 So let's call the meeting to order. It is, I don't know, seven, whatever. Katie's got the time, right? Okay. Public comment for items not on the agenda. And we put, we put these two items on the agenda at the advice of. Attorneys and the league that you should always put these items on the agenda first. Okay. So, I'm going to move on to the agenda. Just to open up the discussion if needed. Any additions or changes to the agenda? All right. Let's move on then. Toby, I see you're there. Yeah. You were going to give us an update on what you found out about having a panic button at the town office. Yep. I talked to Ben at mountain security. He can put a panic button in. It does a dial out to their dispatch agency, which then we contact the state police. We're going to contact the city. We're going to contact the city. The city. And the cost is between $4 and $500. And it's a $26 a month. Service fee. In addition to what we'd be paying for the other. Call out options. Correct. For the fire alarm. That's correct. Yeah. Okay. So we would have John. I'm playing catch up here. Why do we need a panic button? I'll let the town office staff answer that. This is the first time I've heard of it. I think it came up in the context of other security that we were getting. Alfred Larraby. Join the meeting. Hi, Alfred. So that's how I think that's how it came up. Judy is it's something that's been discussed in the past. Okay. Anybody have any questions for Toby about it? John. Well, so, I mean, I want to hear that there's a need. And what the need is. And you know, I would support that. If there's a need and if I'm convinced there's a need. But I've heard nothing in that regard. I echo that sentiment. Yeah. Me too. I can, I can speak to in the past when there's been a lot of traffic. In the office. There have been some contentious moments. And actually what we do is we generally call Toby. Or someone. Who has a commanding presence, I might say. Who comes and joins us and stays with us until the person leaves. That's happened. I think twice. In 10 years. Right now we have very little traffic. Because we're closed. And I'm not sure how long we're going to be closed, but it's very minor and we keep the door locked and people come by appointment. So I would say that. It's reduced need now. John. So my understanding is the panic button. Relaying entity. Who would either call. There's a fire and a fire department. Or if there's a. A safety concern to police. And then we need to ruminate on whether we think. Bringing the state police in. In those. Those two examples that Judy made reference to over 10 years, whether Judy or other office staff think that they would have wanted state police to show up. And they were they called the state police, which they could have dialed 911 on the phone anyway. It's not like. You know what I mean? It's a nine to three digit number. Rather than hitting a button. And they're behind a booth. I don't understand it. Frankly, it's not a bank. So Sharon had her hand up first, Barbara. So. I just want minutes to see where, what the genesis was. And I. Katie, maybe you remember. It was at our last meeting. We talked about it. Yeah. It came up at our last meeting as something that. We thought we would check out because it has come up before. I think Cliff wanted to. And I'm, well, I'm not seeing it in the minutes at all. If that, if that meeting was on June. Yeah. Okay. Then, then all I wanted to do is, is I will find it because that should tell us why we're talking about it now. Barbara had her hand up first. So I can just take to past work experience. That not at the town office, previous employment experiences. Is that it's really an insurance policy. You want it in place for when you need it. You don't want to be in a position where somebody who's being contentious. Or abusive comes in. And then you're calling 911 or the police in front of them. And it just sets them off more. Sometimes you need to discreetly call for help. And so while there isn't the, I agree with Judy, any past need has certain needs. And I think it's important that you have the, you know, you know, you know, you know, there isn't the, I agree with Judy, any past need has certainly diminished at this point. Cause the office is closed. But when we reopen, it's simply an insurance policy that, that you don't want to wait until it's too late and you wish you would have it to save a life or two. Thanks Barbara. Cliff. Yeah, I just wanted to speak to the question about the genesis of this. I think it's a little bit different. I think it came up way back when we were upgrading the phone system within the office. And the question was asked, is this something that we could include as part of the phone system that we installed? So when we circled back around to the subject of. Activating a fire alarm system. At the town office. And that's what brings us to the discussion we're having here tonight. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. Any further comments? John. So. And to Barbara's comment and concern. If it seems to be good. I mean, my, my phone, I can program. I can program in, I think up to 10 or 20 numbers. And I could put it under my table here. And hit that program button. And if 911 were in there, they would not see me. It would be no different than me hitting a button under the desk. I just don't see spending $600 of taxpayer money and then 26 dollars a month in the off chance that. You know, some nut case where the gun's going to come in, which they could do very well, but I don't, I don't, I don't have that concern living in Calis right now, frankly, but I don't work in the office. I right now, I don't think I don't see the need for it. I think the, I think there are other options. They're. More practical. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that the office is in a very remote location. So Judy, would you like to weigh in any further? Just that if the state police are called, it often takes half an hour to 45 minutes for them to come. So I'm just making a point. Yeah. Barbara. Yeah. And I'm not necessarily advocating it. I just want to respond to John's comment. Thank you. Some of us don't have a cell phone. I don't. I don't have a cell phone. I don't have a cell phone. I don't have a cell phone. I'm talking about the phones you have in the office, Barb. These, these are all programmable. I didn't mean to. This is a landline. Okay. Does the board want to make a decision tonight? Or do you want to think about it further? Rose. I'll make a motion. I make a motion that. We table to sometime in the future. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I'm just going to pan it back in at the town office. For security reasons. At this time. The select board. Heard the concerns of the office staff and don't feel it's a necessary expense. Does anybody want to second that? I think I'm willing to second it. I think what I am. And this is not the important part of your motion. I think we heard. I think that's a good idea. I think we're going to have to. Kind of mix things from the office staff right now. Is that a fair thing? So I don't want to, I don't want to second exactly the way you said it, Rose. Can you please. Rework it for me, Sharon. I make the motion that we. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good question. And we table this. When there seems to be a stronger consensus that this is an imperative. Can I would like to say something. I appreciate and understand and feel the concerns of the office staff. I think I would probably be a little concerned if I was there every day. Considering its remote location. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that we're just having support. Or that we don't care about their safety. Absolutely. So if it becomes a concern. You really need to let us know again. So we can have another discussion. So having said that, I would support. I would second Sharon's motion. Does anybody else want to weigh in on this, John? I'm not disagreeing with the level of concern that's been expressed. I'm not challenging it. I'm just sorting through and digesting the fact set that's been presented to me that we had two, I'm guessing I rate citizens, I rate about something. I've not heard that they threatened anybody, that they were just jacked up. And there was a need to bring Toby in, which tells me there's a real concern. Toby was there quicker than the state police could get there. And I think there are other options that are equal or two or better that cause zero money. Again, if I think, and we can do this now. So I would like, you know, that's why I disagree with tabling it. I know it's not debatable, but a table motion, but I would have made a motion that directing office staff to program their landline phones to have a button immediately trigger 911. Cause we haven't addressed a concern. There is a concern. And if those programs, if those phones were programmed, the landline phones are programmed, easy to do, to 911 and everyone was then shown how to do it. They could hit, you know, star one or whatever that program requires and they'd immediately have state police on the line. So, so can we, so might I suggest this, that we vote on the motion as made and then instruct maybe with either Toby's help or Cliff's help or somebody's help to show the office staff how to program the phones. Cause I think that's a value. And I think that's an option that we should try. Sharon. Can I just withdraw that motion? Yep. I withdraw my motion. Okay. I'll withdraw my second. So Cliff or Toby, do you know, or maybe John knows, sounds like John knows how to program the phones to do that. Cliff. Yeah, I can do that. Okay. Of course you can. He's our Mr. Technology guru. And all right. Does that sound like a reasonable option, Judy, Sandra and Barbara? I don't want to belabor the conversation, but I have to say I'm afraid we might hit it by mistake, but we can be trained on that or whatever. So. And you know, I'm open to it. If things, you know, if things are getting difficult or you, you know, you're very concerned or stuff, please let us know. Cause we obviously want to keep our office staff safe. Thank you. Appreciate your support. Thank you. Okay. Are we ready to move on? Curb cut. I went down, I drove by and looked at it over the weekend. I believe Cliff has looked at it. I believe John's looked at it. I know Alfred's online and he's looked at it. And I did send back a couple of questions, which I said I would bring up tonight. Alfred had suggested that they need to follow the B71 standards, 15 inch culvert and something else you said, Alfred, but now I can't remember. Oh, cutting away some of the brush. So those were Alfred's concerns. My questions are, is it the, is the curb cut going in the location where it used to be? Is it an existing curb cut? And to say, I'm excuse, I'm sorry, what? The answer to your first question is no. Okay. Brand new curb cut. Okay. And is that the place that used to be a little camp that had the rowboats and they sold bait Alfred, do you remember? It used to belong to Roy Ball years ago. Right. But was that the place? I'm just trying to get my, make sure I'm not thinking the same place. No, it wasn't. It wasn't this, I'm sorry, what? It's across the street. It's not on the lakeside. So where, where the curb cut is, it's not on the lakeside. It is not on the lakeside. Then I think I'm lost. And that's why I suggested a site visit. So the work that's being done on the lake where that camp is being rebuilt, that's not your project? That's a separate project. That's our project. Aha. I went to the wrong project. Me too. So the location, the location is just beyond Daily Road on the left-hand side. Right. There's a stake showing the center of where the new curb cut will appear. Okay. And again, how, where will that water drain into the ditch? I'm happy to answer that question. Again, my name is Jeff O'Leiske with Catamel Consulting Engineers. Yeah. As currently designed right now, there's really no ditch line on the west side of Nelson Pond Road. That road is slightly crowned, but for the most part, everything on the west side of that road drains to the north. And then approximately the area where Dan and Christina's driveway is now, it just kind of meticulates and sheet flows across Nelson Pond Road and then into Forest Lake. Is that your understanding, Dan, of generally how things drain there or maybe Alfredo Topey have some more insight, but based on the topography that we shot with the survey, that's our understanding of how it drains now. It is, I think, but I think, you know, remember that where the curb cut is, is quite a ways up the street from where our property is. So I think it likely is draining across the street long before it ever gets to our driveway. And likely things, you know, down into the wooded area across the street from ours on the lakeside of the property. Okay, so you're across the road. So is it near where Jim Thompson used to live? No. Completely opposite of the road. Ms. Wheeler, if it would help at all, I could screen share the proposed site plan right now and help get people oriented if you thought that would be any benefit. That would be helpful. Yes, I think that would be helpful. Yeah, okay. Let me make sure I can do this. Cliff might have to. I'll make a screen share for you. I think, can anybody see that? There's nothing there. Oh, there we go. How do we need to make it a little bit bigger? Let's see if we can do full screen. It's the best I can do there. Is that, so ultimately this property right here as I outlined it is the property in question. This smaller rectangular lot here is Dan and Christina's existing camp and house right here. And they have a driveway that's right in front of the house. And so they recently purchased this property which is fully wooded over here on the right side is the actual lake. This corridor here is Nelson Pond Road and this is Daly Road here. So as you head north on Nelson Pond Road just past Daly, we'd be looking to install a new curb cut here. And then there'd be a little bit of a switchback driveway up to what amounts to a larger plateau where Dan and Christina would like to put the proposed garage. And Daly Road is the road that takes you into the back where all those camps are? Yes. Okay, I got my bearings now. So this is there an existing curb cut there now? There's not, no. How do they get in and out of their property that if there's no curb cut? It's undeveloped right now. It's just a wooded lot. But don't they get into their house where you showed us? So this is their existing, so it's two separate properties. So Dan and Christina have owned this property for some time. They just bought this property recently. To my knowledge, it was just undeveloped wooded lot. So essentially now they own two properties and they're looking to build a accessory structure to support their existing house. So it's a garage and not a residence? Correct, it's just the garage, storage garage, yes. And it's not likely to become, you turned into a residence? No plans to, no. I can't see everybody with the screen. Does anybody have any? No, John, that's a question. John and then Sharon. So just please help educate me. I'm sorry. So this already has a zoning permit? Is it a zoning permit? It already has a zoning permit. Okay. And it meets all the Lakeshore zoning district setbacks and all the requirements? Both at the town level as well as the state level. Okay, and was this issued by the zoning administrator or did it go to