 All right, we'll call the February 7th select board meeting to order. We got Flowsmith, Bradtown, John Quinn, Dave Sawyer, all here. Any additions or changes to the agenda? No, just a reminder that since we haven't had any in a bit is the liquor licenses and we'll cover those on the 630, 640 approval of licenses, permits and vouchers. OK, just to get those approved. Those may be in today. So. Excellent. Any public comment? Hearing hearing none. Marvin Road discussion. So yeah, I can kick it off with just a brief. So I thought Mr. Noies was going to attend tonight. We we've had a number of issues up there with regards to plowing. As you know, he came to one meeting as well. And whether we did a site visit after that, without a summarize, we had a bit of a back and forth exchange and emails that you guys were in copy of as well. I got a hold of Justin and said, I think, you know, we need to get together. We need to figure this out. It's been going on for a long time. He's clearly really frustrated for all kinds of reasons. And we need to figure it out and come to a solution to stop this. It's been going on for a number of years, apparently. So Justin and I and Tim went up and did a site visit. Justin had a good conversation with him. And I'll let Justin speak from there as to where we're going. So I think everything looks good up there. We've been plowing up there. There's been issues with turning around. Years ago, we built a turnaround spot up there. And I don't know, seems like seems like the boundaries get moved and there wasn't real clear definition on what he could do, what we could do, where we were going to move snow and things like that. So, but I think we came to a good understanding. One of the options, I don't know if you want to explain them, but one of the options is to extend a little piece of our turnaround spot so we can plow into it. Yeah, we'll extend it. I don't know. I think we didn't really agree on a footage, but double the size. If we double the size of it, it'll be 60 feet deep. Because it's roughly between 25 and 30 now. And then we wouldn't put a fence on the back of it to be able to push snow out of it. We'd have a fence on the back of it. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's why we were making it deeper so that it wouldn't alter it and then it wouldn't be moved in. So yeah. Hey, we're just talking about it. Oh, boy. They're still working on it. They're still working on what? I thought a tracker splint made it impossible to get it here. Oh, I know. What we were talking about was a couple of days while we hadn't talked about another option yet, but we talked about if we were going to do it, maybe having that thing about twice the size of the turnaround as we discussed so that we can push the snow back and it takes all that off from your place so there's no confusion. I think the thing with the town, with us, is there's been, I don't know, I haven't been on the board long enough to know all the back history or whatever, but from my perspective, what I'm seeing is it's just not, we need some like clear definition on how we're going to move forward and maintain up there. And so I think for us to turn around up, it would be good if we could turn around and have that snowballed out of the way and we'll push it back. So roughly, remember how we talked where you pull in? We could push in right there. Oh, you haven't drawn? Let's draw us on 10. You remember? Yeah, I am. Oh, okay. So that's on that. I mean, you had some time to think it over at this point. So if you're asking me if I want to give up more land, the answer is no. Right. That's my least favorite option. Okay. Because, you know, the town is the former town crew are the ones that chose that spot. I reluctantly gave up that. Pasture. That area. Yeah. You know, just to make it for the town. And now I'm learning they need more. It's like, okay. And this is like, this is the ongoing thing. So that's where I hope. Hold on. How much more blood you need. You know what I mean? Like, Let me just, I want to just, I think the problem is, and that's where I'm saying the confusion. So it kind of comes in is we would be fine if that space was always clear and never had anything in it. That space would be just absolutely fine. If we could go up there and there was no snow in it and we didn't have to push anything, we could go past, turn around, be wide open. There's plenty of room as it sits. And where we're running into issues up there, we're relying on you because you've been the one with the fence there and all that with your tractor moving the snow or things like that. We're running into issues if it's not clear. If we go up in the summer, I'm not sure about all of it. But I know there was some pictures with like hay bales and all that in there. And I don't know if that caused some turnaround issues, but it's just not always clear. So my thought was it would be a good compromise if you wanted us to be able to go up there and easily do it, not worry about damaging any property and we put fill in there and make it so it was the same as the rest of it. So it wouldn't be any maintenance. And in the summer, you could probably have the back half to put stuff in just fine. So it would actually create some more usable space for some of the storage that I've seen in the pictures. And I think that the problem is when we go up there in the winter, if it's not always clear, it causes an issue. So that would eliminate that. And yeah, it's probably not the best option that's not really giving up your land. It's letting us use it for a turnaround. And I would improving it. I mean, it's not much pasture there. I don't know what kind of feed that provides, but that was my thought. I just think that's where the confusion is right there. It's just like having that clear and having the clear spot. That's all. And if your tractor breaks down or it's not running and we go, what happens? You know, for the last however many years, up until a couple of years ago, there was no turnaround. And they were able to, there were no problems for a long time. You know what I mean? It was problems in the beginning. And then there were like, when Eddie was doing, it was never had a problem. You know what I mean? And then now we're back to it again. Well, you know, I mean, what would you do if there was no turnaround there that allowed the town to use? Well, we wouldn't necessarily maintain up to there. If we, I mean, if we couldn't, didn't have a turnaround spot, we probably wouldn't maintain it. I mean, there's areas where you can do that according to the statute. And if it's unsafe or it's not accessible, then you have the ability to do that. That's the issue. So I do believe