 So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Scott and Dot to talk to you about what's going on in the schools and if you want to have other conversations, please take them outside so we can hear them. So Scott, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, guys. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. I'm Scott Thompson. Dorothy Naylor is here. And as of the end of today, the district school board, which is at present composed of 10 people, will expand to 15 people. And Kari Bradley is on the ballot for Calis. So this is what is happening. For the moment, though, all you have is Dorothy and myself. The reason why we're here for the next few minutes is not just as a warm-up act for town meeting, but also to provide you an opportunity to take potshots, throw darts, ask questions. And then perhaps there's a bouquet to her own, we'll take that too. But the main thing is there's so much change going on in the way we've been governing our school system. It's hard, even for us who are in the thick of it, to know where to start in order to explain what's going on and to kind of give you a sense of enough of a feel so that you have a sense of comfort in what's happening. So what I'd like to do first is, as I often do, pass it back to the indispensable woman on this board, Dorothy Naylor. Thank you, Scott. Before you go on top, there's an awful lot of background noise and chatter. So really, if you want to have a conversation, please go outside so that people can hear each other in this discussion. Thank you. It's been such a very busy year trying to have our school board begin to know each other and work together. Although many of us have worked with each other over the last few years in various other boards. But my focus when I'm in this position, besides all the important things in making sure we have a good education, is I really want to make sure we get the communities involved more than they are, maybe more than they have been. And I really push it for the little towns to have their own quasi-school committees where the town would have to decide, or you people would have to decide, I don't know of the town as a body has to decide. But we need to decide who we want on it, other than the principal and our maintenance people, to meet on a regular basis and really know what's going on in our little school and be able to bring that to the board and to get the board to listen. I don't think it's a good idea to have us being Washington Central Unified, which I hope we can change someday. We need to have our own article of agreement on how you form the committee. I think each town should decide how to form the committee, what they want them to do, and that's something that I'm pushing. If you read Front Porch Forum, you'll see I have made an effort to write a very neutral list of what's been going on at the meeting so you at least know what's been going on, and you should be able to usually get the agendas for what's happening the next time, at least the topics. And we really want to have some more people come from time to time to our meetings, just as, well, I was going to say, you better wait a few weeks or months, because now we have 15 and we have to figure out the seating of nothing else. So I can hear, because I'm a deaf one, and even with hearing aids, I miss a lot, and I know it. So that's kind of my focus is getting the communities more involved, and we'll need some of you to be willing to come. And I'm not seeing this as a school committee that meets every week, maybe not even once a month, but getting them to hear in the middle and so forth, but some citizens who can keep up their fingers on the school and let us know what the school needs, rather than having to go through another kind of chain of command. I want the locals to still have some kind of say, and that's kind of my push besides trying to be a calm person at the board. You're sure? Oh, I didn't think that. Thank you, Dorothy. Yes. Have you all received this, or do you know what this is? This is the annual report of the Verge School District, the Unified Reading School District. There are a whole bunch of them somewhere. And they're right outside this door. They're right outside the door where you come in from inside the gym door. There's a whole pile of them. And they, well, they're kind of like, but not what you used to get that had all the information about U32 in your school. And I have asked for the next issue to be in newsprint. I think this is an expensive piece that has not enough information in it. You're here. There is a sort of almost like a corporate annual report vibe to it. Which, I mean, in a sense, that's kind of what we've become. We've gone, this school of Cal Cemetery, our annual budget was in the neighborhood of $2 million per year. Now it's part of an entity that has a budget of $35 million per year, which is what you're voting on today. Which is roughly the size of the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development. So that's the scale that we're on right now. One more question. Do you all know that we have a new superintendent hired beginning July 1st? I'm seeing nodding, but also shaking of heads. So for those of you who haven't heard, we have hired a superintendent named Brian Oldkowski, who will be coming to us from Connecticut via New Jersey, who's sort of a specialist in difficult situations, who has some amazing qualities, including a 50,000 watt personality. So that is just the most superficial description. He also comes with a great skill set that I think he'll have an opportunity to use with us and help us go where we want to go. Since the problem with becoming a bureaucracy is that the nature of that mindset doesn't always fit so well with the nature of education, bureaucracy being best for routine type things, education being best for just the opposite. So are there other questions, are there concerns, Rick? Scott Northy, you've had a year under your belt now with this new consolidated school and you've just articulated one problem that you're running into that's so far more. And it sounds like you were trying to address that communication piece with this school itself. The job that the old school boards did in each town is to make their hands run on what's going on in the schools. I have creative committees now to do that for you. What other challenges are you seeing? I know the sheer load of what you're doing has increased dramatically. You've got far less people doing far more work. I know you're meeting some of these meetings around until midnight, you know, six hours a month. But are there other things that you're seeing that are kind of impenetrable in this job well? And as you know, I'm participating in a lot of the meetings. I'm observing this myself, you know, there's an overwhelming amount of information there. And some of it just, honestly, some of it isn't. But are you seeing big problems that we have to overcome because of this kind of consolidation and this forcing upward in the way from the community, you know, the decision that's going on? Well, I'm kind of going to address how we operate in the meetings because they're so long. Luckily, we have Orca to look back at our meetings. They're all taped. And many people have complained that our meetings are so long. And I have suggested that our members go back and look at the tapes. Notice not how many times they speak, but how many times they compete themselves and are really ready to give their idea. And this takes a lot of time. We need to have members who are more economical with their thoughts and not repeat it. And that should shorten the meetings somewhat. I don't mean people should not talk. We need their ideas. And I have to admit there are many times that ideas have come forward that I have never thought of and willing to contemplate and sometimes change my mind. So that's one of the problems with the length of it. And I'm hoping we don't have to make any so-called rules for ourselves to shut people up. From my perspective, the hardest part is the sense that my knowledge is what I have to know is much broader, but it's also much shallower. So I feel as though there's a lot more to do, but with less knowledge about that. And that's what we're hoping, just as Dorothy was talking about earlier, the school advisory councils or committees or whatever the name those entities eventually come up with, that will help to develop school-based expertise that I think the board is desperately in need of. Another issue that is percolating underneath, in fact, now that the pro-merger and anti-merger bumper stickers have been torn off, you know, the commutative, there's a deeper difference that I find very interesting. I don't want to get too theoretical about that. Basically, it's the difference between a conception of the school board as a kind of quasi-private sector corporate board, a nonprofit board or something, versus the idea of a school board as a kind of more of a governmental body that the response to the people. You see this in, if you've been following the news, there are situations, even close by, Harvard next door to us, as well as in Madison, where school boards are essentially rejecting petitions that people have brought forward, where there are mock school boards. School board meetings being set up by citizens to protest that what they feel is their school board's alienation from the people. We'll remark ourselves, fortunately, so far. But this is a kind of divide, an intellectual divide, I guess, that will need to be bridged, that will need to kind of figure out a proper, you know, combination synthesis. Can I just agree with him quickly? Yeah, part of the thing about being community, one community, one thought is I want our board to be more agile and respond to the community more quickly that we all study that and get back to you next year. I do not like that. We need to change that. I'm going to build on something you said, and it's bureaucracy versus staying current or even projecting into the future. What I see, and I'm wondering, what are the creative solutions to it? Dealing with the zombie-like status quo thinking and behavior of the education bureaucracy that has stuck in a paradigm. Not cat. Not cat. No, I'm talking to individual people. It's not good or bad. It's just, stop there. But I've been working with the education system for 30 years. Business, managers, principal, superintendents. Early education, all the way through working with presidents of colleges. And what I have seen is that they're stuck in a paradigm that increasingly is not meeting our needs of our society and our country or the world. And it seems like this centralization is just solidifying that bureaucracy of status quo thinking and education. Do you have any ideas? I like the idea of local committees and so on on how we can not get caught in the corporate bureaucracy, but the leaders of the future and challenging the bureaucracy in a nice way. I don't have an answer to that at this point. I feel the same way. I feel the agency of education and to some extent the state board of education are applying to little tiny Vermont and the tiny, tiny towns the ideas of way bigger communities. And we just know that doesn't fit. When many of us don't have cell service and you can't get an electrician to come and fix something anymore. I mean, we're talking about, also been talking about