the DRB? The zoning administrator. Okay. Sharon? So I pulled up our curb cut ordinance. Yeah, I've got it right here. And the criteria against which we evaluate a curb cut are three points and then there's another section. But starting with the three, and so this turns into a question to Toby and Alfred, or Toby, I don't know if you went out and looked, but Alfred, I think you did. If assuming that one or both of you was looking at the right space or right spot, then the criteria are stopping site distance to the intersection, minimum corner site for turning and ability to exit and enter the main travel way safely. So those are fairly broadly stated and I think there might be opportunity for the select board to revisit this policy and maybe be more clear about what is stopping site distance? What is the minimum corner site? But in any case, those are the three criteria under that section. And then later on there's points or opportunities to put in conditions related to covert grades, angles, et cetera. So my question is to Toby and or Alfred is whether you evaluated based on stopping site distance, minimum corner site for turning, ability to exit and enter the main travel way safely. Three points, if you evaluated, what did you find on each of those points? And I think that it also refers to the V71, which Alfred mentioned in his email. And I think he answered some of those same questions that we would have. So Alfred, can you respond? Yes, I most certainly took all those factors into account and they are spelled out in my comments via email. So the site distance needs to be 300 feet is what it requires. And so it's gonna require a little bit of brush clearing to achieve that. The A71 will take care of the corners and grade issues. The biggest concern is the water that's gonna be coming off of that now in Pervious Road. And so that's where the A71 will take care of that. Okay, is that 300 feet site distance in either direction? That's correct. Alfred, is it A71 or B71? It might be B71. It's B71. Yeah. And so that is a state set of criteria that loops us back to corner site. That's correct. And then you had the... It covers all bases, that B71 covers all bases. It covers the grade, covers the pitch coming down to the road where it meets the road to prevent water from coming into the road. The corners that you speak of, it covers all of that. Okay. As long as the contractor follows that standard, I don't see it being a problem. So B71, that's what we use on even like the county road and stuff, we use those standards. That's correct. Yeah. And you mentioned something about a 15 inch covert. Well, as Jeff said, there's not a lot of water being dealt with there as of right now. And there's ledge that sticks up just below the driveway. So it's gonna be kind of hard to move water, but I just don't wanna see water sitting at his driveway. You know what I mean? At the upper end of his driveway, if there is water that comes off of the town road and hits his, follows the ditch down to his driveway, I just don't wanna see water sitting there. So I really think that every curb cut should have a culvert whether it looks like it needs it or not, just because the town will be able to make a ditch in the future and maintain that water. So is that what you're recommending that they figure out a way to put in a 15 inch culvert? Yes. And I believe that was in my comments as well. Yes, it was. So Jeff, what are the, hold on, let's say, Jeff, can you make that work? Yeah, absolutely. And we did receive Alfred's comments via email. It did, I believe Dan maybe forwarded our reply at one point over the last week or so, but if the B71 standard is what the town is required, we can certainly accommodate that and we can't incorporate a culvert underneath the road. I think there were a couple of mitigating factors as to why we didn't propose one initially and I think Alfred touched on a little bit of that. I guess one is, again, there's real no ditch line in there right now. So we could certainly incorporate a culvert in underneath the curb cut here, but the inlet and outlet really won't be going anywhere. But it will provide a drainage relief and a low point, if nothing else for water to be stored temporarily. The other thing that I wanted to point out that it's not shown on our site plan, but just south of this proposed curb cut. And I think it may even be before we get to the actual property line, there's an existing culvert that actually goes underneath Nelson Pond Road, kind of if everybody's still looking at the screen share, somewhere right around here. And one thing that we could also consider was instead of, because the B71 standard is an AOT standard for driveways and curb cuts, but it really only requires a culvert to be put in if there's an actual drainage way there now. And I guess something we'd like to propose as alternative is if we have enough grade to drain the water on the low side of the curb cut back into that culvert and then everything in the north side can still run down Nelson Pond Road, it may negate the need to have it. So essentially the curb cut would be the high point between two drainage divides. And one other thing I wanted to point out was is to keep in mind is that the majority of this driveway and garage and everything really will be draining onsite. So the amount of water that's added to the flow associated with Nelson Pond Road is really just gonna be relegated to the entrance area here or we can make it that way. So I just want to wayla anybody's concerns that we're gonna be discharging a significant amount of water out on Nelson Pond Road or are creating a drainage issue for the town to have to maintain. So let me ask you a question on this drawing where you show the garage being located and the twisty turn is that the driveway? Yeah, this is the driveway. And what's the grade of the driveway? As it's shown right now is 14% and I believe 15% was the threshold within the town requirements regulations. So we were able to get underneath that. And we obviously have the house itself or the garage itself and the plateau is would all be flat. But we do acknowledge and note that there obviously is a significant grade change between where the garage is going and the road, which is why we have the switchback configuration and the grade that we are dealing with. And is the garage is just gonna be used for your garage? It's not gonna be any place where somebody's gonna be using it to work on equipment so that there would be, if there was a leakage or something it would. Yeah, I think it's just like boat storage or car storage, Dan. I mean, can you weigh in on that? This is seasonal storage. I can't hear you. It's just seasonal storage. Is that, but is that set out in the permit? Where that is a criteria or a condition of the permit that it's just for seasonal storage? It's a garage. I shouldn't say seasonal, it's a garage. It's not a work. It's not a work, it's just the store, both in furniture and it's just a garage. Well, right now, right now, right? I mean, that's kind of, I think where, at least where I would be coming from is that's what it is now, but the only place that that expectation lives on is in the permit. And Sharon, if it was to change use like that, they would have to get a change of use permit. If that use, if the use is clearly and specifically enough stated in the application. So if they say it's a garage and it's approved as a garage, then a garage is a garage and you can use a garage for lots of other things. If it's a garage for seasonal storing of regular homeowner equipment, that's different than a garage that could be used subject to a broader interpretation is what I'm saying. Right. And that's what I was getting at when I asked what kind of stuff would be happening there to make sure there wouldn't be any heavy equipment, car, kind of a workshop place where there might be a spill that would run down the driveway. Right. But the teeth on that answer, Denise, is what's in the permit. It's not in what they respond here. Our authority is on curb cut. That's correct. That's what we're talking about today. Right. So what's going to be used for those kinds of questions we need to be answering by looking at the permit and relying on the permit for the for the enforceability, if you will, or the long-term expectation of that, not this conversation around curb cut, if that makes any sense. So it's good information, but it doesn't change that this is what the permit is issued for and that's what's going to be carried with the title on the property. So we can put into our, if we decide to issue the curb cut, what are folks thinking? Do we want to do an actual site visit? Do we want to look at the permit? Do you want to approve this tonight with conditions that we discussed? Rose, what are your thoughts? Rose? Hi. I almost feel like I don't have enough information and I would be in favor of having an onsite site visit. And I also would like to read the zoning permit. It just makes me think that this is an awful lot of cost and engineering to put a garage in the middle of the woods. And it makes me beg the question, are they going to start with a garage and then build a really nice big house and then sell off their current house where they live now? So I just would like a little bit more information. So future. But the curb cut, Rose, it's a curb cut is what we're talking about tonight. It's not whether they're going to build a mansion down the road that the building permit already covers that. So I think what I'm hearing is the board would like to do a site visit at the right location and review the permit that was issued. So we know what we're issuing a curb cut for. This is Dan George. Adise, I think I already shared the actual permit with the board. Again, the permit specifies that we're building a garage. That's it. I thought the purpose of this meeting was to talk about a curb cut. It is. And that's within the board. That's what the board can do with issue a curb cut but the board can also request additional information and a chance to do a site visit. The board isn't tied to making a decision tonight. We've offered to do multiple site visits. So we're happy to do it. Okay. I haven't, Cliff, are you still there? Yeah, I'm here. Would you like to weigh in? Yeah, I did attempt to do a site visit and was mistaken about the location of the curb cut. I would feel better if I could go back and look at it and look at the proper location. I did walk the entire length from whatever the intersection road is daily or whatever all the way to the house, the first house there on the left-hand side. So I think I have a pretty good idea where it is but for my own edification, I would like to look at it again and just verify it. And John? Yeah, I guess I would agree. I attempted to, or I thought I had done a curb cut review and I reviewed the wrong property. My understanding is there's no work underway, right, Dan? Yeah, as of yet, you're waiting for this curb cut to start, right? And it would be a good opportunity for us to look at the culvert. This is not really Dan's issue. I mean, it might be a good place to plug in the drainage, any drainage coming from the curb cut culvert or the driveway apron culvert. If it were going to be feeding it to that cross culvert, that might be good, but it might be an opportunity for our town road crew to evaluate where that's discharging. I know historically we've put culverts in and again, this is not the applicant's issue. It is a town issue. We've had culverts directly discharging into our water bodies, which are problematic, as we know now from stormwater and sediment, nutrient load conveyance to our lakes and streams. So it may be in light of this and a culvert feeding to that, which may be the best route, I don't know. We might want to reorient that cross culvert. The town may want to. So it's not directly discharging to the lake if it in fact is doing that. So I'm sorry about the delay. Do you have somebody lined up to do this work? That's, do you have a contractor lined up to do this? Put in this culvert? I mean, to put in this curb cut? Yeah. Okay. Denise, can I weigh in on what I would say? Oh yeah, absolutely. So I would say that if the application in Alfred's review is that the curb cut meets the criteria in the town policy that we should approve it. That's my position tonight. Yep. Okay, I thought you had already stated your position. I apologize. It sounds like I'm hearing from others that they would like to do an official site visit to have the correct information. It's our responsibility to issue this and issue it so that we do it in accordance with our policy. Right. Thank you for finishing my sentence for me. Happy to help. Yeah, anytime. So how soon can folks be available to do a site visit? And at the site, and at the site visit, we could at the same time issue the curb cut. How do we do that? Holy, we call a special meeting to do a site visit and put down approval of the curb cut on the agenda. I can do that. Okay, what do folks look like for Friday? Not good. Not good. I can't see necessarily who's talking all the time now. I'll get real screen-shared. Not good for the road crew. So what am I hearing about Friday? Friday is not good for the road crew. Can you, because the crew is not working, you mean? Right, we don't work Fridays. I suppose if that's the only day available, I couldn't make myself available. Okay, select board, what do your schedules look like for the rest of this week? I'm out of town on Friday, I'm sorry, Rose. What about, I gotta go look at my calendar now. What does your schedule look like, Rose? I know you have to be at work. I have to go get my calendar. No, on our side, I think we need to make sure Jeff's available. I'm not sure what Jeff's availability is for the visit. Jeff, do you have your calendar, Jeff? I do, yeah. Mine's always here on the phone, so you guys decide what's best. And Dan, if it's okay with you, a worst case scenario, if I can't be there, would you be comfortable with Joey Wilson or Ten down on our behalf? Who is he? He's another engineer that we work with that Dan knows rather well. Oh, okay, so he's involved with this project? Yeah, yeah, he's familiar with the project and could answer any questions appropriate. Yeah, okay, that sounds, I don't have any problem with that. So, Rose, did you get your calendar? I did, and I only have my schedule up until Friday. I don't know what my schedule is next week. Well, we're talking about either Thursday or Friday, maybe. Of this week? Yeah. Oh, Thursday, I took the day off. Oh, okay. Thursday worked for John. Okay, so Thursday is the 25th. Jeff, did you say you weren't or you were available? I would be available Thursday, probably any time after three o'clock. If we could do a mid-afternoon or early-mid-afternoon site visit then, I could probably be in attendance. Okay, would you be available like 3.30? Yeah, I could be there for 3.30. Rose? Denise, do we have another meeting at four o'clock on Thursday? No, we're not gonna be having that, remember? Okay. Yeah. So Cliff, John, can you do 3.30 on Thursday? Can do that? Yeah. Sharon, can't hear you. I will have to get back to you on that. Okay, so we have Rose, Cliff, me and John. Okay, Alfred, can you do 3.30 on Thursday? Yes, yes, I can. Okay, and what's gonna be the best thing to do to park in the Georgia's current, where their house is? Because parking along that road is not very good. Sure, you can park there. That's fine, that's fine. All right, I'm so sorry to hold you up. We wanna do this right. So I appreciate your patience and understanding. So I will send out an agenda for the site visit special meeting. All right, is that, take care of it, folks, you think? So Thursday, 3.30 on site. Anything else on that? Is everybody good to move on? Just for clarification, we should be prepared to vote after we view the site. Right, okay. Yeah, I'm gonna put it on the agenda. Yeah, I would like to get this done, Aisab. Yeah, me too. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. Okay, so we're running behind schedule. Alfred, we have some further questions for you on the agenda follow up from our last meeting. Yep. Did you have a discussion with McCullough about winter sand before they close? Yes, I did. I talked to him today, Fred McCullough, and he's telling me not to worry. The sand is fine there. They won't be closing everything down until late in the year, next year anyways. So it's essentially in his opinion, it's a non-issue. And there's enough there probably for, to supply us for two years. Yep. So, but our problem is we don't have a place to put it. So I'm gonna take a chance that we'll get one more year out of it and just do nothing and maybe we'll have to do something special after we get the sand for next year and it'll be in the spring. We'll fulfill our pile next spring with what they got and then we'll see what's left over because they're sort of actively trying to sell it as we speak. Yeah. But there are not many other towns that buy that sand and I won't go into why but there's no other towns that buy it. Yep. So I did do some research but after talking to him it was sort of a mute point. But if you wanna get into that we can. Well, can you just give us what you calculated? Yeah, well this year, last year we paid $11.50 per yard just to buy the sand. Yeah. And in 2019 we bought 4896 yards, so almost 5,000 yards. This year 2020 we bought almost 4,000 yards so it's down by 1,000 just because of the type of winter and whatnot didn't take as much to replenish a pile. Okay. There's a gravel pit up towards Hardwick Way, gravel construction and they are $7 a yard but it's screened sand, it's not washed sand. So when you buy just screened sand you've got a lot of silt in it and it catches up on the equipment and it's just not as quality. Then that's why it's cheaper. The trucking from there figured to be $13 a yard. In addition to the seven to buy it? That's correct. So it's $20 for a total from gravel construction and then from LaPage they're selling similar type screened sand for $9.25 which is more money. They're a little bit closer so I figured that they're $12.14 per yard for trucking. So their total is $21.39 and those were the three comparisons that I put together. So the totals are all pretty close but the difference is the time because of when we buy it from McCullough's we're doing six or eight loads per hour whereas the other two we're getting one load every two hours. Good bonus. So you're looking at, if we were gonna haul it like we have for years or with our own trucks you're gonna be looking at instead of one week or a week and a half where we do it now you're gonna look at it's a month easily a month. And less we hire other trucks which would probably be the more feasible thing to do but I was just figuring on all of these figures were figured on $85 an hour because that's what you can hire a truck for. Okay. So I know that's a lot of information but I think that we're a little bit off the hook but we still need to think about it for next year. Yeah. So we're gonna have to consider all this when we're doing budget for FY 22. Right. Right. Steve, Steve Kiloran, did you wanna say something I keep seeing your finger? No, that's all right. Okay, sorry. I thought I didn't wanna not recognize you if you wanted to. Oh, thank you, Denise. Yeah. I hope you're. Excuse me. I hope you're well, thank you. Yes, thank you. I am well. All right, does anybody on the board have any questions for Alfred about the stand and trucking and all those things? Just tell me, did all the figures. John. So my way of clarification Alfred, I understood you to say that McCulloch's looking to sell the entirety of that property ASAP and that for that reason we could not stockpile a second year's sand on that property, correct? No, I don't know what he's doing with his property. I didn't get into that with him. I was just talking about purchasing the sand. No, but you mentioned we could purchase one year's sand from him, but we wouldn't be able to do two years in advance because there's no place to store it. Right. And my understanding is there's no way to store it a second year's stockpile on the McCulloch property because they won't allow us to do that because they're selling the property, correct? I am not saying they're selling their property. I don't know that. I don't know what they're doing. I'm just saying that he told me that the pit will still be operating in the spring which will allow us to buy one more years worth of sand. Okay. So you know what I mean? He's not gonna completely close it down by the spring so we can buy our stuff in May or June like we always have. We just don't know about the next year out. Okay. Okay, thank you for the clarification. Clarification. It's not fair to ask him, you know what I mean? He's open to the idea of storing it but he just don't know how far along he's gonna get with his closing down closing of the pit. Yeah. Okay, are we ready to move on to the next item? Roadside mowing. Can you tell us what has been accomplished and what needs to be done? The name Rose has something in regards to that. Oh, I'm sorry, Rose, you had a question? I'm sorry. I just wanted to make a quick comment and Greg is here too. Greg did some analysis over the last couple of days about the sand hauling and as you were talking, Alfred, he was commenting that you did a great job on crunching the numbers and the data that you provided tonight. And so, you know, mostly if we can't get it in the area and we have to go out of the area for sand, I think the biggest concern is to make sure that we do hire outside trucks that can haul more as to not tie up our callous road crew doing trucking. So I typed it up for him. I put it in a document, emailed it to the select board, but it doesn't sound like it's anything immediate. It's a couple of years down the road. Okay, thank you very much, Rose and Greg. Hi. All right. Okay, back to mowing. What's happening with mowing, Alfred? Well, the mower's been out all that I can. There was a couple of days last week that I was shorthanded. So I wasn't, you know, I put it, putting it out for like, there was like three days that it went out one day. I couldn't go because I needed the manpower. It was out today and it blew a hydraulic hose. And so the oil blew all over the motor and spun the fan belt off. So that deemed it out of commission. I have got it now back at the shop and I went this afternoon right after work and bought the new hose parts for the hose. So hopefully we'll have it back running tomorrow. The other issue with it is that I believe we paid extra money for the air conditioner to work and it's not working. And you know, it's hard to ask a guy to stay in a tractor that's 90 degrees with no air conditioning for all day. I mean, you know, so a couple of days he came home early, it's just not productive. So I don't know, John, if you wanna call up there and see what they can do about that because I'm pretty sure we paid extra money to have that AC working. Yeah, I'm gonna let John take over, John. So Alfred is correct. We paid, it was incorporated into price that that would be full of functioning and they went through the entirety of the air conditioning system, they replaced every component. So they represented. The first day Jacob was out mowing. I asked him how it was going. He swung past, he was going past my house. He said, well, so far so good, but the AC isn't working. So I checked and we tried playing with buttons and I immediately, as soon as I got done talking with them, I called Tom up at René Fournier's. And Tom's like, well, that should be, care of that, take care of that, I'll call you. And the guy never called me. And so I met the circle back, but I've been out of town and I apologize for that, Alfred. You were absolutely right. I wouldn't wanna be in that cab without AC. And that was the reason it was a requirement for the purchase that AC be working. I told Fournier's that they're gonna have to have that AC guy come out. We need that thing fixed ASAP. We're in the middle of mowing season. Tom said, yep, I'll get in touch with them now. We've not heard back. I got a problem with that. So I will call Fournier's tomorrow morning and have them contact you as well, Alfred. But I will make sure that this guy does something or Fournier's, if they don't do something, then Fournier's gonna have to give us some money to hire somebody or they're gonna have to pay the someone else to do it here. I mean, I think they will, they're reputable, so. Yeah, well, I just wanted to let everybody know that it's that's some of the reason why it's taken longer to mow because we, you know, the poor guy wants to get out of there as soon as he can. So a lot of times it's two o'clock when he gets done. And there's still two hours worth of work that could be done. But, and it's, you know, we paid extra to have it fixed. So we just need to pour pressure them to make it right. Right, well, I told them we wouldn't buy it unless it was operational, it was part of the price. And I assumed because they never got in touch with me, well, they must have gotten in touch with Alfred because Tom had been in touch with Alfred. So apparently not. Yeah, I talked with Tom because the service manual that they sent down was actually the wrong one. It doesn't, it doesn't go to that tracker. So they're coming, they were supposed to come last Friday, didn't happen, they got tied up. They're coming tomorrow, I think, or Wednesday to swap the two service manuals out. So that was my conversation with them. But you didn't mention the air conditioning offered? No, no, he didn't mention nothing about it. No, you didn't mention the air conditioning to him? No, I guess I didn't because I, I was more kind of more, he called me talking about the, about the service manual. So I guess I didn't think of the air conditioner at that point, and that was, was last week. Okay. I mean, since last week, I've heard a lot of, you know, it's been hot and I've been hearing a lot of complaints about it being hot in that cap. So it's, it's, it's fresh, more fresh on my mind now than it was when I was talking to him about a service manual. Yep. Okay. All right, so. So other than that, though, we're, we're moving forward. I mean, we're, we're getting, we're trying to focus on the main drags first and then we'll go around and get the smaller ones. And I understand that maybe part of Jack Hill doesn't want to be mowed now. Yeah, apparently from the Kaplan residence to the intersection at Moscow Woods, the neighbors have been surveyed and they all agree that they would appreciate it if it wasn't mowed because the day lilies are all ready to pop out. So that just means one less place for you to, to have to mow. So it's not to do with the basis then? This isn't no. Okay. And what, and Sharon at our last meeting asked for you to have a discussion with Peter Harvey. How did that go? I did not get a hold of Peter Harvey. He's been communicating with, with Jacob. So I didn't, I didn't reach out to Peter. He's, I mean, we've already decided to not mow those roads. So I'm not sure what a conversation it would do for him and I. Okay. But I have noticed that he is pulling, pulling the turbo out and he's now, instead of throwing it in the road, he's putting it in a wheelbarrow. So that's favorite to me. Yep. Okay. Very good. Any, okay, any, so we can move things along. Is there any other questions or comments for Alfred on the board? Well, I got one for you when you're ready. Okay. About the mowing of the town office and swim area. Yep. We've been using Ed Raul and he's been using his equipment because it's more than he wants to push a mower for. So he's got a zero turn and he's been doing that. And the issue came up of, of liability with him using his own equipment. I mean, he's charged, he's not charging us for the equipment. He's just charging us the, his normal hourly pay. So I wanted to hear from the select board how we want to handle that. The push mower that we bought a couple of years ago from tractor supply is, is kaput. It's taken, the oil is getting filled and I don't think it's, I don't think it's salvageable. It was a $200 mower and it's, we got two years out of it. I don't think that it's worth messing with. So what I would, what I am suggesting is that maybe the town either keeps going with Ed mowing it. Or the town maybe buys their own mower, a riding mower because now we're going to add the, the mowing around the town hall and it's just getting to be, getting to be too much for, for us to push mow. Because I have two questions. I think one question I would want to check out is the town's liability with Ed using his own riding lawn mower. And the second would be how much does it, how much is a rider? I found a used one down at harvest equipment. I think it's a 2007 that looked in fairly good shape. They wanted $1800 for it. Certainly there are other options, but that was the one that I just popped in there to see what they had. And that was, that was the one option that I had. So for $1800, we can have our own mower. Okay, John, you want to weigh in? So what, what kind of mower is that Alfred? It was a John Deere. I forget the model, but it was a 42 inch cut. You know, it was a regular riding tractor, riding mower. Yeah. And we can't use the- No, absolutely not. It's way too big. Okay. So you knew what my question was going to be. Yeah, I did. So continuing along the lines of the purchase, I would strongly encourage that we purchase a zero turn. You can literally do with the same job in half or a third of the time with a zero turn. And it can edge and everything else. They are twice as fast, they have dexterity. You can edge like you would edge with a weedwacker around plantings. So we're going to get into the mowing business, particularly that swim area and that town hall property. A zero turn will save us a lot of labor time. And people don't use, anyone who's used a zero turn will never get on a riding mower again. I agree. I agree totally. So do not get on a zero turn if you have a riding mower. It'll cost- So we're almost to the end of the fiscal year and going to be going into the new budget year. So we may want to think about having Alfred investigate the cost for a zero turns mower. Is that the right terminology? Yes. Yeah. I mean, they're definitely going to be more money, more than $1,800, but it's, you know, I agree with John. It's going to cut down the labor tremendously. Well, you know what? John's really good at finding used equipment. Yeah. Yeah, with bad hydromotor hoses. With bad hydromotor hoses. The other option is just to find a contractor to do them all, do those three yards. Because quite frankly, I've got a lot to do already with my, the crew that I have. Well, I remember we used to throw that out there. Right. We used to use, and I can't remember his name off the top of my head. Him and his kids used to do mowing. And then we ran into issues with, yeah, that's it. Weston ran into