that, you know, that would be a consideration if we couldn't, if we couldn't turn around, unfortunately. But that's not what anybody wants to do. That's not what, you know, so we need to find some, like, we need to make it work. You obviously said that's your least favorite. Did you have other suggestions? Do it the way they've been doing it for, you know, the last 50 years. Well, the problem is it's not always clear. That's my understanding of it. I'll speak to that. I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that or not, but. I'll add to it and then can I do it as well? I mean, when we met down here this fall, I asked you not to put snow on the corner of your driveway in the road. So when he backed around the pile, wouldn't hit the pile. It's in the letter. I'm pretty sure that it was in there. I didn't put it in there. And I don't remember that, Tim. Here's what I think we got to do. Move past this and we can either choose to do it or not. You just need to figure out a way to make it work for everybody. Pretty simple. I've seen the email exchange. I think we can go back and forth forever on this. But the reality is that we want to be able to plow up there for you and we want to be able to continue to maintain it. I want to make it so that this is done or there's going to be a transition in the board over the next month. So I want to get this handled before that happens for you guys. So one of the things was that we had talked about and it was really the best thing for, I really think it's, I don't see a downside to it other than, yeah, it was a bit of a pasture. But you gain some better land to use in the summer and for storing stuff and it keeps everything out of the way. So that was my hope is that we'd be able to compromise and do that so that we could, you know, I don't want to do anything that's going to jeopardize not having it plowed for my, you know, my friends here, but like, I mean, I don't know if here's my biggest fear. We do this and then we come back in another year and hey, Mike, this isn't working. We got to do this because this is what's been going on. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think that's my biggest fear. Like I can give up, you know, a little area the size of this room. There's plenty of room that stuff can eat. I'm just worried that, you know, it just keeps happening, man, you know, like they come up and they chop the tree down, like really, man? Like, you know, no, it's on the town right away there. This is my land, you know? And then they come up and do it, never called, never did anything. Like this is my fear. Like what is enough? Like, you know? So here's interesting. Do you understand my nice concern? Absolutely. And I would probably feel the same way. I think I can see a bunch of different perspectives here. And if I were you, I'd feel the same way, I'm sure. I don't doubt it at all. So that's why what I'm trying to do is just simply mediate or not mediate, but just get something, you know, you're gonna have the minutes from this meeting, you know, that'll be recorded. That'll be something of its documentation for you. So when we record the minutes from this meeting, it'll have all the, if we come to some sort of an agreement, we'll have all that, you know, just mark this date in your calendar. I also have an agreement here that wasn't followed. Like, well, I don't know, I don't know what was not followed. I don't know what wasn't followed. It's agreed that this would be a trial period. And if you had a party that has issues, we would move forward with me to get on site. That happened after 14 emails were exchanged, you know. Like, what was on there, what was not followed? I just said it. As I explained, trying to explain before we were up there with Justin, the reason that was that way was because I could sense the frustration of exactly this, right? It's been going on for a long time. And I wanted to get all the players around the table, have the discussion and then come to a final resolution and everybody can live by without going back and forth anymore, right? So I wanted to get all the concerns flushed out, which I think we did. I think so, you know? And now it's time to just figure out a solution so we don't keep going back and forth and you don't have the concerns going forward that something else is gonna change later. And we just gotta get up there, plow safely, make it clean for you guys and get out of there without damaging and working around anything. So I think there's been an accountability issue or whatever, there's no, they can't just say, well, okay, well, this is what we're supposed to be doing, you know, even when you look at that, if, you know, circumstances happen, you know, like if your tractor breaks down, you can't move the snow out of there. Well, then that happens. That's why I lie on you. That shouldn't happen. So that's where the town knows their role and we can do it. And that's, you know, the bottom line. So I think that's the best thing for you guys, you know? That was, I mean, I got better stuff you could do with your time. Yeah. I have a simple question. Why couldn't they use a one ton truck instead of using a big dump truck? So we're going to buy a 70,000, $80,000 truck. We don't own one already? Nope. But times I'm gonna have a little dump truck? Nope. Well, that's... You have a smaller, small, we have a little bit smaller one. That's a small truck. Yeah. That has its own route, four hours long. Yeah, so all the trucks have routes here. Logistically. I think it's logistics more than anything. More than anything else. We haven't grown to that capacity to have... We have four guys, we have four routes. Right. And they're four hour routes. So yeah. So if we're gonna do this, because, you know, I paid to have Wade come up and pound those posts in the ground so they would be really sturdy. So nobody would knock them over. Well, now they're in the ground. I'm gonna need some equipment because I don't have 43 horse tractor ain't gonna pull those things out. So, you know, I built that again at expense to my... I just don't wanna keep throwing money at this thing and time and time. That's the biggest thing for me is my time, you know? Like, if we're gonna... I'll say okay to this. If it's done in a way that's gonna work for everybody. I think we can figure that out like as a, you know... The ideal and the idea behind extending that now is for the plow to come up and push the snow to the back of it, back out around and up and go out. So it doesn't have to push it past anything. It doesn't push it out. So that basically the back half of that would just be snow bells up in the water. Yeah, we've made that clear. That's the attack the other day. To