how many kids go to four-year colleges. I'm not so sure that's a good number to be looking at. It's really expensive. I'd rather see the same number of kids go into a two-year college and then spring into the four-year college because community colleges are much less expensive. They could get a good education for two years and then spend some money if they need to. Being an excellent plumber and an excellent electrician and those people, they do good work and we need them and they have pretty good incomes, I think. They're not millionaires, yeah, but neither are the rest of us. So that's some of the things I'm wanting to push, but just one little long voice. Somebody go along someday. I don't think you have a long voice. Jack, that's a great question and I will follow up with you personally. Hi, I'm Adrienne and I work here in 3D2 and I just wanted to comment that well, I have a lot of things to say. I'm trying to keep it short. Thank you for all of your work. I know that this job has been really huge and way too much work for you, so I appreciate everything that you're doing. The other thing that I have to say, I appreciate the fear of the corporate and I totally understand the bureaucracy piece of it. I also just wanted to put a little comment about how U32 has been doing this for a long time because we are all five schools in one. So if I'm following correctly, I think that what could be helpful is working towards U32 a little bit more and asking maybe for help from U32 and U32 working on our ways to bring towns together because that's already something that's important. It's like all of those kids are in one building now and that's not a solution for Calis and Berlin. No sense, but if they have a goal to go to U32 together, there is that building that's bringing them together and that's something that we need to work on is relationships and building that more solid community and less separate. I just wanted to point out that for people who are worried, this is something that's already in place and has been in place for years. Everybody's been going to U32 for years and while some things aren't working, there are a lot of things that do work. Does that make sense? I think U32 is a great example of towns working together. The main change is sort of deeper than that and kind of cultural and fighting the kind of negative headwinds that might otherwise tend to diminish the quality of the educational experience overall. But thank you. I think that's an important point to make, that U32 works and there's no reason why this can't work. It's a fact and we have to deal with that fact and that's what we're trying to do or that's the way we can. Talk to us about what the district is doing to prepare for census-based funding for special education. At this point, the administration has the lead on that. I personally am not looking forward to it because the block grant approach is typically, if you look back, just for example when the feds converted to temporary assistance to new families from the previous welfare system and went to block grants, the block grants were set in something like 1996 and they haven't changed since. Block grants tend to be a way for the state, for the funder to basically back away at the rate of inflation from their support for, in this case, special education. So we're still trying to figure out what the implications will be and how best to manage them. Yeah, can I do that? Could you wait for the microphone? I don't know if I have a lot to add to that. As you know, the folks at our director of special education has been working with the folks at the state to really think about what we're going to do next. I think there's still a lot of information to figure out to decide what is the direction for us to take. But I think there's a little nurse for short. Well, I'm Scott Besson from East Dallas. Scott, what people say to you when you ask about the very uncommon level of appraisal that's been applied to all of our tax rates and what can you do about it to try to make it more common? Yes. Thank you, Scott. You know what he's talking about, right? The common level of appraisal, which is, it's in this book and it's the adjustment that's applied to our town tax rates based on how close the tax department reckons our grand list is to the actual market value of our property being taxed. In principle, all five towns are supposed to pay the same education tax rate. But that is then, even though we're considered an merged district, the common level of appraisal is applied separately to each town, which is sort of incoherent if you're thinking, oh, we're supposed to be merged and yet we're being treated all differently. So this is apparently, and I saw Janet earlier, who may have left to visit her other towns. This, I think, is a legislative issue. The legislature has to act in order to combine so that there's a common, common level of appraisal, which would also have the advantage because places like Calis or Worcester, especially, often there may be times when property sales are really rare, so they're making statistical judgments based on a minuscule sample, which is not really legitimate, but which has a very real effect on the tax rates that we pay. But we can, I don't know how we do it, but we can change our common level of appraisal and we have to renew something. We have to reappraise somehow either the listers are shaking their heads, no. Sometimes they do it by a flat percentage, but I was just looking at the differences, and for instance, Berlin and Worcester are two of the towns whose common level of appraisal is at 100%. So what they pay is slightly less, really, than the common $1.79 and so on. Calis and East Montpelier are the lowest. We're at 95%, and East Montpelier is at 93%. So we can, and it will be work, we can do better with our common level of appraisal. I don't know how long that would take. Paul Hannon's going to get the last comment and then we'll start the town meeting. I hope this is Paul Hannon from South Calis. I'm not convinced the common level of appraisal really matters all that much. That means that you're looking at this and more. But basically the reason for the differential is that the towns are appraising property on a town-to-town basis. In other words, there isn't one. We all need that the same level if all the towns were appraised by the same entity, but we're not. So in our, you know, if your property is where it's a few things, where the town thinks it's worth $100,000, but in fact, the properties are sold for $120,000, well then our appraisals are both what the market is by a certain amount, and therefore your tax rate is ratcheted up. But it's still based, your tax rate is still based on what the town says your property is worth $100,000, so you're not really paying any more. It's just being adjusted to make up for the fact that there's just appraisers out there. Yes. This is a technical question. Yeah. Sorry, that's fine. That's fine. I'm Danielson and I'm a listener. Or an assessor. Two things. The state ballot, which is the Vermont Association of Posters and Assessors, are looking at whatever it takes to do a combined COA on school districts. It's a little bit difficult. The way each town may use their COA is based on a three-year, rolling sales information between what has been sold and the relationship or ratio between the sales price and the listed assessor price. And it's a three-year rolling. Those folks that have 1.00 or 100%, they just got done with the free appraisal, which is what East Calis had in 2015. We tier the market goes up a little bit. Our assessment sort of goes up, but it stays the same. So then we get the reduction and our COA isn't magnified. We can't really do anything about it until we have to measure this by market forces. Okay. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Scott and Dorothy, for your good work. And I'll ask the select board to come on up now and we'll get to the town meeting started in just a moment. I'm currently in the town third, 2020 meeting. And article one is to elect a moderator and I'll stand aside for Judy to conduct that election. Good morning. Are there nominations for the moderator for the excewing year, Denise? I nominate Gus Selig. Gus Selig has been nominated for the moderator and it's been seconded. Are there any other nominations for the moderator? Hearing none, all in favor of closing nominations, please say aye. All those opposed? All in favor of Gus Selig for moderator, please say aye. Aye. The ayes have it. Gus Selig is our moderator for the excewing year. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. It's a privilege to have this job and do this once a year. The history books that Gail Graham has in the back on Calus are correct. This is I think our 226th annual town meeting. My role in this meeting is to facilitate your discussion and your debate. And do we have some first time people here today or second time people? Okay, well, welcome. Thank you for participating. There are a couple things going on today and one is town meeting. Equally important for some of us is lunch. David, do you want to say a word about lunch? Once again, we are footprint you in bringing the food and buying it back. So it is still $5 for lunch, a great deal, incredible cuisine from all over in Calus. Thank you. And we're at a town hall. So this time it's being run by the friends of the town hall. It's a brand new organization that you can sign up to be a member of at the table in the rear. Thank you, David. My move we adjourn the meeting to lunch. I'm told lunch isn't quite ready so we're going to skip that. I'm open to an amendment. Oh, man, they left the word down. Yes. Yeah, I'll do that in a second. So I'm going to, in a moment, ask the select board to introduce themselves but first I want to say a few things about how this meeting works and in addition to town meeting and lunch the other thing that's going on is a presidential primary and so you can get your ballot at any point up to seven o'clock tonight to vote if you haven't done so already. We are actually in an area where an election is being conducted. I don't see anybody currently wearing any electioneering paraphernalia and you should not in this space. I won't ask you to take off your shirt if you are wearing such paraphernalia but that's what you're not supposed to do is electioneer with an election going on in this space. A few things about how town meeting works. We work from a warning that's in this book and there are eighteen articles that begin on page six that guide how we do our business. I've been asked by several people when can I bring up a subject that might not be clearly worn and the two times would be in the next article, article two to ask questions about the reports of town boards and officers because if you don't see something in there you can ask why was it not in here and then the other time would be under other business. The problem with other business is we can't do anything binding that was not worn. So you may have something you want the select board to do in the coming year you can make mention of it today you may get several fellow citizens to agree that we ought to be working on this or that but we can't take binding action that would force them to do that because the voters of the town didn't know what was going to be up for action today and somebody might have wanted to