the liability issue because the kids were underage and so on. And they didn't have insurance and work with comp, but there are plenty of contractors that do have that and that we could, you know, indulge their services. Just something to think about and look at. I don't know. It might be cheaper than having our own machine and then it would be done on a regular basis and it would be something that we don't have to think about. Well, then why don't you investigate that and come back to us with an estimate? And then we can also investigate the price of a zero turn. Okay. Any other board members want to weigh in on that? Sound like a plan, Cliff? Yeah, thanks for bringing up that option, Alfie. That's what I was going to suggest as well. I think if the current challenges we're imagining in the coming times, financially speaking, it's probably going to make more sense to contract this out. Yeah. All right, so come back to us with some options. Okay. And so in the meantime, what do you want me to do? My push mower is dead and the grass is growing. Yep. I don't know that we have a lot of options. How does the board feel about still having Ed do it using his mower? Rose? I, you know, I mean, I think it would be okay as a temporary idea. Well, anybody that knows Ed Raul is very cautious. Yes. Very, you know, very careful about what he's doing and other people around him. Yeah. Cliff, John, Sharon, John? I would like Ed Raul to be compensated for the use of his equipment. He's too... Yeah, absolutely. We, he should not be subsidizing. So whatever his labor rate is, I think we should also add an equipment charge, you know, 20 or 30 bucks. Yep. I would agree. He shouldn't have to use his own equipment for free. Cliff, Sharon? Yeah, I would agree with that. Do we have a sense of what the total would end up being? I'm just wondering whether we should have gone to contract if it's going to take us up that high, whether we should have done an RFP. I couldn't. I can't hear everything, Sharon. Can you speak up? Do we have done an RFP? How high do we get on this? I mean, there's no... RFPs are for when it's $5,000 or more. So we'd have to see what options Alfred comes back to us with. Right, but with Ed Raul. So Sharon, to try to answer your question, Ed generally charges us five hours to mow all three of them. Or no, it was the town hall and the swimming area. So that's five hours. Times 18, that's $90 each time. And he was not charging us for his equipment. If we start paying him now for his equipment, we give him 30, now we're at 120. And that's just through the summer. So that's what, three, four months? Right, and also keep in mind that you're covered by Workman's Comp because he's a town employee. All that stuff is already in place. Yeah, okay. Are we ready to... I'll let him do it for a couple more until the next meeting until I get some more information and we can discuss it next meeting. Is that correct? Correct. John and then Katie, Katie has a question. I don't know who raised a liability issue. I don't see it as a liability issue. It's a standard piece of equipment. Ed's an employee. He'd be operating that as an employee. I'm not worried about it. My only concern, frankly, is that Ed's donating equipment. I don't think he should. That's my only concern. If he only wants to do this over the short term, then that's reason enough to buy a piece of equipment and Ed doesn't want to wear out his equipment. That's reason enough to buy a piece of equipment. Right, but if you remember back during the Cemetery Commission days, that's where all that started. When the sextant was using his own equipment and charging the town, then it became a liability issue. The issue with the sextant was he had no workers comp. He had no insurance. And then there was a question about how he was billing us in terms of the use of the equipment. Yeah, it was mostly different, Alfred. It wasn't about the equipment itself. But I think we should have- Honestly, if you guys are fine with Ed doing it, I would love for Ed to do it. There's nothing more I'd like to have him do because he's semi-retired. He likes mowing grass. He does a really good job. There's nothing more I want is for him to do it. I just want everything to be legal, safe, and okay with the board. Yeah, okay. So where it's almost quarter, 10 after eight. Hello. Wait a minute, Sandra. Katie had her hand up first. I wondered if I could ask as you go down at Curtis Pond down to the grassy swim area where the ad hoc committee has suggested that people swim and fish. There's like a really large tree branch that may fall on somebody. Like it's a huge part of an old tree. And I wondered if there's time in the Highway Department's schedule or if we should look for a different option for handling, taking that down, it's low. I will take care of that tomorrow, Katie. Oh, thanks so much, Alfred. I appreciate it. Yeah, no, I meant to do it before now but I just haven't had a chance. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Sandra. I just want to go back to how you want to compensate Ed. We can pay him his hourly rate and then he can submit an invoice for the use of his equipment which would not be taxed. And that would be the better way to go with that. It would be basically a reimbursement. It would be excluded in his pay but not be part of his wages. We'd have to pay taxes on. Okay, can you relay that to Ed Alfred? Yes, that he would have to, if he wants money for his equipment, he has to make an invoice. Yes, I can tell him that. Okay. Yeah. Please be clear, we want him to invoice us. Right. We don't want him for that. Okay, gotcha. We don't want to take out income taxes on that. Right. All right, Sharon. So that's equipment and fuel. Yeah, we posted against that line. All right, Sharon. And then I think if I understand what we're talking about here, Ed is paid by the town as an employee that we've hired to do the mowing. We are essentially contracting with that person for the use of his equipment so that $5,000 threshold that I'm gonna obsess about is only as to the contract for the equipment. And based on what Alfred said a few minutes ago, it doesn't sound like we're gonna come anywhere near that. Is that a fair summary of what I'm hearing? That's what I heard. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I hear. Okay. All right, are we ready to move on? Thank you very much, Alfred. Okay, you all have a good evening. You too. Thank you. Good night. All right, Alfred. Bye. Bye. Judy, do you have any office update or Barbara? I know we're running behind, so just really, really quick. We've received ballots and envelopes and all the things we need for the August primary. We're doing a really real push to promote mail-in voting. So Barbara and I will get those ballots out very soon. And those are paid for by the state, right? We're not having to put the postage for that. Right, they've paid for 50% of, they've sent us a big batch and it should cover what we need. Just the other pieces that we're kind of traffic copping the office to make sure that we're socially distancing and safe and it's been a little challenging, but we are working it out. The Listers are close to finishing the grand list. So we've rearranged schedules for that to happen and now we're kind of getting back into a more routine, Barbara and I, alternating weeks. So that's a lot of zoning applications coming in, almost like one a day. It seems like everybody wants to build something. And Bob is getting up to speed. So that's the quick version. So, okay, Katie, could you make a note? We wanna get Bob Martin on a Zoom at some point here. Just to check in with him. Okay, anything else on office? Okay, it doesn't look like it. Sandra, you were almost to the end of the fiscal year. So I imagine this update will be somewhat brief because it's almost the end of the fiscal year. Right, I emailed to the board the May report and pieces the laptop was not communicating very well with my scanner today. So I apologize for that. There were a lot of technical issues. However, as part of those reports, I sent the June report and the June report reflects the most recent and likely the most recent board orders on the 20-second and I anticipate another order and maybe a very small general government order to go out before the fiscal year actually closes. And we look very good. We are to the good by $60,000 in general government. Our revenues are over what we've objected. That is due in part to us not owing the school district as much as they originally billed us and as well to the delinquent taxes that ultimately came in. So our expenses are also less than what we budgeted, even though we did have expenses that we weren't expecting this year. We're at 98%. So between the extra revenue and the expenditures under budget right now we're $60,000 to the good. And what does that mean? That means that we're going to end the fiscal year with a fund balance more than what we started this fiscal year with. So I think as the select board is deciding if it wants to trim FY 21 budget, they can, you folks can feel somewhat safe in that we're really strong financially. The highway is doing fine, although I think they are going to go into the red by a few thousand dollars by the time we get to the end, by the time we get to the end of the year. I'm getting a message. Okay, I don't know if you guys can hear me, but my internet was going on and off. So this is where we are. We're in great shape. And that is what you really want to know, isn't it? Delinquent taxes. Did you mention the fund balance? Yes, that our fund balance is going to, it appears at this moment that our fund balance will be more than what the fund balance was when we started this fiscal year. So we started the fiscal year with $311,000 and a fund balance. So that covered us for the period of time until taxes were being collected at, let's say the end of August, early September. And at this point in time, we are at $371,000. So we're $60,000 up in terms of where we started at the same point last year. That is an unaudited number. I always have to caution you about that, but we are coming into the fiscal year 21 in a strong position. That's good. Very good. It is, it's very good. Especially on these turbulent times. Yes. All right, any questions for, we have a tax sale on Wednesday, which will clean up presumably the 2018 delinquencies. And that's two properties at this point. And we're 2019, you know, we're just down. Hang on, let me grab that report. In 2019 taxes, we are at 40, we're short $40,000. At this same point last year, we were short roughly $60,000. So once again, it's just, we've had a good year. We've had a good year in spite of it all. That's the way it, that's what it looks like at the 11th hour. So when we meet next in July, should we allow more time for you to do a more in-depth review? For June? Sure, we can do that, although, or will you not have the stuff until? The numbers will change a bit for sure. We'll see where the highway lands, and we can talk about the consequences of where they are. And we can take a look at that fund balance at that first meeting. And also, I would hope to talk more in-depth about our delinquent tax parcels at that point in time. Money did dribble in, it is coming in in a better stream at this point. I don't wanna rock any boats until I see what we actually get in by June 30th. I, given what we have going on at this point in time, I'd rather not be threatening to people or warning people, I should say, of a tax sale because we may see money come in in the next 10 days or so. And I think we should let that happen and then in July, decide what we're gonna do with the folks who haven't paid, aren't on a payment plan and have made no contact. Okay, that sounds reasonable to me. What does the rest of the board in agreement? Cliff, Rose, Sharon, John? Okay, thank you so much. I'm sorry to hold you up tonight. That I sat to the side out of sight with my mute on and had dinner. There you go. Listen, it was good. All right, thank you so much. Anything else, Sandra, Judy, Barbara, you're welcome to stay or not. That's it for me. Okay, thank you. That's it for me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I'm sorry, we're behind schedule. Tom and Walter and Steve. Hi. How are you? Good, how are you? Good and enjoying this heat? Oh, yeah, really. I don't like hot weather, so I struggle. Okay, so hopefully this, we won't have to keep you on for too long. I understand Reed resigned. I intend to send him a, excuse me? No, we had two resignations, so. Two. We need to fill two slots. Oh, because when I looked on the website, there was a vacancy. There are two vacancies right now. There's, yeah, Reed resigned at the last meeting earlier this month. And then last December, I got an email from Bill Russell that he was resigning to. So we haven't officially filled either of those positions yet and that's what we wanna do tonight. Okay, so the vacancy that was Bill Russell's, is that the one that runs out in 21? That's right. And Reed's expires in 22, I think. Right. Yeah. All right, so it's so nice to meet you, Walter. Oh, good to meet you as well. Where do you live in Callis? I live at the end of Sparrow Road next to Andrew Nemethy. Yep, okay. And you're interested in serving on the Trails Committee? Yes, I am. Okay, great. Steve, how about you? Very interested, Denise. Good to see you, hear from you again. Thank you for letting me play with the Zoom screen. I don't do a lot of Zoom, so. Yeah, I couldn't figure out if you were raising your hand. Did you wanna just talk or what? I was looking at, I was like, what's that button over here? Oh, that's what, oh, that's funny. I think most of you know me from the trustee of public funds and Callis Recreation Board and resident, et cetera. I'm very looking forward, Reed approached me years ago about this, so very, very interested in helping keep the fine work that the Trails Committee has created here in town. I think it's great. Yeah, no, the Trails Committee has, there's nothing but rave reviews about the Trails and Callis. Yeah, they've been doing a lot of use this spring because people are looking for things to do closer to home. So the reports I have that the Trailhead parking lots are filled and I run into a lot more people walking than I usually do. Are you working on any new trails? We are actually. We're trying to develop some trails on East Hill and my father, Bill Blatchley, has generously agreed to locate some trails on his land. And I'm also talking to Tim Howe, who's an adjoining land owner. And he used to be on the Trails Committee. Yes, I remember when Tim was on. Yeah, so he's also very interested in this new potential trail system over there. So yeah, we're actively trying to deal with that. And we hope by next year this time we'll have some, we'll really have expanded the Callis Trail System. Great. Doesn't any of the board members have any questions or would we like to make a motion to appoint Steve and Walter? Everybody good? I'll make a motion. Okay, are you making a motion to? Appoint Walter Aposinsky to the unexpired term from Reed Charrington expires in 2022 and Steve Kalaran to fill the vacancy that expires in 2021. Which was formerly Bill Russell's position. Right. Okay, I'll second that. Is there any further discussion? Anything else you wanna let us know about Tom or Walter or Steve? The only other thing is that we have three other members through terms expire this year that we, I sounded them out at the meeting