give them the space to put that snow back in. I don't know as far as pulling those things to what we have. So we can help, but we can figure it out. I wouldn't be anything fun to happen this winter. No, it's gonna happen. If we're up there as far as, you know, I mean, if we are gonna extend it and everything else, we're gonna have the estimator there. We can work with him, put the fence back up and reset the posts and do it all with a piece of machinery right there. It isn't necessarily that he needs to pay somebody to come and do it if we're gonna do this. We're all gonna be there with the equipment. So we'll get the extra benefit of that. Yep, okay. I just wanted pretty clear as clear as we can get it for everybody. And we can sit down the two or three or however many and design exactly what you think you're gonna need to do that. Can we have that ready for the next meeting and have it on the agenda and to finalize it? Well, I mean, is that something that we may wanna wait till spring? I think we can get a rough idea. Rough it out? Yeah. I mean, like, you weren't quite here yet. You don't think you were coming in the door when you were talking about it. You know what I mean? It's roughly off 60 feet. Yeah. So what it is now is between 25 and 30 feet, roughly judging by, you know what I mean? The sections of fence are eight foot. There's three sections there and there's four or five feet to the, you know, edge of the snow bank. Not necessarily, you know, that's not necessarily the side of the road because he's not pushing snow all the way out there with the fence. But so another 20, 25 feet past where the fence is now, you know what I mean? And then like Justin said, you know what I mean? Summer time to measure and stake it out. We'll just get a rough idea. So we can have something before the next meeting at least. I don't know if you guys don't want it. That's fine. I'm just trying to make sure what it's doing here. I wanna get it resolved as well. So yeah. The weather's fairly decent this week. What's that? I said the weather's fairly decent this week. You can just go down with a couple of tapes and, you know, that's what we gotta do. I think it would be acceptable to do it as well. We'll come up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's gonna be hard to tell the, cause it drops off there, you know, there's a, there's a, I don't know, sway on or whatever. And I think we could actually use that to our advantage, you know, pushing the snow in there, but I'm not worried about figuring it out. Again, I just wanna make it very clear. I just don't want this to come back and say, well, you know what? We now got a 60 foot truck that we need to use. You know. So I think to me, this is the solution that absolutely just wipes it all off the table and makes it so that it's never gonna come back be an issue as far as like the snow removal and turning around. Cause yours is the only one that we, we don't maintain per se everywhere else. We file around. So you guys are more than welcome to maintain it. Well, no. That's what we're trying to do. But we can't push snow out the back of it. You saw the other day we were down there with the truck with the truck in there. Now the plows almost halfway across the road sticking out there. So by the time you start pushing snow in there, you know what I mean? After this, we're gonna start going around with loader, cleaning out our turnarounds because some of them, you can only push it so far. There's a bank or, you know. Yeah. So I think it'll be the best solution. Cause with that eliminates us from the damaging those. I mean, if now if something were to happen and we did that and we hit your fence turning around back there, it's definitely on us. You know what I mean? Like there's no, you know, there's no way around it. That we'd have plenty of room, I think. So. And then like he said, you know what I mean? Then he could back out of there, back up past your driveway and take the snow down with him. Probably be cleaner in front of your driveway. It'll be a lot better if that way. You wouldn't have the feather out above the driveway by the cashmere. Following up. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We'll measure it out and figure it out. But. Yeah. We'll have to. Never we come up with, that's it, man. That's what we're trying for. Absolutely. We couldn't agree more. That's what I just want. I don't want anybody else to feel frustrated over it. So. Perfect. So what we'll do is we will, we'll get up there sometime in the next few weeks before the meeting and then we'll get up this week. I'll call them tomorrow. We'll set up a time to get up there and we'll look at it and we'll bring it back. I'll bring something back at the next meeting. Yeah. Then we'll have it on there and we'll discuss it and we'll make the plan from there. So it's, you know, steady and permanent. Make sense? Yeah. It does. Anything else you need from us? We'll move on to the next item. So. Perfect. Thank you for coming in. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming up to the meeting. No problem. No problem. We'll see you again this week. You guys got better things to do. I'm trying to talk. Yeah. All right. All right. Thank you. Next up we have the audit review and approval. Yeah. Ms. Mullen? Ms. Mullen? Yes. Online? Yep. She's online. Okay. I'm here. Hi, Linda. Hello. Here it is. I'm going to talk along with her. Oh boy. Thank you. Thank you. Are you ready for me? Ready as we're ever going to be. Okay. So the audit was clean this year. No findings. The general fund ended the year with a fund balance of 2,134,000, which is an increase of 554,000 for the year. Even though you budgeted a deficit to try and use some of your fund balance, you ended up with a profit. Of that 2,134,000 general fund balance, 1,344,000 of that is unassigned. So it can be used for future budgets. So as I said, you budgeted a deficit this year of 101,000 and you ended up with a profit of 554,000. So that was 655,000 better than budget. A lot of that. Some of that was a loan that you received that wasn't budgeted for. That was 247,000. Right. The highway budget was under budget by 132,000, mostly due to like wages in the wintertime, salt, paving and fuel expenses all came in under budget. The police was under budget by 38,000, mostly due to wages and employee benefits. And then just the general government was pretty close to budget. It was under budget by about 3,000. And then there was some capital outlays for the highway that was over budget by 102,000. The water pollution fund ended the year with a $2.3 million budget of which 1.7 million is unrestricted. And the water division fund ended up with a fund balance of 1.6 