come to participate in that discussion if it had been worn. The warning is developed mostly by the select board sometimes there are articles that people request that they put them on when we get to an article I will ask a proponent of that article to move it and then it's going to be open for discussion by all of you you are acting as the legislature for the town today the select board is sitting up front to be accountable to you not because they may be more knowledgeable on a specific issue but we're all equal and they only get one vote today just like all the rest of us that's true it's all you ever get but sometimes you're one of five today you're one of several hundred I ask everybody to conduct themselves with civility to speak to the issues we conduct the meeting under Robert's rules of order and I will do my best to interpret them accurately and fairly my peripheral vision is limited and so you may have your hand up on this side of the room and I may not see you what I'm going to try to do is just go back and forth in calling people across the room so I don't get stuck in one place and not see somebody on the far side who wants to speak think about what you'd like to say is the advice I give you and try to get to the point I don't think I've ever had to do this but in the moderator trainings if you go on too long I'm supposed to say something like could you get back to the point of the question because maybe you've taken a few detours in your long if you talk for too long please use the mic you may feel like you've got one of those voices that everybody can hear but as somebody past 60 I can tell you I don't hear as well as I once did and I know I'm not alone in the room so wait for one of the mic runners to get to you so that everyone can hear what you've got to say please take side conversations outside it doesn't take too long for the background noise in this room to get so that people cannot hear each other very well moderators often get in trouble when we try to rush things along when we don't explain things well so every time we get to an article and we're ready to vote we try to read the article in full to you if you're confused about what we're about to do or what we're about to vote on or you think the procedure is wrong you can ask for point of information or point of order you can also challenge the ruling of the moderator if I rule in a way you think is wrong and a majority of you agree with a person who disagrees with my ruling says I was wrong and will proceed in a different way a couple things about how we interact with each other and talk with each other through this process what is to speak through the moderator to not make it personal you may disagree passionately with your neighbor but don't try not to let it get personal and by directing your comments to me that can diffuse some of that personal feeling once some years ago I was moderating a meeting I can't remember if it was on ancient roads or it was on where the town office was going to be but it got pretty passionate this one person was waving his arm and pointing his finger at me and I said finally said you know I this is not my proposal and he said I know but she told me to talk to you and he was right there are three ways to vote one is by voice one is by asking for a division of the house where we'll raise hands and to do that you will need one of these cards which if you've checked in with the board of civil authority they've given you one if you haven't got one of these and we have a division you'll need one in order for your vote to be counted if seven of you request a ballot a paper ballot on an issue okay you can choose to amend an article you can choose to amend an amendment we will probably stop right at that point because by the time you get beyond that it gets really really confusing and hard for people to figure out what's going on we usually stop the proceedings when we get done with an article when our state representative Janet Ansel arrives and she usually gives us a short report on what's going on at the state house so with that as a general introduction to how this meeting will work we are on article two which is to ask questions about the reports of town boards and officers so are there such questions from anybody Matt Matt Gardner Morris I'm just wondering if the treasurer could speak to the delinquent taxes two hundred thousand delinquent taxes were seen really high to me and I just wonder hopefully that number is going down and you know just I don't know two hundred thousand dollars in delinquent taxes are really high to me Sandra I'm your treasurer and I'm happy to speak to that the two thousand eighteen delinquent taxes are roughly six thousand dollars at the close of 2019 that would be in December the delinquent taxes or the taxes outstanding were one hundred ninety thousand dollars and to date we've collected ninety six thousand dollars so the goal is to get the balance of that in by the end of the fiscal year the select board has worked very closely with me we keep the report every month on the delinquent taxes and honestly we are in you have fewer delinquent taxes outstanding from prior years than you have had in a few years so I think we're going to be fine and yes that's high but people do the best they can to pay so sometimes people get behind and they need just a couple of extra months other questions so good morning I'm Craig Lyon I live on west church road I had a couple questions about the report of the town hall renovation project one being I'm curious what fuel source was ended up being installed for the oiler and also I've asked each year and I've never I guess received a answer but this is the intent of the town to again hold town meeting in the town hall wait for him get a microphone please I can't speak to what fuel source because I don't remember John do you know can you tell us is it gas? and the other question Craig that you have is we haven't made a decision on whether or not to go back to holding town meeting at the town hall because it's been out of service for several years so I'd be curious to know maybe a hand vote what do people think do they want town meeting back at the town hall or does it work well here what if you wanted to be at the town hall you only get one hand there okay and what about leaving here at the school huh okay well that's good to know we'll keep that in mind thank you other questions Paul had in and then Stephanie I think you wanted to say something I'm not sure there's a question at the end but I'll see this has to do with the conservation commission's report I noticed that much of the reporting perhaps most of the reporting perhaps most of their work over the past year has had to do with MLBH 4 I want to say the three most comforting words in that section of the report are with landowner approval and maybe the four most troubling words are the towns ashtrays now that the T in town is small and so maybe that was referring to everybody's ashtrays but the point I want to make is that the trace of the right over is along with the landowner and so I think a lot more than the with landowner approval section really was common had to do with marking trees and I'm just hopeful that it really refers to all of the activities contemplated for treatment of ashtrays right away because again the town has an easement for highway purposes over your land if the town road goes through but they don't own the trees so I just took a drive out in my section of the max freight looking for ashtrays and I don't really have that but I've done an awful lot of M-lock and so has the M-lock William Delta it's totaled pretty healthily except for Vermont probably wouldn't be looking at my M-lock trees but I'd like to manage those myself and we've got to believe that there are a few of us in the same way it gets complicated with respect to this for highway purposes for highway purposes clearly there's a hazard tree the terminal proof site distance sure I don't think that now we can land on permission but when we're sort of prospectively trying to deal with the problem that may or may not be as bad as we think it's going to be the other trouble part of it is the contemplation of planting trees kind of raises the question of whose trees are they to come who gets to control them and sound like a private property that's guy all of a sudden but I guess I now in this case there's a bill in the legislature that with mud is the water even further because there's currently a statute talking about shooting trees and the tree ward risk would change the definition of shot tree to a problem to put the the power the tree ward to declare what's above the tree so I don't know it seems like it's a kind of money situation to conduct in that shade tree and I totally get it with the work of concern about a test coming in devastating our ash trees but I really hope it's all in consultation with the bill's local Stephanie Hi, I'm Stephanie Cahill I'm the chair of the Calis Conservation Commission and unfortunately we can assure that we are fully aware that the landowners owned the trees in the right-of-way that we could not be doing anything without landowners permission and as Paul from understands in order to cut any of the trees that are in the right-of-way the terrible right-of-way but the trees that are owned by the landowner the landowners would be notified individually and then if they requested it there would be a public hearing before entities were taken down so I wanted to also just give a little update about what the Calis Conservation Commission was done in this last year and sort of where things stand there's a table in the back it's got a lot of information about what we're doing and also what landowners private landowners can do you have to understand that when I say we I'm talking about the town and again it only would affect trees in the town right-of-way trees on your land that's not in quite a quite a way you have to take care of yourselves and there are suggestions there are some publications back there were suggestions about what to do I assume that you're all aware after all this time about the Ambulash Board that destroys ash trees and in the Midwest these coasts where the infestations have occurred close to 100% the ash trees die eventually ever they're infested by this little emerald green thing they lay eggs under the bark in the larva tunnel around and then the tree can't get nutrients in water that it needs in the garden one of the also as Paul pointed out in the town report there's kind of a detailed explanation of what the conservation has been working on last year as I reported at town meeting we got a $2,000 grant in order to from the state in order to come up with a management plan as many of you know we conducted inventory and there were a lot of volunteers and there was this little app from the forestry program and people went around and they saw miles of callous roads punching in this little app when they saw an ash tree and then also he became whether it was considered ashes in the sense that it fell the fallen road or the building so there were of the inventory that was going on those roads there were a total of 3,297 ash trees identified which is kind of shocking to me high amount of ash trees because it means that eventually these trees are going to be gone so there are several possibilities of how to deal with them and none of them