forwarded it with all the orders and I just forwarded them to you. So I'm just going to put the minutes at the orders were signed during this and don't worry about it, sign them at your leisure. Okay. Oh, wow. Perfect. That's straightened out. Yeah. I got it. Well, is she supposed to be on vacation? I hope you told her that. I try to keep it short. All right, everybody. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Bye. We'll see you next week. Yeah, I'll be there.