million. And that actually has a negative unrestricted once you factor out the capital assets and the debt that are on there. The water pollution fund ended the year with a fund balance increase of 368,000. And the water division had a loss of 60,000. That's pretty typical. And that's usually due to the depreciation, which is about 150 grand a year back up here. So in the general fund, I mentioned that there was 1.3 million of unassigned, but there is several things that were being committed like the bridges and the culverts, funds are committed for that. There's money set aside that is for reappraisal, list for education, records, restorations and things like that. So that's part of fund balance that is not able to be used for future budgets. There was no findings this year. There was no issues with management. We had a few journal entries, but none of them were material adjusting entries. The town spent more than 750,000 in federal dollars this year. So it was required to have a single audit. There's no findings on that as well. That's it, unless you have some questions for me. What was the restricted fund balance? How we can use, can you go over that again? Yes, on page 39 of the audit, summarizes what the fund balance is restricted for. Okay. And then also what's committed and what's assigned. That's very helpful, Linda. Perfect. Anything else? I don't have any additional questions. Thank you for all your efforts. So you do need to, for the minutes purposes. Yeah, I want you to approve it. Yeah. Does anybody else, John, Brad, Dave, you got any questions, anything? No, I'm also. All good. All right. It's going to be good to me. Yeah. Just waiting for somebody to make a motion. I make the motion to approve the audit review by Linda Mullen, who is ready to us this evening. Seconded. Any discussion? In favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Dyer. And I'll get that finalized once I get the sign and rep-letter back from you folks. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Before you go on to the next agenda item, I just have to make a comment on the correction there. It's a typo here on my part. It should say recommend and conservation commission request for funds on the next item. So there was a change. It's not a change. It's an omission on someone's part. It was back fingers typing. All right. Next up on the agenda is the recreation committee and the conservation committee for requests for use of funds. Right. We have both Tim Shea from the rec committee and Wendy Limboles from the conservation commission online. Hey, welcome. Hello. Hello. How's everybody doing? Good. You also have a letter in your package. Mm-hmm. This one right behind you. Okay. I can go ahead. I can go for the rec committee if that works. Yeah. I won't be taking all your reserve funds, but we are looking for about $500. The rec committee wants to start up a pickup broom ball and would like to buy the equipment on behalf of the community. And then the rec members would manage that equipment and host the events on our ice rinks. And just most people don't have a broom ball equipment. So we thought we would look to acquire it and offer that up for a pickup broom ball in our facility. What's that? So that was, no, I didn't catch that. I mean, you can undone that. Okay. We got pickup broom ball, $500. What else? So before we move on, if this is multiple parts, we should take up this part first. I'd make the motion to approve $500 spending for the recreation committee to buy broom ball equipment. Second. Any discussion? Those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Motion carries. Next item. Anything else from the rec committee? One, two, one, take the next one. All right. No, I'm good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Let's hear from the conservation committee. What are you going to present initially? Good evening. Wendy, how's it going? Wendy, you want me to start? Yeah, why don't you start and then I'll finish up. Okay. I'm going to speak a little bit very quickly about the Berlin Pond Watershed Association. It's a nonprofit approved by the state of Vermont whose mission is to protect habitat, scenic resources, recreation and natural areas in the Berlin Pond Watershed. And it was formed recently to start a fundraising effort to preserve 33 acres of the so-called Crandall Farm. And I don't need to go into it because I think the select board gave us a letter of support for the acquisition of that land maybe a month ago. So now we're back and we'd like to request while the Berlin Pond Watershed Association has been doing this fundraising and it's a $294,000 project, kind of a complicated project, but roughly $300,000 plus some indirect surveying and appraisals and so forth. And we're requesting to use $15,000 from the town conservation fund. We have applied for a VHCD Vermont Housing Conservation Board grant. We applied for a grant of about $200,000. We may not get that much, but we in that grant application, we put $15,000 in that budget as part of this complex budget that would come from the town of Berlin's Conservation Fund. Town of Berlin's Conservation Fund presently has a balance of $49,000. And if you look at the criteria of the fund, I think this project fits perfectly. And the conservation fund requires the Conservation Commission and the Recreation Board to make a recommendation to the select board for the use of the fund. So that's where we are today. And I think Wendy will speak for the Conservation Commission. And I believe that you have a letter that is from the Conservation Commission approving or saying that we approve the use of these funds. We had a meeting, we looked over the project, we looked over the criteria to use this conservation fund which is dedicated to this type of a project for conserving land in Berlin, specifically in the watershed is an area of concern. And we discussed it in the committee voted unanimously to support the use of the 15,000 and put it towards the Berlin on watershed association project of the Crandall farm. Any questions as far as the Conservation Commission goes? Anybody? Yes, I just had one, Justin. Dave Sawyer, I just, in reading the letter that I wrote, I just wanted to make sure that that 15,000, the way I understood it to be is for the deposit and closing costs, it wouldn't be for any of the fundraising efforts, would it? No, the $13,000 of the 15,000 goes toward the purchase price and then 2,000 goes toward the survey and appraisals. For a total of 15,000. Okay, all right, I just wanted to make sure, thank you. Anybody else? Yeah, I'm a little confused about how this is gonna work. So at the last meeting, we approved with a letter of support for this