are good but all they are but we have to deal with them and one of the problems with ash trees is that as they die and when you're dead they get very brittle so how and where they fall is unpredictable and they're kind of dangerous to deal with artists don't like dealing with dead ash trees so there are several possibilities we've outlined them there very quickly we could have cut all the ash trees saw all the roads preemptively we could have identification of the most hazardous ones and figure out how to take those down there's also a possibility of insecticide treatment if there are very special trees so we're going to have a public meeting sometime in the spring maybe early summer because before we finalize what we're doing we need public meeting and then ultimately it's up to the select board to decide so we really hope that people come we had a great turnout for the inventory we had a lot of volunteer help for that and then again I wanted to emphasize that we're not going to be doing anything with ash trees without window permission the other thing is that you should be aware that we're doing a little project of identifying where there's a density of ash trees on kind of highway travel roads we're going to be putting up some little signs so that just to heighten your awareness that these are ash trees they're going to be gone some day this is why from our information and also so there's more information back there about it little sections of lightning range west county roads and north county roads there's also a map what's the literature back there that shows the density of the ash trees along the various roads I just wanted to say one more quick thing and it doesn't have anything to do with ash trees it has to do with the blister on town forest I just also wanted to draw your attention to the information in the town report about that and the fact that we are going to be having public meetings about what to do about the future of the blister on town forest and we really hope that we get a good turnout because we really want to know what you think okay we are on article 2 to ask questions about reports of town roads and officers anybody else yes in the middle here a question I had about the roads report I understand that the people who work for the town want to have a union representation and I'd like to I didn't see any update on it I'd like to hear an update on the progress on the unionization of the road crew yes the road crew has often to join the union which they have a right to do that negotiations are underway and are confidential while we're negotiating once the contract is signed and sealed that becomes a public document that's really all I can say about it right now because it's confidential wait for the mic please what are we looking at are we talking six months we're talking a year they don't seem to know anything about anything that's not so they have a union representative who can't meet with you is what I understand who what that you guys won't meet with friends I don't know where you're going to get information from but it's not accurate that might be their perception we have had select board meetings with the union and the road crew we have continually met the select board met for instance last night too tight and yeah we these are in private deliberations and our town attorney has advised that we don't have to warn those meetings we are working as hard as we can work we got the union request the contract right during the middle of getting ready for budget preparation for the town report which you have so we are working diligently and in good faith to move this along thank you anybody else on article two to ask questions about the town reports or the town officers you can ask to be recognized sure I just wanted to make sure you need to use a microphone I thought I had a big mouth nobody can comment on that though so I just wanted to introduce have everybody make sure that they know all of the board members John Brabant I live over on Singleton Road Denise Wheeler Bane Kamoli Road Cliff Himmons I live on County Road Good morning welcome it's so nice to see so many people here I'm Rose Pellchuck I live at the top of Lakeland Ridge I'm Sharon Wynne I live on Tucker Road can I just wanted to take a moment for everyone to recognize your select board they work really really really hard and they take a lot of time a lot of patience a lot of work outside of meetings that people don't know for instance the union negotiations putting together information for the town report other meetings of other boards and commissions going to trainings I noted in here that we had 37 meetings those were 37 meetings that were public meetings so I just want you to recognize how hard these folks all work all the time for the better of the town and for the residents so I'd like you to give them a round of applause Craig Lyne would like the microphone wait for it to come in it's on its way it's only a comment about the actual town report I'm sorry that the contact information is on page 11 in 12 I really like having it inside the front cover board the back cover it's an easy reference I don't remember all the phone numbers so for future reports it's often been right in the front or in the back thank you anyone else on article 2 okay we will move on to article 3 to elect town officers from the floor the first officer up for election is town agent I believe Tina Bielenberg is the incumbent the floor is open for nominations I nominate Tina Bielenberg do we have a second any other nominations if not would somebody like to move that we close nominations and have the clerk put in one ballot for Tina Bielenberg someone do we have a second to that all those in favor closing nominations and having the clerk cast one ballot for Tina Bielenberg please say aye opposed okay she is reelected trustee of public funds this is a three year term is the incumbent nominations are open I nominate Rod Buck have a second moved and seconded any other nominations if not can we have a motion to close nomination and have the clerk cast one ballot for Rod Buck we have a second moved and seconded that we close nominations and have the clerk cast one ballot for Rod Buck all those in favor please say aye opposed okay next job is cemetery commissioner this is a five year term we have a nomination yes I nominate Randy Koch okay do we have a second any other nominations not seeing any can we have a motion to have the clerk cast close nominations and have the clerk cast one ballot for Randy Koch so moved second all those in favor of closing nominations and having the clerk reelect Randy Koch please say aye opposed thank you all article 4 says shall the voters approve a total highway and general fund expenditures of $1,661,574 of which $1,354,449 shall be raised by taxes and $307,125 by non-tax revenue Denise did you want to move this article so moved do we have a second okay it's been moved and seconded we're open for discussion any discussion yes page 41 of the budget posits with insurance companies yes that refers to the HRA deposit with our third party administrator health equity so it's an accounting it's a way the accountants account for that money that belongs to the town but is held by a third party for the town's benefit other discussion of this article yes I was wondering how you raised that amount of money by non-tax revenue how do we get money without tax some of that money is from grants some of it is it's grants for different projects probably give you more detail so that money refers to state-aid to highways it refers to our current use payments our pilot funds the money that the town clerk's office generates and there is a list of our revenues if you give me a second page page 50 you'll see our anticipated revenues for act of Y21 itemized anything else on article 4 if not let's see just a question wait for the microphone please just a question with negotiations negotiations going on with the union do you have flexibility in your wage line for anything going on there the wages for act of Y21 are set anything with the union I can't really give you an answer it depends on what the negotiations bring I'll just leave it at that because like I said they're confidential and just for clarification this is the first ever unionization effort for our highway crew and first contracts are different than renegotiating contracts that are expire or about to expire you have to get it right because the first contract is what we all promised upon so you head down inadvertently down a path that may not be optimal looking back and you've got a real difficulty backtracking in fact it's called regressive bargaining once you reopen it so that's why we're being really measured this time around we'll be measured anyway but we'll be ultra careful and that's in the interest of not only the town but also the workers that we get it right for them so we want to make sure that we are seen as a good employer, a good place to come to work for and that people stick around so we're not trying to screw the employees we want to make sure that we can maintain to the extent we can the wage and benefits that we're already providing which are on par better than we're surrounding towns so that's kind of the philosophy we're going into this, went into this with and continue to apply as we negotiate okay are you ready for article 4 seeing no hands article 4 reads shall the voters approve total highway and general fund expenditures at $1,661,574 of which $1,354,449 shall be raised by taxes and $307,125 by non-tax all those in favor of article 4 please say aye opposed article 4 passes article 5 shall the voters appropriate the sum of $49,400 for the operation and maintenance of the town cemeteries someone to move this article moved do we have a second anybody want to speak to this article seeing none all those in favor of article 5 to appropriate the sum of $49,400 for the operation and maintenance of the town cemeteries please say aye opposed article 5 passes article 6 shall the voters authorize the select board to borrow an amount not to exceed $18,500 for a term not to exceed three years for the purchase of a new town office server can somebody move this article do we have a second moved and seconded anyone want to speak to this article Cliff do you want to say anything about it just so everyone understands and it's kind of in the select board report as well our IT infrastructure in general the hardware needs to be replaced about every four or five years our existing server is at the five-year point and when you get into six years on a server it's clock's ticking something bad's going to happen so what we're doing is going to upgrade the server it will complete a full upgrade of all our IT infrastructure we should be good for about four years after that we also will be meeting with our IT service provider annually to do a gap analysis to make sure that we're properly funding our technology fund that we're not overfunding or underfunding it so that going forward we won't need to take out a loan again we'll already have the money in the bank thank you at the risk of hearing my own voice again being at least two-thirds of Levite a part of me is saying wow really every four years I mean I know it's a bigger deal than just replacing my laptop every 17 years it sounds like a lot of money $4,000 a year or 18,000 is only going to last four years