and they all wanted to continue on and that's Michael Fullerton and Tony Cading and Denise Wilder. They would all like to be reappointed for another three year term. Okay, so maybe we can do that. We'll do that at a future meeting because I didn't put it on the agenda for tonight. Sure. All right, so the motion's been made and seconded. Let's vote, Rose. Who seconded it? Me. Oh, okay, yeah, I. Sharon. Hi. John. Hi. Cliff. Hi. And I'm an I. Thank you so much. And again, I'm so sorry for taking up, having us run behind. No problem, thanks very much. Thank you. Thank you for serving. Thank you. Thank you. Happy trails, everybody. Yes. Thank you. Take care. Hard work. Thank you, board. Thank you. All right, so let's talk about town hall. The town hall has, the occupancy has been certified by the fire marshal on June 15th. People are clamoring as they should be to use this beautiful new building. It's absolutely spectacular. You have to see it. But as I've been following the COVID-19 stuff ad nauseam since it started between select board and another board that I serve on, there are significant guidelines and challenges. So I have reached out to many of the different state agencies, VLCT, the Secretary of State's office. And it sounds like what we're going to have to do, which I'm not surprised, is that each board committee commission, someone on those boards committees commissions will have to take the VOSHA training and be certified. There will have to be health screening safety checks done at each meeting before anybody can come in. We're going to have to post notices on the doors about the health screening and please don't come in. If you've been sick, you know, if you're feeling ill, if you've been out of state, those kinds of things, there's a whole list of them, which thankfully it got a little bit more manageable. And position the layout of the interior to accommodate six-foot distancing, which in John McCullough's estimation could be between 20 and 25 people. Some people might actually have to be sitting in the hallway, which is not great for a meeting. And what else, what else? So anyways, I've been doing, like I said, I've been doing a lot of research. When I get everything from all the different places, I will draft something up and ask the board to review it. At our meeting on July 6th, you know, we have a report from Kelly Avery at VLCT who stated, because I asked her, that we need to follow all the CDC and ACCD guidelines to prevent any future liability. Yes, John? So the standards you laid out are, I have a number of questions. I didn't hear what you said. I have a number of questions regarding the standards you laid out, Denise. Yep. First is, are they guide, I understand the VLCT wants those guidelines enforced on the liability standpoint, but outside of that, excuse me, are they guidelines or are they enforceable as some state entity? Well, that's the thing. I don't know that there's gonna be any CDC 19 police out there. What one of the guidelines says is that if somebody refuses to comply with the health screening, they can't come in the building. I don't know who's gonna be the bouncer to not make that happen. Okay, so I guess maybe I'm trying to get clarification on how this all works town-wide. This applies to public venues, public buildings, public property, and the reason I'm asking, this is a question, not a statement, is if, for instance, Maple Corner had its wonderful traditional July 4th extravaganza and then others on private property, are these applicable there? Are we responsible in any way for ensuring these are applied there? Or are the private citizens of this town and property owners on their own in terms of whatever protocols they wanna put in place for whatever festivals they might have? This is government entities, municipalities. We don't have any necessarily any control over what goes on in somebody's barn. If they wanna have a shindig. But the state and Dr. Levine and the governor are really asking people to still comply with the same guidelines and the same, because of the fact that it's gonna continue to spread. So does that answer your question? Yes, that answers the questions. Thank you. Yep. So anyways, I just wanted to give you an update and let you know that this is something that we really have to do. I know some people are not happy about this, but we really need to do it. I'm waiting for Jenny, who is an attorney at the Secretary of State's office. I sent her most of those specific questions because I was having trouble getting anybody to say anything other than you must follow CDC and ACCD guidelines and the governor's executive orders and addendums and so forth and so on. I want some concrete answers. Cheryl? Forgive me if you said this and I missed it. I have two questions. One is, who gets to decide whether to go to in-person meetings? Is that our authority and directive or is it within our authority? And if so, must it be our decision about in-person meetings across all town boards, committees, commissions, all the things you said? Or is there flexibility for us to leave it up to each board about whether to go to in-person is one question I have and then I have another one after we hear the answer on that one. Maybe you don't know. That's a good question. I think it's within our prerogative to make that decision and here's why. Part of the guidelines are that after each meeting that a board or committee or commission has, they have to keep a record of everybody who attended, whether or not they passed the health screening test and then they have to clean. And they have to clean any bad, they have to clean the bathrooms, they have to clean door handles, they have to clean tables. So I guess we have to decide as a board, do we think that people on these various boards, committees and commissions, if they say they're gonna do it, do we have confidence that they will get it done? So then the second question is, I was just wondering about where the town health officer and I think we still have one. Yeah, it's Jacobin. Right. So I was looking at the duties of the health officer and one of the duties is to take steps to enforce orders issued pursuant to VSA chapter three. And I don't know if these orders fit within that, maybe they big fat don't fit in that statutory reference, but I would hate to put anybody in the position of there being expectation that they enforce. Enforce, yeah, that's a really hard thing to ask people to do. And some people are just not going to comply. They're not gonna wanna wear a mask. Can you imagine sitting in the town hall tonight for three hours with a mask on? There are some studies that say extended use of a mask like that breathing in the CO2 has other health effects. So I think when I've gathered all this information and put forth my memo, I think those are some of the decisions we have to be ready to make. John? So regarding the request by a number of members of our development review board, DRB as it's called, I will just express a personal concern. I'm 61 and I'm supposedly at greater risk because of my age. And as compared to the folks on that board, I'm like a teenager. Right. Not trying to say age, just imply age discrimination here, but the risk increases markedly over 60 and 70 and toward 80 and even 90. We have some people who are significantly older than I am. And if they were to get ill, they would be imperiled. So I just, I just, in terms of- I worry about that. In terms of liability. And there's a lot of movement in the summer. People are going to the Cape and to Maine. I think Donna and John went to Maine again. Yeah. There's a lot going on. I just got personally back from Long Island. I am more or less self quarantining for 14 days. And I will say by my witness, what I witnessed down there was abhorrent. People not wearing masks and it's the young white folks. They think it's a big joke. And everyone's talking about it being a big joke. They call it scam demic down there. And the town, the little hamlet that neighbors might, where I grew up has 43,000 people. And their COVID-19 infection rate, our numbers are 200 persons greater than Vermont's. And they're 43,000. So this is just what's going on elsewhere in the world. We can figure out why that's happening. Maybe or not. But I just think there's a lot of risk that we don't even contemplate where we feel so safe here. But there's a lot of movement in and out of this town of people. And I think people aren't even realizing the potential for exposure. And I just think we gotta be very careful. I'm very concerned. Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think that's why we have to review what would actually be necessary. Do we think that folks will comply with it? And if they don't, then do we open ourselves up to any risk of liability? So I will have something. I wanted to run this by all of you before I spent any more time writing something up. I think we still need to have, I still need to write something up. And I think the board needs to have a further discussion and make a decision. That sound reasonable? Would we, Denise, is this not something we would invite Jay to be part of as our health officer? Oh yeah, we would. Yeah. Clint. Yeah, I just wanna say that I totally agree with the idea here that we need to proceed with caution. And I'll look forward to the proposal you're going to present to us. I assume that's gonna happen at the next regularly scheduled select board meeting. Right. But in the meantime, there are some people who want to have meetings between now and then, their requests are pending. I think there's one request for as early as, well, we have the tax sale that's supposed to happen there on the 24th. Right. Sanders planning to hold that outside. Okay. And then the cemetery commission was wanting to use it that evening. No, they can't. Okay. So we need to get back, circle around and get back to them on that. Yeah. I've been in communication with them and said I would get back to them after tonight because I didn't know if we would be able to make a decision tonight, but given I'm still waiting for some critical information, we can't make a decision tonight. And the DRB, much to their not wanting to, are going to have to do their hearing on July 9th via Zoom. And I think Cliff, you graciously agreed to help them with that. I can certainly help them with that. Okay. So maybe going out of order just a little bit, we had a request from Indivisible Callas about holding an outdoor event with music in the parking lot at the town hall, which means that there will be, I don't know when you might be thinking about this for Barbara, but I don't think we can give you an answer tonight. Do you have any idea what was your timeframe? So our thought was that if the select board just approved it philosophically, we would not, we haven't scheduled it. We would schedule it after the governor has raised the 25 people limit. And we probably wouldn't do it until, we would not have it until after that. So what we would like to do is hold a fundraiser specifically for Indivisible Callas. Only a few of us with Indivisible Callas have been covering many, many, many costs over the last three and a half years. So we'd like to help with some of our costs. An outdoor dance party in the newly graded parking lot, which the road crew did an absolutely beautiful job. An evening outdoor dance party with music. Masks required. So put on my beautiful Katie mask. And it would be our version of a masquerade ball but instead of your typical masquerade ball, it would be wear a mask, give aid and have a ball. So we would need to have access. Guests would need to have access to the restrooms but we would cordon off the passageway from the two new restrooms into the big meeting room and cordon off the stairwell so that they were, if they would be allowed entrance into the town hall restroom area only. We would provide trash barrels and recyclable bins out in the parking lot and then Indivisible Callas members would go back the next day, clean up any trash that might be left over. What about cleaning of the restrooms? Yes, we would clean that. We would wipe it down thoroughly for you. Yeah. And it sounds like a blast but I still don't think we can give you an answer tonight just because we don't know what we're gonna, we don't wanna say yes to one group and then not be able to say yes to others. Do you know what I mean? I think we have to have this figured out as a board before we can give you an answer. Does anybody else wanna weigh in? Okay, what happened to Rose? I'm right here. Oh, there you are. Okay. I was putting my sweater on. Oh, okay. Anybody else wanna weigh in? John? This is not a comment regarding whether or not we should have it. It's just a word of, maybe it's a word of caution or just a bit of factual information where states have and governors of states have raised the numbers, increased the numbers of persons that can co-associate, that can congregate. They've seen spikes in new COVID cases, just FYI. Yep. I think that's probably more like indoor stuff, restaurant stuff. I expect outdoors probably less of an issue and wearing masks and our people are very careful in our town. They take it seriously and these are places like where I was just this past week where people aren't taking it seriously. But I just wanted to put that on your radar. Yeah, I've been watching that pretty closely. It's pretty alarming some of the places where the amount of cases has doubled and tripled and quadrupled in a matter of days. So anyways, we'll keep this, we'll keep it on our radar and we might be able to give you a decision after July 6th. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, it does sound like fun. Okay, let's move on. RFPs for painting. Take it away, Cliff. Very happy to report that we received three responses to the RFP. We initially invited, I think it was seven different contractors to bid. Two of those opted to bid. The others opted to no bid. We had a third contractor who we had not solicited but was responding to the fact that we had listed it and advertised it in other venues. And I believe actually you might have heard about it, word of mouth, but he also provided a quote. So, And where was, where did the word of mouth? This was just word of mouth. You said the third one? I'm thinking you might have heard about it, word of mouth. But he could have also heard about it through, we advertised it in the local papers and also had it listed in the classified section on the VLCT website. So there was a number of ways he could have learned about it. Great, well at least we got through. It's great, we got three. Yes. So the responses to the RFP were due at the town office last Thursday by close of business. Everybody who responded met that deadline and then the plan was to have those reviewed by David, Denise and myself. And we did review them and have a recommendation to the board for who we think it should be awarded the contract. But before we go there, I wanted to follow what's in our purchasing policy and ask everybody to take a look at a document. I put together that we can review the merits of the bid per the criteria outlined in our purchasing policy. So I'm going to bring a document up on screen. Bear with me please. Okay, can everybody see this Excel spreadsheet? Cliff, could you also email that to us? It's in the, I'll email it to you but it's also in the folder for tonight's meeting. Okay, no need to then. Okay. You will find in the folder for tonight's meeting this document as well as the bids that were submitted. There was also around a follow-up questions that we went back to each bidder and asked them to respond to the same questions for each bidder. And you will see documents with those questions and individual responses we received. So going through this, you can see who the contractors are who provided bidders and the prices that they offered. And then here in this section of the document, these are right from our purchasing policy, the criteria for bid selection. And we reviewed those criteria when you and Dave and I met. Exactly, and that's why we came up with the list of follow-up questions because we wanted to make sure that we had sufficient information that we could come up with the scale that we put here. So basically, we evaluated them. I created a point score thinking of one to five, five being highest and best, one being least desirable. All three of the contractors seem to have the wherewithal to take on this project. So there was nobody who fell into any of these criteria and are less than desirable. And in fact, in some cases, they were in a dead heat. They all have the requisite insurance, licensing, bonding certificate in place that we would imagine necessary for this project. They all seem uneven footing or capability to perform the work. Timeliness, there's a range in terms of when they imagine they could get the work done. For example, GT painting could start on 629, it imagines a four to seven week window to complete the project. And we had also asked them about the possibility of doing the project in phases with eye towards concerns for what conditions might change for the COVID-19 crisis. All of the vendors indicated that they could work in phases should the needs arise. They had various levels of concern about what that would look like. But each of them are willing to be adaptable should the need arise. Okay, nicely done, Cliff, thank you. Oh, you're welcome. So maybe at this point, I would also then say what I did is after we applied a score for each of these criteria, I then did an overall summary. I just rounded them up. If I carried these out a couple of decimal points, you would see that overall, everybody is really close to each other. Let me do that so you can see what that would look like without a rounding, carrying out only two decimal points. Really after looking overall at the different proposals that we were provided and coming back to what we requested in the RFP, David, Denise and myself felt that GT painting, their proposal really felt most in line with what we were asking for in the RFP. And as you can see, the price they quoted is in the middle of the range. So the recommendation from Denise, David and myself is to go with GT painting. And they did the painting at Old West Church, correct? Right, and that's why you see that in the column that considers criteria of bidder's experience and reputation, including past performance for the town. They rated it at the top because of their experience at the Old West Church. Merino and Sons, well-known entity in the state. They've worked on several historical projects with the state. David, it's definitely has worked with them on some of the historical projects that he's been involved with. And Vermont painting, they're based in St. Johnsbury. And even though they don't have any hyper-local projects that they participated in, they did in their proposal show much experience painting many town hall jobs. Yeah, and I like the fact that they had experience doing other town halls. But when we looked at that overall, once again, it seemed that that one at least seemed to favor GT paintings proposal. So maybe at this point, I can open it up to questions and I can try and field answers. David, Denise, you're welcome to jump in as well. Yep, is there any questions from the board or comments? Sharon? I just want to say thank you for you guys, the whole group for a really thorough job. I really appreciate that you applied the town's criteria and you brought us back a meaningful report against those criteria and a recommendation. There's absolutely nothing else I can ask you for. I'm sorry, I didn't hear you cut out. You just wanted me to say it again, Denise. There's nothing I could have asked you to do differently. Thank you very, very much, job well done. Thank you. You're welcome and thank you. John? So just scanning the three proposals, I noticed that GT painting and Marino both proposed using top of the line paint, Benjamin Moore aura, which is good. VT Vermont painting was proposing to Sherwin Williams, which is a lower grade paint. So I would expect, and less expensive, I would expect. I would expect, you know, comparing apples to apples that that $21,800 figure would elevate by some amount. But looking at the cost, total cost for paint, I don't think it would be more than, you know, $3,000. So what was the, I mean, there's a big, there's a lot of space between to make things even, I'm going to say $25,000 and the next lowest number, 36. What was, what did you see as, I'm going to say problematic with the lowest bid? The issues that I saw and David Denise, you're welcome to jump in as well. If I missed some point that you saw. I can't, and maybe issues isn't the right word, but maybe significant differences that I saw. One has to do with timeliness. You'll notice that GT estimates a four to six, seven week window to complete the job. Marino looked at a six week window. BT painting imagines getting it done in about, what is that, 14 days? And yeah, and I think part of what we talked about is the prep work that has to go into getting this ready. It doesn't seem like it would be possible to get the prep work done and the painting done in like two weeks. Well, and that's the next thing I wanted to go into as well. John, you were alluding to some of that in terms of goods and services, BT painting. Let me do a switch of my view here so I can see my own comments. They're offering to do a primer and top coat as John noted, the Sherwin Williams and they're willing to offer a two year warranty on labor and materials. By the way, John, also in those files and the questions that we went back and asked each of the contractors, we did ask them to provide a breakdown of cost of goods and cost of labor. So if you go into the responses to the questions for each of the bidders, you'll see their breakdown accordingly. Marino and Sons, they're offering to do two coats of primer, they're using a self-priming paint that they are very comfortable with. However, it is not a Benjamin Moore primer. The top coat would be Benjamin Moore and they're offering us a one year warranty on labor and materials, but they also pointed out that the normal lifetime warranty that we would enjoy from a Benjamin Moore paint would not apply because they would not be using a Benjamin Moore primer. Benjamin Moore's top coat warranty only applies if it's laid on top of Benjamin Moore primer. And GT painting uses all Benjamin Moore. That's right, that's what I was gonna come to next. GT is using- With a warranty that is quite remarkable. Yes, they're offering 15 years warranty on horizontal surfaces and 25 years warranty on vertical surfaces. And this is in addition to having a lifetime warranty on the Benjamin Moore paint overall. So does that warranty, I believe, I know with the roofing, they generally don't cover the material. Does Benjamin Moore cover the labor? No. So they weren't, okay, so it's the material. The labor is niggie as we know, but I agree that that's a wonderful thorough review. Thank you. You're welcome. I agree with that conclusion. You're welcome. And hopefully I've answered your question. Does anybody have any more questions, Rose? Yeah, I just wanna say thank you for excellent job, excellent presentation, wonderful work, thank you. You're welcome, glad to be of service. And really thanks to everyone. This has been very much a team effort to put the RFP together and bring these responses in. So these thanks deserve to be given to all who've been involved. And that's members of the town hall committee as well as members of the Friends of Town Hall. So thank you. Artie, Artie, did you wanna weigh in on this at all? On the painting? No, no, this is, Cliff has done a great job, everyone that was involved in this is, I agree with everything that was said. So I guess we need to make a decision then about going forward with the RFP and the selection. So we would need a motion to, John? I'll make that motion that we accept the bid by GT painting and the recommendation of the review committee that we hire GT paint painting at their bided price with the bided approach and materials. And I would also include in that, that the entire building get painted. I was, by way of explanation, I was reluctant to see the full building painted based on the original cost expectations, but seeing a $36,500 number, I think we should seize the moment and hire them and get this done ASAP. And also given what Sandra has told us in terms of our $60,000, maybe minus a few dollars for the highway, positive fund balance at the end of this current fiscal year, I would, getting back to my motion, move that we accept the GT painting bid as recommended by the group. I'll second that. Okay, are you ready for a vote? Let me get to my screen where I can see everybody. Okay, I guess I'm first this time. Oh, no, Rose is first. Rose? Aye. I'm an aye. Cliff? Aye. John? Aye. Sharon? Aye. Alrighty, very good. Thank you all. Yay, we got it done. Yay, thank you. I'm so happy to see that number. I can't tell you. Yeah. I was pretty freaked out, David, about it a few months ago. I wanna say Cliff has been wonderful with the entire RFP process. And I honestly was hearing from painters that they were booked up. And I honestly thought that we weren't gonna get a single bid, let alone three pretty decent bids. But thank you very much for going forward. This will be exciting. And I think it's the right time. They can jump. Apparently GT can jump right on this in the middle of the summer while the town hall is probably gonna be dormant. So it may be the right timing as well from that point. That's a good point, David. So Cliff, what do we need to do to award this RFP? Well, the select board has made the decision. So it's official. Now I will respond to each of the bidders and let them know accordingly that we're moving forward with the painting. And then we just wanna lock in our dates and Sandra's of course out, but we'll have to make sure we can have the loan monies secure in time for the start date because each of these bidders required an advance payment. Right, so some of it would be paid in this fiscal year and some would be paid in next fiscal year on gathering. It's all next fiscal year. Okay, so even GT wouldn't be able to start until next fiscal year. That's actually better. Right. That we can pay the whole bill in the same fiscal year. Yes, because that's what was approved for the budget for the coming fiscal year. Right, right. She's not very far away. No, just less than two weeks. Yep. All right. Thank you. Thank you to select other members of the select board for supporting us in our recommendation. Much appreciated. Thank you. All right. Friends of the town hall management agreement. Okay, I hope everybody had a chance to review the documents. Artie, maybe this is where you can step in and explain the process for developing them and a little background is our sources. Yeah, so a lot of the stuff the friends of the town hall has been doing has been based on templates much provided by Plainfield. Tom Blashley was very helpful. They've been through a very similar process to what we've been doing, just trying to figure out how it's going to be used, what's going to be the process of getting it rented, promotion, and the agreement between the town and the friends. So we kind of relied heavily on their documents for what we came up with. And just tweaks, there's really not many big differences between their documents and ours. Discussed with them quite a lot about their learning curve and the problems that they faced and basically cheated and just took a lot of their information and applied it over to what we're doing. That was sort of the process of getting these agreements out there. There's two documents that are separate. One is the actual use of the town hall, the process for promoting it, the process for people who want to have their wedding, their party, their whatever, how that there's a fee schedule that goes along with that, depending on what equipment they're using, depending on how long their events are. And that's sort of one separate agreement and then there's one document and then there's a separate document which is the agreement between the actual town and the friends group and what the friends will oversee, taking it off the hands of the town to actually oversee getting people in and out, making sure the rental agreement is being done properly and making sure that the people have cleaned and that any insurances that might be needed by a rental group is there. It lays out that basically the friends group will be in charge of running the town hall and the town won't necessarily need to be involved in the actual day to day, the use of it. There's a fee schedule attached to all the events that happen. We see this potentially as a revenue generator for the town, not a cost. If it's used properly and enough, any one renting it will cover their own costs. Plus maybe some more that will stay, some of it will stay within the friends group to upgrade buildings, upgrade equipment. Sorry, not upgrade the building, but to maintain the building. So we try to be very careful that this use of the town hall doesn't actually cost the town more. In fact, it may hopefully support itself. That's the basics of it. The specifics of the document, I don't know Cliff if everyone here has access to a version of those or not. As, can I ask a question? Sure. As I was reviewing the document somewhere, and maybe you can clarify this for me, it said that the money would be deposited by the town, is that right? It's gonna, the money is gonna be collected and then given to area anticipating, it's gonna go to Sandra to deposit, Right, so there's sort of two separate things there. There is some monies that will go directly to the friends group for things like, there's gonna be equipment in there, lights, sound equipment, things like that, that if rented will stay within the friends group. But there will also be a fee either per event or per, I can't remember exactly how we broke it out, but there would be part of that fee that will also go directly to the town. So you would have to have, like you would have to have them give you two checks, one for the portion going to the town and one for the friends. Geez Cliff, I can't remember if we had that separated or not. Because I don't think the town is gonna wanna get involved in, we make a deposit and then we then have to write the friends a check. No, in fact, I think it would probably be the other way around, is that friends would do all of the money collecting and then if this particular event was a certain cost to the town of $100 or $50 or whatever it was that we would then send that to the town. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so the whole purpose of the friends group is really to kind of take the responsibility of managing and doing the collecting and all of that stuff off the town and on us. For the upstairs part, yeah. For the, yes, and this is everything I'm talking about is strictly what I think almost all of yet just talking about the upstairs. The cultural functions of the building. Right. Initially at one point, early on in the formulation of the friends and discussing what that organization would look like, we had talked about the possibility of tapping into Sandra to act as a treasure of sorts, but then we realized very quickly that that was not going to be a practical solution. So ultimately that's what we imagined is that the funds would be collected by the friends, payable to the friends and the appropriate money's peeled off and given to the town. Yeah, that makes sense. I don't see that as part of Sandra's function. John? Just kind of reviewing this agreement, it looks really good. The exception that it's not clear, I can only find one place between the two agreements where it makes reference to utilizing the upstairs. It does not limit, there's no limitation to this, you know, the authority basically, we'd be granting the organization to manage. Well, there's nothing that says they would not also be managing and scheduling the downstairs. And the reason I bring that up is the reason I keep bringing it up, that is intended to be primarily not limited, but primarily used for town use. And in fact, we receive grant monies conditional on that understanding. And so I do not want us to kind of, I guess I'd want that clarified in this document that it doesn't have to be strictly limited to the upstairs, but primarily in that, that we need to have clarifying language that when the group needs to use it downstairs and I expect they will. There's a kitchen there, there's all sorts of things that there'll be, there's a check in process or some additional procedure just to make sure it doesn't conflict with town functions, that's all. Yeah, so maybe something, some kind of language that in consultation with the select board or something, that, you know, so if somebody's having a wedding, they may want to use the downstairs to have a place to eat or something like that. You know, to be clear, I think they should be able to use the downstairs. No, I'm not saying, yeah, yeah. Downstairs, I think we need to be a little bit more judicious. So I'll check in and approval just generally. And I think it's not gonna be an impediment. I think most of you are gonna be scheduled well in advance. Yeah, we actually, we discussed that. I'm surprised there isn't the language in there. It should be. There's been a fair amount of talk of, you know, if there is problems, scheduling problems between the upstairs and the downstairs and our take on it was that, you know, as little as possible that the two would interfere with each other. Yeah, so John, yes, you're right. If that language isn't specifically in there, then we will add something to that effect. Yeah, I think that there is language to that effect, but I can understand the desire to strengthen it and I don't see any issues doing that. Okay, so what is the process then for, I mean, obviously there's probably not gonna be much scheduled there in the near future until we figure out the COVID stuff because we would wanna make sure that if there's an event upstairs that there's following guidance that the select board author puts forth for use of the town hall. So we're gonna have to factor that in given the current situation. I mean, I know that like Chris has a play ready or something and so anyways, I just wanna make sure that there's something factored in there about or that it's on everybody's radar that we have to follow the guidance that the select board puts forth with regard to use of the building because it is a town building. Right, and obviously, you know, any regulations that the town puts forward, we need to fall under and abide by, and if things come up, there will be discussions, obviously. And just also, I kind of just wanna put it out there that these two documents haven't been tested with us specifically yet. So they're, although a lot of time and effort went into drafting them, there is still gonna be a learning curve. We took advantage of Plainfield's learning curve. Yeah, I mean, I remember obviously, things could come up that we haven't seen and are willing to adjust as needed. We're very lucky to have Plainfield as kind of a model. John? I'm seeing in the document, general terms and conditions that there's a maximum occupancy level of 130. Is that the upstairs, Artie? Yes. Yes. Okay. Barbara? Downstairs would be an addition. Well, I don't know if there was the potential, if it could happen where there was two events. I don't know if that, maybe that's a question for John McCullough. I'm not sure if that occupancy is building or for the entire building or just for the top. Does anyone know, David or? I think that number is based upon how many people can use the building simultaneously when the capacity of the bathrooms. Correct. I think from my conversations with John about the space downstairs, I think he said the maximum capacity for the entire building is 130. Okay, yeah, that's. So that's a clarification. It needs to be made as well. And again, I don't see really anything that says this is regarding primarily the use of the upstairs. I've looked at this document both twice, so. Right, but I think it needs to be clear, though, that the downstairs isn't unavailable. So if it was, say a wedding or something and that there was a kitchen that needed to be available, obviously the bathrooms are downstairs, so it can't exclude the downstairs. But John, I understand what you're saying. Barbara? Yeah, so I think that our expectation was for tonight was that this draft coming to the select board was for your first review of it and that we would take these questions and comments and warp them into the next draft and get it back to you. And so, so far I've noted these three different things that you've asked and made comments on. And so our recommendation is that you then let us take it back. Word Smith it, get these things in there and send it back to you for a second review in two weeks. Okay, sounds like a good plan. Anybody else wanna weigh in? Yeah, given that any other questions or comments for consideration? Okay, very good, nice work you guys. I know you've put a lot of time and effort into coming up with these guidelines and it takes a while, especially with the word Smithing. So we appreciate all of that you've done to make this workable for everybody. Okay, keypad access to the hall. When this whole conversation started, you wanted to say something more Barbara? We were trying to figure out the scheduling. The friends would do the scheduling for use of the upstairs, of course, checking with the town to make sure there's nothing town related going on in the downstairs. Judy and Barbara, I believe this is how it sugared off would do the scheduling of meetings for the downstairs for town related activities. And then we had the discussion about how are we gonna do keys? Cause right now there's like 500 keys floating around. So John McCullough had a great idea. He suggested one of those keypad entry things with a code and you push, it's like the thing at Maple Corner Community Center. You key in the code, the box opens and out comes the key. So he was going to, over the weekend, purchase the keypad, install it. The nice thing about a keypad is if we feel like maybe too many people have that code, we can change it easily. So that's our suggestion for the key. Hello? Oh no. Okay, we're just talking about the, I got John on the phone, their internet, one of the kids turned it off. So he's gotta wait for it to reboot. So I'm gonna put him on speakerphone. Or he can call in, we can send him the numbers. Can you hear John okay? Or do you wanna call in? I'll put you right up close. Thanks, Dennis. So we were just talking about the keypad. John McCullough, when we were trying to figure out how we might go about sharing keys, he suggested this keypad entry, which we can change the code. It's like, John, it's like the one at Maple Corner Community Center, where you push in the code and a little box opens, but hopefully it'll work better than the one at Maple Corner Community Center. And that way we can give that access code to the different boards and commissions and committees when we start using the space. And if it seems like too many people have access, we can just change the code. Does that make sense? Yep. Okay. Anything else under Town Hall? It's open for a while, we'll talk. Anything else on Town Hall, anybody? I have a comment about the key, just a comment. I'm sure John's put a lot of thought into it. At the store, we ended up using an actual keypad on the door when the number was punched, the lock actually opened. So there wasn't a key. And we had success with that. It works the same. If too many people know the code, you can change it. It does eliminate the actual key. It's probably uglier. I don't know, just if John considered that at all, I would just say it worked well at the store. I don't have a preference either way, just something to think about. Yeah, I can tell you that John did look into those options. There was a couple of considerations why he didn't want us to go that way. One was what you mentioned, the aesthetics of it. The other issue, I think that was even a bigger problem was being able to be compliant with the ADA access as well as the fire door requirement. Okay, great. And Artie, we don't do anything that's ugly anymore. I do, we do ugly things that we did at the store. Those days are over, just to be clear. Okay, anything else on Town Hall? Are you ready to move on? I'm good. Okay. All right, so we have... Take care, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Artie. Thank you, David. Barbara, thank you. Artie, take care. All right, Woodbury Volunteer Fire Department Contract for Fire Protection Services. We put off signing this when we were talking about if we were going to make changes in the budget. Their first payment is due. I believe it's July 1st. I think chance was, oh, there you are, chance. Our first payments due July 1st. Yes, ma'am. So I think we've talked about this a couple of times and we all know how important the fire services are to the town, a reduction in the budget, and there's nobody to answer a call for somebody's house on fire or some kind of medical need could be a huge problem. It could create some kind of a liability. So I would ask that the board agree that we would sign the contract as sent to us by the Woodbury Volunteer Fire Department. Discussion? Is that a motion? It sort of is. If there's no other discussion, John, how do you feel? I can't see you to see if you're raising your hand to approve the Woodbury Volunteer Fire Department's contract. Did it last meeting? Yeah, okay. All right, then that's a motion. I'll second. Okay, any further discussion? I raised concerns a while ago and given our budget issue, but since we've decided not to make any reductions in our actual budget, then I agree with the, we should be full steam ahead. Okay, thank you. Okay, Cliff? Yeah, just to clarify any major adjustments in our current budget, but we are looking still to make some adjustments, but I also want to thank Chance for his patience and bearing with us, not just this evening, but also through this whole process. Thank you, Chance. We just appreciate your patience and your support. Chance is a very patient man. I've come to realize when I've asked him a hundred questions about different things. All right, and please let the fire department know how much we appreciate their work and volunteerism because I know you don't get paid either. So I actually did relay that to the department after our last meeting because we did have a meeting. So I relayed that for you to the department as a whole. So thank you for your support as well. All right, are we ready to vote? Rose? Aye. Sharon? John? Aye. Cliff? Aye. And I'm an aye. And it's starting to thunder and lightning here. So I hope our power doesn't go out or internet. All right, next up. Thank you, Chance. Yes, thank you. Thank you. So you guys will sign that and then send it over and I'll get it signed here and share copies with everybody. Yes, I think we also need to have a motion to authorize. Well, no, the whole board has to sign it unless you want to all, I can take this down to the town office and leave it there for everybody to sign if that's your pleasure. I would support a motion to authorize Denise to sign it on behalf of the board. I don't know how everyone else feels. Given the current COVID situation, it doesn't leave a lot of options. I'm fine with that. Is that a second? Yes. Okay, discussion. All right, let's vote. Rose? Aye. Sharon? Aye. John, did you hear that? Yes, aye. Aye, John's an aye. Cliff? Aye. And I'm an aye. All right, I will get it down to the town office tomorrow, Chance. I'll scan it. I would all do is I'll scan it and email it to you and to Sandra, our treasurer. Perfect, that'll work. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you again. Thank you again. You too. Thank you. Washington County Sheriff's Contract. Somewhere we've been trying to, we've been trying to nail down what happened to the Washington County Sheriff's Contract. They sent it just about the time that the office and everything shut down for COVID. So we have been after them for weeks to send us another copy. They finally did. The contract runs from April 1st to March 31st of 2021. It's always on the same cycle. So somewhere along the way, things got misplaced or didn't get to us or whatever the case may be. The contract itself is in the documents. Katie, correct? If Cliff wants to call up the contract, perhaps. It's basically the same contract. They've raised their rates a little bit from last year, which is understandable. And their mileage rate has gone to 0.625. And they're still providing services even though this contract got kind of messed up. We budgeted in our budget for FY 21, $4,000 for the contract. Don't have a, can you scroll down, Cliff? And their contract is basically the same as it is every year. And this is where we would fill in the $4,000. We have historically not filled in the number of hours they show up sometimes unannounced. Sometimes we ask them to do different patrols, which they're really, really good about responding to. We had a situation in Maple Corners recently, Maple Corner, and they were there the next day doing patrols. So they're pretty responsive. They've been helpful and other things they've participated in. So I would like to see us sign this and get her done. Comments, questions? I'm turning into a pumpkin. Uh-oh. We'll hurry. Our building air shuts off at nine. Oh no. All right, so I'll make a motion that we approve the sheriff's contract in the amount of $4,000, which is what we budgeted for FY 21. I would like to make a friendly amendment. Oh, okay. That motion, plus we authorize these select board chair to sign it on behalf of the select board. For the same reasons as Woodbury. Yes. I'll second that. Okay, you're ready to vote. Rose. Aye. I'm an aye. Cliff. Aye. Sharon. Aye. John. Aye. John says aye. All right, let's talk about, we just, I just want to have on the record that we officially decided not to make any budget adjustments. I'd like to have it in the, because we talked about it at several meetings, we had a big discussion and I had created that little tiny spreadsheet. And I would just like to have it in the record so everybody's clear that we have decided not to make any significant budget