project. There was no mention of us approving funds for this. It was sold as privately funded with a grant application to, I can't remember the... For my housing conservation or whatever. And so now we're being asked to give some money towards the purchase price, but it was my understanding that there are two different private groups that are buying this property, not necessarily a non-profit watershed group. So is it the watershed group that's actually paying for this, or is it private entities that are paying for this hoping being reimbursed through a grant at the state level? Well, so the crux of the question is, are we giving money to private landowners that are hoping to get money back from a state grant that will then turn the property over to the watershed? The way it works, John, is that the property had originally went on the market, it had four lots and there were... Each of the lots, there was a right of first refusal for some of the family members. They had a buyer, the realtor had a buyer for two of the lots and prior to the expiration of the right of first refusal, we had a conservation buyer, two conservation buyers that stepped in and exercised the right of first refusal in order to hold the land in time for funds to be raised in order to protect the land from development. So I guess to answer your question, two of the lots were purchased by a conservation buyer by two different conservation buyers in order to preclude the closing to a private buyer and to hold the property until they could then sell it to with proper easements to protect the land, that help? I think so. I'm just there with me for a minute, Tom. So the conservation buyers are private citizens that are buying in hopes to conserve it as part of the watershed, if they can be reimbursed from the state grant or are they turning it over either way? They don't want to hold the land. In fact, at least one of the buyers has told us that they can't hold it. They'll sell it again for residential uses if we can't come through and purchase it to protect it with the proper easements. Okay, so am I right in the way I'm thinking about this? So we're potentially by paying for part of a land that someone could say, okay, I'm gonna turn around and sell this for residential development now because the loan didn't work out or the grant didn't work out. Or am I thinking about it wrong? No, if for any reason, the project doesn't go through and we don't protect the land for conservation, and then the money would be returned to the town's conservation fund. Okay. That's actually a condition in the conservation fund rules. Okay. All right, that's helpful, thank you. Anything, anybody else have any questions, comments? I guess my only other question was around the first part of my statement of two weeks ago, during our last meeting, we were asked for a letter of support with no mention of asking for funds. And so now we're asking for funds. If the grant doesn't come out to the full amount, is the conservation board potentially gonna come back and ask for more funds to ensure the project goes through? No, there's no plans. There's a number of different sources. In fact, I think, let's see, I think John Quinn and Justin Lawrence and Vince, anybody in the Berlin Pond Watershed, either in the town of Berlin and Northfield, letters were sent out yesterday for the initiation of a private fundraising efforts. He's gonna be giving it up. No, there's a lot of different parts. I do want to comment that the last time I was here asked for the letter of support, if there's a recording, I think I did say, I'll be back. Sneaky. Have you entered into any sort of formal contract with the people? I'm sorry? Have you signed like any sort of purchase and sales agreement or any conditions or have you signed anything yet? There's three lots. One of the lots, the city has a purchase and sales agreement with the south city of Montpelier does. On the lower lot, the purchase and sales agreement has to be either a purchase and sales agreement or a letter of intent. I'm not completely clear what the Vermont Housing Conservation Board's gonna require, but whatever their requirement is as part of the grant that either letter of intent or purchase and sales agreement will be executed prior to the awarding of the grant. But it has not been done yet. I was just wondering like if the board would want to see any contract language at some point, obviously, before too much further. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think this is an appropriate use of the money and I think it's a good use. I just want to make sure we're protected if we're aligning things. And as we've seen with the town center stuff, things don't always go the way they think they're going to, right? So I just want to make sure we're protected financially that we're not just giving money away accidentally and that we have all of our ducks in a row. But it sounds like things are aligned fairly well. So thank you, Tom. Yes, you're welcome. Thank you. Anything else? We're moving on or are we making a motion? Okay. I guess we'll have to bring this up at the next meeting or something. We'll put it back on the agenda. Sounds like nobody's making a motion for us tonight. I'd make the motion to take and appropriate the funds for the conservation committee to buy the help purchase the land. Is there a second? I'll second her. Any discussion? Are we going to pull that money out of the fund balance maybe? Looks like on the reserves rather. I guess I need a little bit more information so I understand what that means Diane. Just so I'm a little fuzzy in my head about. So the conservation committee has a bank account with X amount of dollars in it and then you're talking about the fund reserve. So just for everyone in the viewing audience to make sure I'm clear, can you explain? Yeah, because everything to the conservation commission is in the reserve. And right now we have 48,633.42 in the reserve. So if they were to use 15,000, it would come out of that 48,633. Right, which is what I think Mr. Willard has asked for, right? Right, that's mine. That's the way I'm understanding it. Okay, so Justin, when you said to take it out of fund balance, is that something different in your mind or is that the same? No, I think we're good, there's a lot. Yeah, they're restricted, it's coming out of the reserve. Yeah, not restricted, but. Yeah, okay, any other discussion? Is that your intent with the motion Brad? Yeah, good, yep, good. Those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All right, motion carries. Thank you guys. Thank you all. Thank you. We have a loop point into the Conservation Commission request for approval. Yeah, Ellen? Yeah. We love, I