really is that what is normal unfortunately where we are with technology is the hope is going forward these things will become less expensive over time and that the technology will advance to a point where we can all save money but we're not quite there yet the other big factor is Denise is referring to the technology and software is always advancing and you have to make sure your hardware can keep up with it to maintain the security that's required anyone else on this article seeing no hands it seems we're ready for the question and the question is shall the voters authorize the select board to borrow an amount not to exceed $18,500 for a term not to exceed three years for the purchase of a new town office server will those in favor please say aye aye opposed the ayes appear to have it the ayes do have it in article 6 penises article 7 shall the voters appropriate the sum of $30,000 to paint the exterior of the town hall someone want to move this article Denise we have a second it's been moved in second discussion in front here is this $30,000 in addition to the $30,000 going into the fund yes so this is going to be $60,000 to the town hall this year this is for we will go out to bid for this painting do RFPs and do the things the way we should do them so this is for the town hall painting the town hall reserve fund $30,000 I think that's only $10,000 where is it we tried to rearrange things a little bit in here okay on page $46,000 where it says town hall town hall reserve appropriation $10,000 well no $8,000 because we're talking FY21 right now we're already in FY20 so that's FY21 this is a little bit because we want to have money to paint does that answer your question Matt? anybody else on this article we've got a couple of hands on this side we'll go lower and then higher I'm Linda Shateson I was down at the town hall the other day picking up things for the town lunch and I was just breathless how beautiful it is inside and John was the only person I think he and a couple other people have been doing all the floors themselves the stairway going the back stairway is absolutely beautiful I couldn't believe it the whole building I think we just need to give a huge appreciation to John and his crew John's left hand or right hand man and I don't think there's a lot of payment going towards him I think this is a favourable and we need to know that it seems like there's a lot of volunteer work going into it so I appreciate it my comment is just about going out to bid should it be worded as up to $30,000? or do we already know that's what we need it's $30,000 it probably could be worded either way it looks like it costs more than $30,000 but we had already done the warning before we had any idea of how much somebody might quote us on how much it would cost so you can make an amendment to change that to say up to $30,000 or leave it the way it is either way we're not going to go over $30,000 I guess I'd make an amendment just to make that minor change okay do we have a second to the amendment it's been moved and seconded so it says up to $30,000 discussion yes Mike is kind of patient Donna Finch Town Hall Renovation Committee we did get one quote and as Denise said by the time we got the quote it was already in the town court for $30,000 and that quote was for $58,000 so they will go out to bid to select board well so they may have to add some money onto this $30,000 maybe from the reserve fund the town hall reserve fund but the town hall really needs to be painted each year because we've had repairs down to some of the claviers and they only have primer and our contractor said they really need to be painted within a year so we will have to add some more money to this $30,000 from some place from the friends of the town hall so it is going to cost more than $30,000 but the select board will go out to bid further discussion of the event over there we have options for ensuring that you've got enough to do what you do you have enough in reserve elsewhere that you can tap if she's got overrun or is there a way we can increase here the money that you need to do the job you can make an amendment to increase the amount of money we will look at the town hall reserve fund it's for the maintenance of the town hall so some money could come out from there like I said we've already put this to bed before we had solicited at least one quote which took a while to get I get that what would you like us to do to enable this so that you're not stumbling and streaming I mean if you have an idea of what I'm glad to put out an amendment to increase that we could look for donations you could increase the amount to 40 or 50,000 to paint the building it's up to the legislative body here to decide then I would offer an amendment to increase that dollar line to $250,000 if needed so what I'm going to suggest here is that we vote on the prior amendment and if we vote it down and then we get back to the main question you could then amend it to go upward if that would make sense because it would be hard to go I think it will confuse people to go back and forth so are you ready for the question which is to limit this article to up to $30,000 if so all those in favor of the amendment say aye those opposed say nay nay the nays appear to have it the nays do have it and we're back to the main question and your amendment would now be in later and so I propose an amendment to increase the amount of painting to $50,000 versus up to $250,000 and is there a second second moved and seconded to amend the article so it says up to $50,000 discussion over here how much money is now in the reserve fund for the town hall we're just looking at the time this was printed Sandra do you have an up-to-date figure Sandra our treasurer has an up-to-date figure $1,800 so with the addition of the appropriation in FY21 that was part of the budget we just voted in there would be $18,000 at the start of FY21 which is July 1st 2020 I'm all in favor of this project always happen we approve $200,000 memory service a couple years ago so rather than increase the amount to $50,000 I think since everything is recently done I would rather use the contingency reserve fund to put towards painting and then continue to build that fund later with the thinking that we just did everything we won't need maintenance right off the bat but if there isn't if the amount is $30,000 and there's going to be $18,000 that's $48,000 and it's likely to cost $50,000 to $55,000 or something like that to do this big project are you suggesting going back to the original amount I'm not clear yes I'm arguing against this amendment of $50,000 I in favor leaving it at $30,000 using the reserve fund and then fundraising from the friends group or finding tapping into the slush fund you don't have the slush fund I'm kidding I wish we did further discussion okay the amendment on the floor would be to change this article from $30,000 to $50,000 so you're ready for that question which is to amend the article just for clarification doesn't mean we have to spend everything if we get a low bid if it comes to a lower bid we currently anticipate if it came to $45,000 the remaining amount remain in the reserve fund and the applied going forward we happily accept donations we happily accept donations we have a hand up here how many other bidders have you identified our potential bidders we haven't gone up to it yet we just got one quote so we have some idea it does seem high at all the thing in part is because of the lead remediation that has to be done that was in the quote we received okay we have a hand in the middle we've got the ball I guess I'm a little troubled so bumping this based on one estimate but my question is does anybody know what the old west church cost to paint shots aren't you anyone other than Donna a little bit under $30,000 but there was more porches at the town so we got the quote from for the town hall there's a little more going on at the town hall as far as porches and fumes okay we have a hand up over here my concern is about the lead remediation was that lead remediation a part of the old west church painting quote okay so we are on an amendment to this article that would authorize up to $50,000 yes can you I'm just curious where the $30,000 came from to begin with the next one to the budget old west church don't worry further discussion if not we'll vote on the amendment which would authorize up to $50,000 for the painting of the town hall all those in favor of amending the article in that fashion please say aye aye those opposed no the ayes appear to have it division the division of the house has been called for so those in favor of the article hold your hands up we're going to try to do this visually to begin with if you're in favor of the up to $50,000 poultry cards up okay put your hands down those who are opposed put your cards up and I believe that the ayes have it and you have amended the article so we are now on the main question which is shall the voters approve the sum of up to $50,000 to paint the exterior of the town hall all those in favor please say aye those opposed the ayes appear to have it the ayes do have it and the article has been approved up to $50,000 article 8 shall the voters authorize the select board to borrow an amount not to exceed $25,000 for a term not to exceed four years for the purchase of a used wood chipper would somebody like to move this article somebody else can move do we have a second second it's been moved and seconded discussion okay we'll get your microphone in a second absolutely support this this item as more your ashtris die and collapse in our roadways we're going to need a way to deal with I'm anticipating a huge amount of branchwood and more than could normally be trucked away so I think at this time with the with the problem of the ashtris we really need a chipper I would like to amend the article to read for the last phrase for the one time purchase of a used wood chipper one time purchase means that when this chipper needs replacement the purchase must be brought before the town as a new item in the town warrant and the reason that's important if we don't amend it that way then we're going to have to own a chipper forever that's the tradition of the town once we buy a piece of big equipment it goes into the capital highway capital plan and that's it so if we if we buy the if we go with the article as written it's going to cost us four or five thousand dollars a year to purchase this item but then it's going to continue to cost us four or five thousand dollars a year every year to replace it and a used chipper with this amount of work it's going to get is probably not going to last all that long however if we go with my amendment then we will pay twenty five thousand dollars or so one time for a chipper it will cost a year or so and then that will be it and then if the highway department can make an argument after that that we still need a chipper let them come to us and convince us thank you okay discussion of the amendment we have a hand up here not of the amendment doesn't the amendment have to be seconded okay we thought it was it was seconded you seconded it okay it's been moved in seconded between the two of them discussion yes in the way back why don't you guys rent one you don't need to buy one rent one so have it set there rent it as you need it just repeat yourself not everybody could hear