adjustments. However, we will be very mindful and very cautious to make sure that we're staying within budget and any savings that we can garner, we will do so. That's what I understood, which is slightly different than the quick sidebar we had a few minutes ago, underscore the difference. We are not making any budget adjustment, right? Pursuant to the act, whatever that number was. S344. And the associated act. So we're not, we're not exercising the effort that the legislature gave us to actually make a budget change. We instead are mindful that we need to be frugal within the budget that we were awarded or the town voted. Yeah, I think we're on the same page Sharon. And also just for the record, we still do have an opportunity if we so choose later on as long as we do it by January 21st to abate. I don't know if that's the right word. Somebody can correct me, I'm sure. Any penalties and interest for this tax season? Basically choose. But right now our penalties and interests are pretty low already. So I just want to keep that out there that we still do have the right to that authority even if we're not making budget adjustments and reducing the budget. We can forgive, is that what you're saying? Right, yeah, right. The BOA always has the authority to abate as necessary. Right. Yeah. But only under certain rules. Yeah, I'm not going to let Clifson. Yeah, right. And the hardship could be COVID-19, who knows? But Clifson had his hand up. I just need some clarification here. So we're saying we're not making any significant adjustments to the budget that things are staying as is, but I thought we agreed up on a few small items already. For example, the stipend that the select board has received in years past, do you agree to not do that this time? That's what we had agreed to in our last discussion. I think we also in our last discussion, and maybe you were going to say this and I apologize, it was not to go forward with the chipper. Exactly. So are those not budget adjustments? I think that we, at the end of the, well, I guess, yeah, I guess you're right, they are, but I don't know that, yes, that and a couple of other reserve funds, we just, I would think if we're going to fully fund one reserve fund that we should agree that we're going to fully fund those other reserve funds that we have. Okay. Yeah. So making sure I'm understanding we're not making any line item adjustments, but we are opting, reserving the right to not spend the money if we don't have to. Correct. Yeah. Okay, fine with that. Thank you for clarifying. Sharon, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I kind of cut you off. No, I was, that's all right. I was just, no. So I think we don't really need to talk about all the, you know, we're not making any budget changes and we have the, we have the underscored authority to forgive penalties and interests on late taxes. So. Yep. All right. Good. I'm glad we have this on the record. IT update. You want to tell them about Sandra's computer cliff? Yeah. Just briefly, so everyone's aware. You saw the emails from Sandra regarding the treasurer support, how she had to break things up into a number of documents. This was due to the fact that the laptop she is currently using is on pretty much close to its last legs. There is, it was an option to upgrade the hard drive on it with a solid state, but we're still talking about an older laptop have limited, excuse me a minute. I'm bringing John back into the meeting that would have limited viability going forward. We solicited a quote from RB Tech to repair the existing laptop versus replacing it. The repair cost was going to be around $300. The viability of the laptop would be about a year at most given the upgrades coming out from Microsoft and whatnot. The quote to replace it for materials and labor was $1,649. So we looked, we had the money in the budget so we opted to authorize RB Tech to move forward with purchasing a laptop and giving her a good working system. It will actually give us some return on investment because it will increase her productivity and it will be viable for at least five years going forward. John. Question regarding the programming licenses, those transferable from the current laptop to the new one? Yes, they are. And the other thing we can do is still recoup some investment in the existing laptop and having it available for use at the town hall as a backup for the committees and whatnot. They can actually pair it with the screen that's mounted there use it to take notes and whatnot. Okay. Sharon, you wanted me to put on invasive species and tree health? Oh yes, thank you. I heard from a couple of folks, well, I heard from one person in town about concerns about tree health and specifically this person speculates that what we can observe as dying trees is due to road salt and other road maintenance practices. So I checked in with Stephanie and Neil on the conservation committee. Just through email, I haven't had a chance to talk to either of them yet but my impression or the clear feedback I got is yes, they believe also that tree health is affected by some of our road maintenance practices. And are any of those trees ash tree Sharon that have that bore thing? No, even young maples and not just one or two, like a lot. So there's more for me to learn and maybe all of us to learn about tree health but it just reminded me of the conversations we have about invasive species and how that interrelates with road maintenance and our ongoing goals as a select board to have an approach and an accountability from our road leadership and road crew that really considers all of those issues in a holistic and integrated way. So I just wanted to say that out loud that I feel like that's where we need to be going is not siloing issues related to the road but thinking of them in an integrated way and looking at our road crew and asking them to think about these things all working together rather than blinders that are focused on road maintenance, equipment maintenance. And then it's always up to us to knit together and resolve and reconcile tensions around other priorities in the town. So I just wanted to say that. And I guess the other thing to say related to that is that each of the people who spoke to me about the trees felt like they need to come to the select board because there wouldn't be an embracing open year from the road team. That may not be fair, but that is a clear sentiment and I can understand where it comes from. Yeah, I've over the years heard some of the same sentiments and it might be good to have a conversation with the conservation committee. Schedule a time, perhaps we kind of got off track and I've been in touch with Joanne Garten who did the resilient roads report. And I think that this could all tie together and maybe a joint meeting with the conservation commission with Joanne reviewing, apparently there are action plans which we need to look at and set forth what our goals are. So I think this is all very timely. I think it can all work together. You wanted to say something, John? Yeah, to your point, Denise and Sharon's point, the cumulative effect of what's happened or what's come before us, as far back as when Conrad Smith was still with us. I'm just gone right on. And the roads committee and that whole discussion that we started having, you know, first with roads getting widened onto tree roots brought up by Barb Whedon and JC Meyer and Doug Lilly, people from very diverse backgrounds and even I might add political viewpoints, all in agreement that things need to change. And that was the beginning and I thought it would be a very limited but as we learn more and more and more, it seems that the cumulative effect is that we've already turned a corner, we've already passed and abandoned the old, just we're maintaining the roads to make them passable approach to road maintenance and it's a much bigger ordeal than just keeping the roads graded and plowed. And I really think this select board needs to seriously investigate how we can shift gears and move fully in that direction. So we're not constantly nibbling on the edges and nickel diming and adding little bits and pieces to the road work or the road program work schedule that we need a holistic approach and it needs to be a fully embraced new approach. And just specifically about trees and salt, just to be clear, calcium chloride is a one type of salt. Sodium chloride is another. We use, we don't use sodium chloride, we do not put what we understand to be winter road salt that for instance, we put on County Road. We don't use that on the dirt roads or the gravel roads but in the summer, we liberally, at the select boards urging myself included, apply calcium chloride, which is a salt that also has deleterious effects on broadleaf trees and to a lesser extent, softwood trees but in particular maple trees they're highly sensitive to salt. And so there's a conversation we probably need to start having about that. Calcium chloride, is there an alternative to its use? I don't know what's available out there but it's a problem. And frankly, it only works when we still have, we still need precipitation. Calcium chloride just slows the drying out of the road surface. And as we can see today, the roads are all dusty and it's not because chloride has not been applied. So what I asked Rose and Katie to do to help us look back, see where we started, where we got, what we've done might help us to move forward. They did the minute search about invasives, the roads committee. I think that they did a really good job. Thank you very much, ladies. That was helpful to me to look back and see what we did, what we talked about, those kinds of things. So take a look at those minutes searches, they're very helpful. And I can talk to Stephanie about a joint meeting with the conservation commission. I said I've been in touch with Joanne who sent me a follow-up link to East Mount Pilliers action plan, for instance. Sharon? Just finished, Denise, and then just come back to me. So I think between all of us working on this together and then maybe having, seeing if we can form a committee to perhaps work on this because we can't all work on it all at the same time. So my thought, building on what you just said and what John said is what we're not saying though is that we would invite the road leadership there. Oh yeah, they were involved before. Okay, you said the joint meeting with the conservation committee and I didn't hear that the roads folks were doing. Oh yeah, that's a given. Okay, all right. I wanna make sure that we all mean that. And then the other thing is John, I've made a note of this when you were speaking. I hope, and I appreciate the research Katie and Rose did because there has been, I know even long before I was on the board there's been a long conversation but I feel like we are at a place where, I mean, just look at tonight's agenda and what we're not gonna have time to talk about because I at least am gonna turn into a pumpkin and all the work we have to do even before next Monday, right? I wanna be in a place, my goal as a member of this board and for our town is that we're in a place where it is not always the select board having to be not just be clear about a directive. I was surprised to discover recently in a conversation that there was a sentiment that the board hadn't been clear about its directive at a level that seemed to me should be, if we haven't been clear about it recently it has to have been clear at some point and it's part and parcel and fully integrated with all of the things we do talk about. I don't want us to be in a place where every little thing has to be articulated as a directive and then we have to oversee, chase it down, follow to make sure that it's embraced and applied and that we're not constantly supervising implementation. Well, and I think that when we formed the Roads Committee initially, we had a charge that the board put forth. I think Roads attended most of those meetings. The committee originally was JC Conrad, Doug and I'm forgetting who else now, but it doesn't really matter and we had a charge and that's what we can do. That's a directive. And then we asked them to periodically report back to us and file a report of what they recommend, the action that the board would take. Is that similar to what you're thinking? Yeah. Yeah, although it seems like it has not been sustained or did it not get as far as what we're talking about now? It got as far as the charge, the committees, the Roads Committee met, the members of the committee changed and then it just sort of kind of fell off the radar, unfortunately. And Rose wants to say something. Yeah. I have some documents that I'll forward to the members of the select board. Basically, the Roads Committee initially did what it was supposed to do and that is devise the callous Roads standards. And once that committee was done, then another committee wanted to continue the work of it. So that was the second committee. And then that second committee fizzled out in about 2014. I think that's what I came, or 2016, I did just find that all on these minute searches. So I will forward some really useful information. Is that the stuff from Steve Jerome and the... Yeah, there's all sorts of information that especially from a historical perspective, Sharon, I think that you'll really appreciate it. John probably remembers that Denise does, but especially you and Cliff, but even for myself, and I was at those committee meetings, it's just great to read through it and just really refresh your memory again. You'll find it very interesting and very informative. Yeah, and that's why I asked you and Katie to do those searches because you can't possibly remember, we can't possibly remember anything, especially at our age and when we're turning into pumpkins. So local hazard mitigation plan that got, we've had one right along. So this is an update to it. This is required so that we can get FEMA reimbursement if we have a road that washes out, things like that. So Grace Vincent from CVRPC contacted me and I have lined up Jan from planning commission, Toby and Alfred, Nick Emlin, somebody else that Nick recommended who's had experience in Berlin with local hazard mitigation plans, not that we haven't had experience, but some new help is very much appreciated. And these meetings are scheduled and put together by CVRPC. We come up with a plan, the board looks at it, CVRPC reviews it to make sure that we do everything dull or eyes cross all our teeth. So if we need FEMA reimbursement, you can get it. And the nice part about having Toby on this, you know, as our operations manager, fire department, we kind of get two birds with one stone. That's it on hazard mitigation. Maybe we can skip over minutes, I hate to, but I really want the board to go in executive session for about five minutes. I make a motion that we go into executive session under one VSA section 313A3. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second that. All right, thank you. Thank you, Katie. Hi, everybody. Hello. At 9.50. Right, and every, we did a roll call vote. Yep. Thank you. Rose, can you get a vote please? Aye. John? Aye. Sharon? Aye. And I have an eye, and Cliff had to step away for some situation at his house. And I heard the motion and I support it. Sharon? Is everything okay? Yeah, I can fill everyone in later, but Sharon, you've got the hosting duties. So the recording and the other guests who will need to exit in advance of going into the executive session.