don't see the list that I eat it. I don't know where it's in the documents, but it's also along as well. And I'm on the commission now for some time and has to continue on in your role. I make the motion to reappoint Ellen Sulek to the Berlin Conservation Commission for another term. Second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Next up, we've got a public works board briefing, new position, Tom, it looks like you're on. No, Tom's not with us. Oh, I thought I saw, but I thought I saw Tom, but I was on there. All right, so the chair of the public works couldn't be with us. He wanted to pass that on and he's sorry he couldn't attend, but they did draft. I hope you all had time to review that or not. Hopefully you have, to some extent, what the job title, the descriptions, the duties and responsibilities of that position and the qualifications that they'll be looking for to fill that position. One of the things that the public works board is recommending that this be the start of the first person for a public works department. That's why they're putting it at the supervisor level. This position will also replace the two consultants that we currently have that are filling that role at present time. How much do we spend on those consultants? We spend just on their contracts. It doesn't include any repairs or work that's done. We spend about $88,000, a little over $88,000. 53,676 for Mr. Mercier and the contract with Simons is 34,680, which again, as I said, and to confirm with Diane, it does not include any repairs that they get paid about beyond that. So what does that actually cover? Mr. McClare? On call, being on call with Simons, it does include reader readings. Yeah. They still charge us a little bit separate for that. So we pay that much just for on call, that's all they do? Oh. I don't know. We get charged additional work. They have to come in and do repairs and work. Both of them. We pay about beyond that, based on their contract. Yep. So I have some questions based on what you just said. Okay. Seems like a good contract. All right. So it seems like we have two completely different paths here, right? Like one is a daytime job of meter reading, right? The other could potentially be on call after hours, great fix, nights and weekends, which we would still be on the hook for, even if we got someone. So we spend $88,000 between the two of those positions so if you look at just the after hours slash break fix, which can potentially be after hours, how much of that is in that piece? I guess I'm trying to figure out, like are we still gonna have that piece afterwards potentially if we hire a new employee to start a public works department? It sounds to me like we need to look at that. We need to look at the contracts too. Right. You know, to me it's on call, I'm sure there's more to it. However, if somebody does have to go nights or weekends, there's additional fees that are out of them we pay to. If there's repairs, we pay for the repairs and we pay for the time for that person to do the repairs. It doesn't matter if it's during the day or you know, after hours. Yeah, no, no, I get it, Diane, but we wouldn't pay for those repairs even if it was our people because it would be materials, right? Correct, that's why we didn't put it in that amount. The amount that Vince Gaby does not include the repairs or the time for the repairs. So if we're looking to replace positions, don't you think it would make sense to know what we're actually replacing? We're not really, we're just reading, I mean, we're taking on new role. I mean, is this what I'm just confused but is this job description exactly what they're doing now for us? Between the two contractors and the two contractors and it basically kind of outlines what they are doing for us. Is my understanding, yes. Yeah, not completely wrong. I didn't know if they, because you were saying two different paths through John, I just wanted to make sure we're covering all the same things as we continue to grow and expand the water, right? This guy, you know, part of his qualifications is going to be to oversee that work on a daily basis that's going on. So Vince. Yes. What are, what are the credentials that we're looking for? It's those minimum qualifications are on here as well. Looking at five years of general construction and municipal experience with at least three years of supervisory experience or lead experience. It needs a class two water operators license, high school diploma equivalent, able to operate a public works boards, vehicles and equipment, pass a physical and a drug screening. So those are the minimum. Who are they going to be accountable to? That's going to supervise them. I initially until we phase out the board, it would be the board and then it falls on me. I'm going to CEO. Yeah. So what's Tom's role? Yes. Well, Tom's role will change at that point. If we start a public works department and this guy will be the oversight of that department reporting to me. So instead of a public works board, it'll be this public works individual reporting to the town administrator. And that will come off from Tom's plate. Under the description, Vince, was there information under 12 through 15 underneath the duties and responsibilities that were to be included or were they just removed? All through 15. Yeah, I think that's just a tight ball. Okay. Yeah. And then they're talking, they're going to pay this out of the other fund, right? Out of the enterprise fund or whatever. Out of the public. Yep. Out of the water. Yeah. I get it's going to be an enterprise fund. That's going to pay for this. I guess I'm just, I'm a little nervous about taking on a first employee before it's super defined. And I'm looking at the draft here, but I'm still not, I'm not a hundred percent sold that we're asking for a management position without any employees. How quickly do we plan on ramping up? How quickly are we going to ask when are we going to ask for our second employee or our third employee? That's, again, that would be, well, for this employee personally backup, this employee they're looking at, they would be looking at the board starting to interview in March for probably a two or three months period. And then spending that based on who they hire, they would spend the next three months working with the consultants to learn the systems and the ins and outs with both those consultants and then we'd be finished with the consultants and they would take it on full-time themselves. As far as the second part of your question, when would we be looking for another member or whatever? I think that would have to be determined by the board at that time based on the planned and scheduled growth. If it