you without the microphone you can rent one when you need it, rent it when you don't need it, you don't need it if you want to deploy wages with a pound of money then you're probably going to need it three or four times but it's set there and you're lost rent it as you need it so well I don't disagree with the thought because I think if they wanted this select board it started out in that place and between running the numbers and dealing with availability when people are chipping they're all chipping at once so getting a rental item so we got it for the last two weeks in July and we might have one available in September and when we're chipping all summer which we anticipate we're going to be chipping non-stop now we are mowing our roadside we're trying to keep the brush back and it's rather than loading stuff into our trucks which is what the guys are also doing when they cut the brush back and then hauling into some place dump the limbs they can chip as they move down the road so we're trying to actually save money with this and by the way renting chippers is not cheap I've gone around on the internet and looked at pricing of these and there are leasing companies that lease these chippers and I'm amazed at what good shape they're in and they're pretty young machines but they drop in price so we're looking at a good quality really a high end wood chipper and they do fall in this range they basically have price and they're well maintained so for instance if you know much about a Vermeer it makes a real high end diesel powered chipper that's the trailer big machines we have one in the city a month later and then we have road crew guys going back and forth picking up and dropping up chippers it just doesn't work and if it did that's what we would be doing for sure it won't be sitting around rusting I assure you it'll get worn out probably I was thinking buying stuff and having to sit around and wasting money we buy stuff and we've got to use it we can't even let it sit down raw well we have two graders they're in grade 6 okay we are on the amendment and the amendment makes this a one-time purchase there's further discussion of the amendment yes right in front there ICM page 51 says article 8 youth wood chipper for $7,000 what's that about page 51 about 230,000 on the page other expenses can be voted on about six of them article 5 through 10 information yes wait for the microphone it's going to ask that same question and I just made the assumption that on page 51 number 8 that amount is a quarter of the 25,000 so it's about 21 budgeted amount that's correct you need to use the microphone the loan is for four years so the 25,000 we've spread out over the four years and that's where the 7,000 comes from okay we have a hand in the middle I don't understand why the town is having to borrow these articles you mean as opposed to an outright purchase no why do you have to borrow so we have two options you can appropriate the full amount now or we can take out a loan and finance it the cost of the purchase that way so the town doesn't have enough money to buy it out right when we tax every year we do have reserve funds but we're supposed to tax based on an anticipated budget and then say keep some extra money on the side in a box we're supposed to actually tax based on what the anticipated cost of running this town annually are we do have a town highway reserve fund a lot of that money is actually where we have spillover we have money that goes unexpended and then it winds up in there and we do apply that but now we look to you each year to pay our bills each year we have $53,000 which don't make it this year cherries why aren't we keeping that money in town no kid I know that just every year it's the same thing it really takes me off if people are reaching into my pocket pulling out money for their favorite cherries which I may or may not like but I have to give because 50% plus one or more say that that is a justifiable cost okay we have a hand up and back here yep hi Fletcher Dean would the wood chipper are the chips going to be just deposited in place or will they be hauled somewhere will they be available for townspeople to use for their own landscaping or would they be just for composting on the side of the road understanding if they chip something in front of your house just like if there's a tree cut down at your house that would belong to you if there's a whole bunch of it I'm not sure we'll probably have to stockpile it somewhere and then it would be available to the residents so there's small brush that gets chipped I expect that's just going to be blown into the woods but like Denise said there's a big tree getting chipped we cut the we buck up the tree wood and we leave it on the side of the road and we could the property owner one of us not this braid into the woods and we could you know with advance notice put in a pile I expect okay Stephanie and then Millie and then the woman just below Millie and so we're clear what we're on right now is a proposed amendment to this article to make this a one time purchase well that's one of the things I wanted to speak to going way beyond what the amendment is and I want to speak to the original article but I don't want to lose the opportunity because it sounds like we're talking about the merits of the article and I have another point of order and that is I would ask the moderator please ask people to identify themselves when they speak thank you we get to the amendment okay yeah Scott offered an amendment Scott made this a one a one time purchase so Millie do you want to speak to that issue chipper well why don't we we are on the amendment not on the chipper itself so once we modify the article or not we get to the main question I think is the point the prior speaker was trying to make yes Craig the question on the amendment okay the question of whether to stop the debate on the amendment has been called it takes two-thirds of you so if you're ready to we'll still go back to the main question and you can decide whether to get a chipper at all or not whether to finance it at all or not those in favor of adding Scott's language that this be a one time purchase please say aye those opposed the ayes appear to have it the ayes do have it the article is amended so we're now on the article itself as amended by a purchase and we'll go to Millie and then to the woman in front of her I just wanted to comment on the condition around on the roads and the brush I can't remember the brush being quite as bad as it is has been the last two or three years sometimes it makes it hard to see in places and whatever we need to do to get that brush taken care of we greatly appreciate that and Lady Erin please identify yourselves as you go along Tara I'm on an April corner so I'm just curious how this relates you know we're talking about the field of ash and I'm curious as the trees are going out if you're going to be using a wood chipper or doing the cutting is there any training on looking for invasive species and then just chopping that up or whatever then just spread if there's a problem don't necessarily want to do we need to be burned or just connect between sorry so Stephanie can I just be best as the chair of our preservation commission but the town is taking invasive species and using invasive bugs pretty seriously as are many towns in Vermont we have a chervil problem folks know about that it's wild parsnip these things are inundating our road size disturbed areas tend to see them more often down in Randolph they're invading hay fields to the point where hay fields can't be used for animal feed which is a concern I know it's a selfish concern here so what we've done a number of things this chipper is part of the program and Stephanie's going to be able to speak to this in more depth but we've also purchased out of our reserve fund a used roadside mowing setup it was purchased from a tractor Renny Fornier up in Swanton came from a small town in Connecticut and we're going to be able to get on and keep up with the roadside mowing and we have really ever that's our plan so we can get at these invasives before they go to seed hopefully many before they even go to flower so there's that and in terms of the Emerald Astropora I'll let the rest of this go to Stephanie couple things it's a great question I don't think that the chipper would be really used for chipping as low vegetation I think the chipper is more for branches and pieces of tree but I do want to address that briefly and just say that the conservation commission last year worked with the mower in order to try the time to work out the best timing of when to cut what and it's very complicated because there's different times in the summer that some spread and some don't but as far as the chipper and the Emerald Astropora I really wanted to address this I think the last time the question of purchasing a chipper came up I was opposed to it but now that I've been dealing with the Emerald Astropora what we've learned recently is that as you probably know and should know if you don't that you're not allowed to move ashtrays out of town I think it's town there's a quarantine on moving ashtrays because that's the clearest way for the ash borer to spread but when they're chipped when the branches or the parts of the tree are chipped it either kills the larva or it dries this is what Neil Mayer our true work explained recently that the chips dry out by the way and therefore there's nothing for the borer to be I guess gaining or benefitting from so that once it's chipped those chips can be moved around so I now support buying a chipper because there's going to be a lot of dead ash trees along with whatever trees other trees just naturally die and I do believe that chipping them is the best way to deal with it we have a hand up for the grants the name is Walter Wazinsky from the Blispan community I've got two questions one is is there a process for determining if we do purchase outright or take out a loan for any particular item in these articles is that something to select or deliberate some strategizes against or just curious how that happens the other one is do towns get a better interest rate out of loan or is it basically what we see down at the bank is what we'd be getting from the town when we take money out for a purchase like this I think that I can answer part of it or Sandra could answer it better if we borrow money for more than one fiscal year we have to go before the voters and I'm not sure I understood the first part of your question five versus five oh buying versus what renting I mean I don't know purchasing I think the question is why do you want to pay for this over three years how do you think about that as opposed to spending twenty five thousand dollars this year we have talked about this at select board meetings over and over and over again to find the best means to get a piece of equipment and in this case it was decided that the best way to do it was to spread the money out over the four years that's why you see seven thousand and sixty six dollars or whatever it is for the four years rather than trying to come rather than eating the whole thing at one time yeah that's the question I was just wondering if there was the strategy behind it at the select board level anything to do with the total amount any given year that you'd be asking us to approve especially my assumption I'm