continues to grow at a certain rate and we have more systems in and there's more work going on, is there then a need for if and when there is a need, we'd have to bring it back in front of the board to make that decision and determination. Yeah, I think it's going to be pretty quick. So that's just my opinion. So I guess, looking at this, our fully loaded rate Diane for the employee, what do we expect it to be with? Assume the worst for health insurance, what do we expect? I've got those numbers. I gave that to Ben. Diane's already provided that. So I'm looking through the documents. I don't see it. So help me. I did not send that out, but I did anticipate the question. Okay. So Diane had provided the information. So again, the Public Works Board was recommending a starting salary of around 80,000. So the SSI employer match is 6120. The pension match is 5,400. Workers comp is 6,040. Health insurance, worst case, as you said, the family members of 29,000. Disability insurance is another 700. So all in, all said and done, at that rate is 127-260. Okay. So just from my little brain here, remind me, what's the value of having this employee rather than having two contractors for only 88,000? What does it get us? So everyone that's listening or watches the video can hear. Oh, I get it. And that's the piece that's kind of, I don't want to say it's missing, but we'd have to calculate that. And I can get those numbers. We can figure that out with Diane tomorrow. What we're paying those two contractors above and beyond their contract price. Okay. Can I just jump in here real quick, Vets? And correct me if I'm wrong, but out of these two contracts, not Simons with the other contract, the individual that has had that contract has had it for a number of years and is very familiar with our source system and everything that goes on with it. And at this point, I may be misunderstanding, but he's looking into probably retiring in the near future. And the knowledge that that individual holds, I'm not gonna say it's exclusive, but it's in a place that we have to get it to somebody to be able to continue service in our systems. Is that correct? Yes, he is getting to the point where he's gonna be looking at retiring and we'll lose that experience of knowledge. That is one thing we have to consider as well. Yeah, I think that's the biggest factor on that one contract. I mean, is having somebody that he can mentor or whatever on the town's behalf, because there's knowledge there that if it goes, we're gonna be in not a very good position. What do we have, and to go along with that, I'd be wondering, I'd wonder what we have in place to make a historical record of all that so that we have that information once. We don't have anything in place right now. So it's something we have to consider and I'll make a note of that. The inventory, yeah. Yeah, I guess for me, I'll just say what I'm gonna say and then leave with my piece, knowing I'm not running again, so this is really gonna be the next board's work. But two things, one is I would make sure that the value is explained to the rate payer, right? Because right now in my head, it doesn't make sense. And I'm sure there's a good reason for it. And even if it's continuity and where we're headed, that sounds like a great reason, but I think it really needs to be documented and well-spelled out. So I will get that explanation from the current board chair. Yeah, he does have a little word. He sure does. I just wanna put it out to the request. The second piece is when you go to interview, I would strongly suggest asking a couple of our neighbors to participate, whether it be Norfield and Barry or Maupillier and Waterbury, have a couple of people that already do this on the interview committee to make sure that we get what we're looking for. And it's not just the select board. God love us, but we're not experts in this area and we wanna make sure we get the right person out of the gate. That's it. Got it. Makes sense. Perfect. And what about maybe a plan? Do we have like a five-year, we have any projections on the department? What assistance would it need? Well, how we would support any girls with that at all? Or is it just we've kind of taken it as it comes? I think there's maybe a two or three, but not out to five yet. Okay. So good work in progress. Anybody else have any comment on this? So what I'll do, Justin, is I'm gonna reach out to the chair of the board again, have a discussion with him and bring up a couple of these issues. And again, they're anxious to move forward. It's just unfortunate that he couldn't be here. I'll get some of those, I'll get those answers from him and see when he might be able to come before the board himself. He can explain it and obviously a lot more detail. He's got the day-to-day on that again, because their goal is they would like to start advertising and start talking to people in March. So what, you know, I think with that, we'd also wanna have a look at the current contracts and see how much overlap we're gonna have. Because, you know, I don't know if you even know when they expire or when we have to do something by what the renewal provisions are in there. Because I do have copies of the contract. Okay. So we have them. We'll just pull them to take a look. Perfect. Anything else? All right. Next board, I'll have fun with that. I'm ready for the next one. Oh yeah. Better start working then. So approval of license permits, vouchers and applications. Including liquor license. Yeah. That's it. I make the motion to approve payroll warrant 22-15 for payroll from January 16th, 2022 to January 29th, 2022, paid on February 2nd, 2022, in the amount of $49,190.71. Payable warrant 22G15 with checks 21,743 to 21,781 in the amount of 182,891. $57.18. Also January reconciled bank statements for the general fund and sewer water checking accounts in the December and January journal entries. Also, we have the liquor licenses for approval and make the motion on all of these. Four of them are second class, Kinney Drugs, number 11, Price Chopper, number 123, Berlin Jolly, number 137. We have first class and third class for wayside restaurant. Applebee's is first class and third class and Maplewood is second class. All right, I would second it. Any discussion? Those in favor say aye. Aye. Gary. Approval of minutes for the meeting of the 20th of December, 2021, January 3rd and January 17th, both of 2022. I make the motion that we penned all three of these minutes for review and bring them back to the next meeting, specifically for some changes in terms of those who are in attendance. We have some people that were here electronically that we do not have full names for and maybe just a different way of differentiating that. So Flo, what you're asking is that it be differentiated between who's in attendance physically and virtually? Basically the way they were presented to us, John, there's question marks behind the names of attendees and I'm thinking maybe a different way of presenting that in the minutes. Maybe it could be listed toward the end that these were virtual participants and just by first name only, something to that nature. I understand what you're saying now. That makes sense. Okay, thank you. So I'll make the motion that we amend the minutes, all three of the minutes that were on tonight's agenda and bring them to next meeting for approval. I'll second that motion. Any discussion? Those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. We'll get to round table. We'll get to Vince last because he'll have something. Well, do you have anything for round table, Tim? You have to sign that Du Bois invoice in there in the purple. Okay, I'll do that before I leave. John, anything? I'm good. Brad? No, I'm outside. Justin, I actually do have something. Oh, okay, go ahead, I guess. Sorry, I think Vince has noticed, I think the police department has noticed there seems to be a lot of traffic parking right in front of the no parking signs on the probably the worst part of Brookfield Road. Oh, you're a shill. You're the one with the lily. Yeah, oh yeah. Yes, the answer to the question is yes, we have noticed. And I'm trying to, I don't know why that's happening because in past years it hasn't. Nothing has changed as far as being able to drive up in there and park. But I'm certainly interested in your guys' perspective on what's going on there and how we fix it because on multiple cases, I hear from people that are walking by about how dangerous it seems. And I see people parking there and carrying their skis up and putting them on in the parking lot and skiing up the trail. So I'm really confused on why it's happening and you probably don't have a good answer. And I certainly don't wanna ticket people for trying to get out and recreate on our trails but we gotta do something. And it wasn't a problem before. So I'm interested in your guys' opinions as far as what's going on. Oh, I could speak to that a little bit and I agree with you. I'm not sure what's changed. The fact is that the town's never plowed that. It used to be done, I understand if it was done it was done by some volunteer just on their own and nobody knows who or when or what or why. But nothing's changed there. There was a Subaru parked up in there earlier today and a pickup parked on the road a four-wheel-drive pickup. So I mean, why didn't he drive up in there? I don't know. I will tell you we won't have this problem next year because I do have to sign an agreement from my player to put the parking in. So that will be installed sometime next summer. We'll get it on the schedule and we'll get that built. So there will be parking up there and that problem will go away after this winter. All right, well, I hope so. What do we do for the winter? I don't know, keep putting notes on there to move your vehicle or get a ticket if you offend it, you know, do a second offense. I know we're speaking to some of the officers, John. They've been, they keep record of it. So if it's a second of time, they were gonna start issuing tickets. The first time was a warning, second time was a ticket. Same things happening on Crosstown now actually. The Boyer Forest over there, there was somebody parked on the inside of the corner over there today. This morning when it came to work, somebody went over and plowed the parking area out so they were getting off the road. Yeah. But, I guess, yeah. I'm thinking it's more people out doing recreational stuff since everything else in this world, it seems to be that that part of the recreational, of everything is picked up. So maybe it's new people that are so much. I like your thinking, but I'm not buying it because I think in 2020, we had the, we had the, you know, everyone staying home looking to get out and do something. But. I'm gonna get out of my seat, I don't have them now. So that being said, I just want the problem to be fixed before someone gets hurt. I'm not looking for anyone to get ticketed or anything like that. Everyone's trying to have fun, but there's something strange about why people are parking on the road all of a sudden. I don't get it. Should we ask either the conservation committee or the rec board to look at that for us and figure it out, maybe like following? Yeah, I guess the reason I bring it up is this is definitely not a snow machine issue. There's no snow machine trailers. There's nothing like that here. I see the people all the time, they're skiers, they're walkers, it's everyone else. And there's plenty of parking. So it's definitely not a snow machine issue. And I don't want it to be conveyed as that because it's certainly not. It's very clear it's not, you know, whether it's placement of signs or whatever it is. I just, I wanted to highlight it for the board as something to watch in the future because, you know, I won't be here. Thank you. Dave, did you have anything? No, I'm good. Well, same. I'm good. I'm good. There you go, buddy. Take the floor. All I've got is, I need signatures, right? We need more signatures on the liquor licenses. Yep. That we need to get. And on the Ellen Sulek letter. Okay, how about the next meeting? Is that falls on a holiday? Yeah. Yeah. It's the 21st is actually a cancel that's going to be here. Well, that's also what we scheduled for our pre town meeting on the 21st. So it'll be difficult to change that because it's also in the town report. Oh, yeah. Which please pick up the copy on the way out. If you like. I don't really, how do you guys feel about it? It's president. Yeah. I don't really, how do you guys feel about it? It's president's day. I know probably president's weekend. We can join virtually. So I feeling is just do it anyways. Just get the meeting. Yeah. Yep. I feel we need to, it's published and. Okay. So anything else? Nope. Signatures. That's all. Do you want to remind us again? I'd love to. Sure. Oh, okay. Excellent. For those of you that are virtual, except for you, maybe Mr. Sawyer, I'm happy to bring the documents out or around if you need me. If that's easier for you guys. I'll leave my truck unlocked for you tonight. Okay. I'll drop them off tonight and pick them up on the way through in the morning. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you, John. I don't have any executive session and do events. No, I can't. I entertain a motion to adjourn. I make the motion to adjourn tonight's meeting. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.