not sure that the decisions in here whether we're going to take a loan out and incur interest or make an order of purchase oh yeah and nausea okay we are on article eight as you've amended it Craig you get the microphone next a quick question was John spurred it a bit why not take it out of the equipment reserve and related how much is in that farm and related what are we anticipating next year or the year after in terms of other equipment I can answer some of those questions so we as I just mentioned a few minutes ago we did purchase a roadside mowering setup it's a tractor it's got sidearm mowers and we paid cash for that out of the equipment reserve front so full tank moving down and the gauge is showing somewhat less than when we started and I would say we could do the chipper cash as well and we're informed that we don't have enough in the reserve to do that therefore the loan you know what else you guys I'd really like to know how much is in the reserve fund Sandra's going to answer that in a second here $25,169.59 that's pretty precise as after we've already purchased the tractor and the mowering that surprises me that it's that low because I thought we were building having a robust fund towards replacing fire truck or dump trucks or and that surprises me my understanding is that fund based on what the voters indicated is leftover money money that goes unexpended goes in that reserve fund where's Peter Harvey we're here okay we have a hand up to the grandstand please identify yourself we have Mercedes from Jackville I was wondering is there a possibility to make a down payment would that try to benefit from that interest at all or maybe it won't make much of a difference I don't understand right so your thinking is would a down payment to reduce the amount that needs to be borrowed is that a possibility maybe it doesn't change the payment as much maybe to help lower the payments we could do that we have to financially do that yeah right Sandra can address the loan structure so just to remind you we are on article 8 what it says is shall as amended shall the voters authorize the select board to borrow an amount not to exceed $25,000 for a term not to exceed four years for the one-time purchase of a used wood chipper that's what we're discussing Sandra what the select board tries to do when it works on its budget is to keep the tax rate as stable as possible from year to year to year given the increases and costs that they simply have no control over that would be fuel that would be the assurances and so forth so when they look at making a decision to borrow money or not they're looking at what would happen to the tax rate if the entire amount of the anticipated purchase was added to the budget because it has a direct effect on how much the taxes are so some things you will see go in as a whole and some things go in as in this article as a paint so what we do is we'll go out to begin oftentimes on these particular items this wood chipper we have I believe a less than 3% interest rate from the Community Bank and A as well as the server loan so a lot of their deliberation is actually looking to keep your tax rate stable and as close to last year as possible does that help and actually out of the highway fund was created here town meeting I believe in 2015 by the voters who said if the highway revenues are more than the highway expenses that difference goes into the highway capital equipment fund so some years there's $14,000 that we had that 2 years ago and some years there's just not that much so to the extent the select board constantly works to make sure we have money in that fund and that we can pay what we need to pay and keep that tax rate stable there is a payment crate that comes out of that fund in January $40,000 it's for one of the western star trucks the thought process that the select board worked on was if we buy the chipper in full to save that 2.75% interest we may not have enough money to make that payment due in January 2021 so this is the balancing act that they work on at every meeting during budget process that's how it works okay Paul we'll get to the next question or comment as soon as we get your microphone it's on its way I still call that so I have a quick clarifying question first which is is there a difference between the highway equipment fund and the highway reserve fund you know same thing same thing and I did remember that excess into that fund I also think we're used to appropriated chunks of going on the regular basis I don't know if that's in here if it used to be or not there is no amount of money in budget to direct or appropriate into the capital equipment fund for highway it comes directly from the surplus from expenses and revenues but I certainly wouldn't want to argue to take this money out of that fund because I think maybe we're sort of underfunding something that was a good idea at one time so that we didn't hit ourselves so hard when we had to replace a truck ah, I haven't said that I think this is the stage I go over last year this thing was in here as new for $30,000 maybe argument against it then now it's in here to use that $5,000 if I take John to this word we're actually looking at a arguably $50,000 chipper that we're getting for sort of half price because we're going to get it used so it's in great shape and all that but my fundamental question is do we really need to go that big if what we're chipping is brush and lids I read in the chipper a few years back that if we're going to be chipped well all of us it's a bullfart over there sorry and I'd be surprised if that cost $40,000 it would take 6 inch stuff and so if we're $25,000 or $50,000 $30,000 whatever seems like an awful lot of money if what we're really trying to do is chipped brush yeah I understand the big engine last longer than the small engine trying to do the same work but I don't think we we're chipping the 6 inch stuff they should be chipped from the lens and put it down and then the rest of it laid there for the landowner just to be we were checking the minutes from last year there was no article for the wood chipper last year I think it might have been a couple of years ago I just saw my name in there as talking about the $30,000 chipper now if that was from the year before I don't know what it was doing in the last few minutes and that doesn't matter the point I'm trying to make is it seems like the hell with the chipper for lens lens that maybe is the easier to put on hopefully not all that bigger than the engine and brush so I guess I'll go against it again so just to clarify it's a durability issue you mentioned that Paul so we're trying to save you all money that's why we're doing what we're doing the roadside mowing it's a snag I think Alfred went and looked at the equipment too a roadside mowing set up that it's going to pretty quickly pay for itself and I dare say we'll get 10 years out of it that's got a sidearm mower that can mow the branches on the roadside it might get ugly so there's going to be a property owner consultation done you may not want that adding look that that causes it's really a bush hog stuck on or a flail mower on sideways but we do need to get the brush back our roads are being encroached on but the idea was to get a good quality heavy-duty machine that'll be around for a while so we don't have to revisit this anytime soon we have a question in the middle here the question has been called so that means we need to stop the debate and see if two-thirds of you are ready to vote on the main question all those in favor of ending the debate on this article as amended please say aye those opposed okay the article we are moving to the article shall the voters authorize the select board to borrow on a mount not to exceed $25,000 for a term not to exceed four years for the one-time purchase of a used wood chipper all those in favor please say aye aye those opposed say nay the ayes appear to have it the ayes do have it and article 8 passes article it was 2018 the amount was $31,000 appropriate $31,448 total right the article is I just wanted to follow up and give on the information that's all article 9 shall the voters appropriate $27,132 for the Kellogg Hubbard Library for its operating expenses do you want to move this article Craig do we have a second do you want to speak to it the Kellogg Hubbard Library does not look towards buying a wood chipper in the next year I'm beginning my seventh year as a member of the board of the library and every year I hear myself saying things are just great at the library and I'm not sure how to change that to make it even better our executive director Tom Cohn retired at the end of June last year after five and a half years at the helm and his attention to detail and his love of the library and of people really helped turn things around 180 degrees from the previous administration and I was looking up to start on the board at the same time he did we have now moved to a two person co-correctorship of the library Jesse Lynn who's been there for 10 years and Carolyn Brennan who is a librarian came from South Hero loved Kellogg Hubbard so much that she and her family moved to Montpelier and bought a house there and the two of them came up with a plan as we had engaged in the search for a new director that they wanted to do it so they have split the duties up between library stuff and then financial human resources stuff and I just cannot say enough about these two women it's remarkable the staff is happier than ever staff positions changed everyone got a chance to say actually I'd like to do this instead of that they're open years all the time and it's a joy to be on the board speaking of the board we have five new members we have a total of 15 members on the board now which is the maximum allowed by our bylaws we have a new member in Middlesex in East Montpelier and finally just recently from Berlin and two new members from Montpelier we have term limits I am just starting my third and final three year term so I'm happy to talk to anybody who thinks they might want to take over in a couple years we're not asking for an increase this year we have asked Calis and all the towns the five surrounding communities for the same amount this will be the third year in a row the report from the library the written report is on page 91 in your town report if you want to read it I do have some sheets here with the statistics and information both about the library in general and then specific to Calis the website has been rebuilt and there's a lot of information you can read the minutes of the last board meeting you can look at bios of the board members and there's an update about the capital campaign that we just finished at the end of the year this was a four year effort by the board to raise actually we raised over $600,000 from many contributors 200 contributors including businesses such as National Life and other insurance companies in town we received about $150,000 in grant money for the replacement and renovation of the elevator the biggest thing and lots of other interior and exterior work some of which has already been done there's an Instagram page you can look at with photos of projects that whole fundraising effort was to put into the building and its maintenance because every year we ask all the towns for money and Montpelier pays a bigger amount every year but that's all for operating expenses and we never have had enough money to pay attention to the building's needs so now we have a reserve fund established and lots of work would be being done on the library over the next two years so that's all I have I urge your support and as always you can ask questions send me an email anytime at the library happy to field any questions now thank you we have a hand up right here this is Dora I saw that there was a book exchange at the East Calis General Store and there is no longer a general store I wonder if you could address that and then secondly I was really disappointed in the last few years when the libraries reduced and I was just wondering if there was any talk of increasing and naturally this was evening times and this was Saturday afternoon times and it would be great for the library to be open on Sunday but you know I can answer both of those things the bookshelf that was in the East Calis Store was moved to the main corner store I know it's not where you live we would certainly get a shelf back in East Calis and it's our hope that that store will be invigorated once again sorry maybe the post office we try to run some programs in the East Calis Rec Center and we just didn't have enough attendance to justify it but I'll check into that we have an outreach director she's part of time but there are lots of volunteers there are 200 some volunteers and people love to read books out we can arrange for delivery there is a bookshelf also an add-on at the co-op again if you live in East Calis it's harder as far as the shortened hours it was financial our operating costs and within the organization we're a 501 C3 operation so non-profits our expenses especially healthcare continue to go up and up and up sometimes healthcare costs go down depending on choices that employees make if a person worse of the library has health insurance sometimes they opt for that it's a better plan we had to cut the hours because we had a budget shortfall and we just will not operate in the red ever so a lot of people have voiced a similar concern and everybody would love to go to libraries on Sundays I can't see that happening there has been some talk of can we re-establish more evenings our budget is being formed now our fiscal year is July 1 through June 30 our revenues have been good this year again some things are going to see some changes there's going to be an automatic book checkout system that's coming out of the fundraising campaign so we're not taking that away from well if you didn't buy that system then maybe you could have longer hours that's not how it works in this case I'll pass that along thank you okay, another discussion of article 9 yes, there's a handout over there I never said it does it just seems that the talent is so far in doubt really should think twice about how much money they're giving away that's all I'm going to say okay, there's another handout right there thank you more than from it I promise you the word and I won't speak in spirit but it's not as something that we're giving away or as a charity but I believe that access to information and support of the community is a fundamental obligation about an unrivaled obligation to our children it could be unimaginable that I have the community resource can't be something that is not a fragmented way because of the nature of bringing people together and having the infrastructure that the library represents for 20 years my mother was a volunteer giving books to people who were searching their homes and what that meant to people that's when she died they come all over in all of the communities sent the letters this whole work the children's librarian was a fundamentally important person to be growing up it feels to me that children especially children's books are expensive and as children grow they have a short half life because they grow out of the resources to share those books and make them accessible really an obligation of our response I think there's a hand up Fran you read Thank you, Janet Boker robot and then Callas I just wanted to also say about libraries and about the Kellogg Taub Room in particular they are one of our free democratic spaces in society and in our community and I just wanted to also point out the things that they do offering after school place for people to go people who don't have a place to go who maybe need to go in and look for a job you can have a computer there there could be a homeless person getting warm there could be teams who instead of going to be reading there's just so much I feel like the library does aside from information and from the books and all the other wonderful aspects that we have so I just wanted to sort of just say how important that is again it's a free space you don't have to buy anything we'll be going to a library and that's pretty rare in our increasingly consumerist society and it's a democratic place that too soon to be disappearing so I just wanted to put that in Okay we have a hand up right there Hi my name is Nat Townsend I'll just add I don't know how many of you have taken advantage of the online app that the library makes available but I listen to books all the time and if you have audible memberships you're occasioned to listen to the books and I just want you all to be aware that you can do it through the library and not pay anything and I think it's a pretty amazing benefit that's available to all of us too so I just wanted to also make you aware of that Okay so the question is is voters appropriate? We have another hand Once again I just want to point out we just voted to borrow $25,000 Now we're giving away $7,000 I've got a hand that I haven't called on there and I don't think he's spoken yet today so I'm going to go that place first Thank you Michael Holten from Melty House There are some here me included who think we should give the library money there are others who think we should not and I don't think in the last year anybody on either side has changed his or her mind so I would like to call question Okay the question has been called that's not debatable I'm sorry you'll if two thirds don't want to end debate you'll get another shot at it All those in favor of ending debate please say aye Those opposed The ayes have it and we are ending debate Article 9, shall the voters appropriate $27,132 for the Kellogg-Huggard Library for its operating expenses All those in favor please say aye Those opposed No The ayes appear to have it The ayes do have it and Article 9 passes I'll stop the articles for a moment and welcome our representative our terrific representative Janet answer Thank you for that great introduction So it's always so wonderful to be here I start my day in Marshfield at 9 o'clock and then I do the Plainfield meeting at 10 and then I get to come to my own hometown which is just a wonderful feeling Usually before I start I want to introduce a guest Senator Tim Ash who's president potential this weekend if there were some traditional town meetings around my area that I thought would be good for him to attend and I couldn't think of three better places than Marshfield Plainfield and Callas so he's been with me all morning and he's just heard a really good debate Generally what I do when I'm here is I give you some news about what's going on in Montpelier and I'm happy to do that but I have something another message from Montpelier that I think is probably even more special and I'm going to read it because this is a resolution that we passed Friday So it's a house concurrent resolution honoring John McCulloch and Donna Fitch for their leadership in the renovation of the Callas Town Hall and no John you can't leave without a talker by me whereas John McCulloch and Donna Fitch jointly facilitated the completion of Phase 2 of the Callas Town Hall renovation project and whereas Donna Fitch has served previously on the select board and is town clerk and treasurer and her husband John McCulloch is a local architect and whereas John McCulloch is in the hands-on approach as the new general contractor and a couple coordinated the work to address the Phase 2 renovations included constructing a new foundation and septic system and installing insulation upgrades and radiant floor heating and I'll say as an aside that makes it sound really dull it is a stunning building and whereas in recognition of a special effort John McCulloch is the first recipient of the new newly minted John McCulloch said Callas Citizen of the Year Award and whereas John McCulloch and Donna Fitch for their leadership in the renovation of the Callas Town Hall and be it further resolved that the Secretary of State is directed to send a copy of this resolution to John McCulloch and to Donna Fitch which means I have two of them but if there's an opportunity that you two could share so there they are maybe you could put one up at the town hall we could not have done this without the donors there's a list back there of our donors and our volunteers the Town Hall Renovation Committee which met for at least a year every single Wednesday morning at 8 o'clock we met at 8 o'clock because David Sheath had to get to Montpelier by 9 there's going to be a grand opening in May and so I hope you all come and I just want to tell you a little bit about my love story with my husband some of you know that 43 years ago I met John McCulloch at the fall foliage festival he was getting his 1953 Ford pickup truck ready to drive back to California and his Vermont license plate said Adios Vermont and he never left so I would like to thank my husband for putting his heart and soul into Callas and feel the same way about the town as I do that story I'm trying to think of something I could tell you that was going on in Montpelier but at least as wonderful as what you just said I don't know how much more time I've got I will touch very quickly on three or four issues one minimum wage for those who have been following the issue we actually overrode the Governor's veto of the local veto we actually had no votes to spare which would suggest to me that we hit the right that was quite as high as I hoped it would be but we'll actually make a real difference for 40,000 Vermonters another bill that we emptied on last week or a little over a week ago was the Global Warming Solutions Act which actually turns what have been sort of aspirational goals into legally enforceable goals in terms of greenhouse gas reduction that will really make a difference past the House it's going to go to the Senate they're working on the TCI which is another thing that I think is a really would be a good thing to pass we'll try to come to an agreement before the end of the session on both those issues and the other one I want to mention because I know people in this district certainly contacted me about it was the Act 250 bill that bill had a lot of really good changes sort of updating Act 250 in terms of climate change and the our focus on downtowns but it also had a change in terms of the structure of Act 250 of making this professional full-time board that would have been good for lawyers but not good for regular people and it also basically eliminated the district commissions when that came to my committee we decided not to fund it which basically killed it and killed them for the rest of the bill as it passed the House is worth having and there are lots of good things in it and I've got at least one member of the Senate here I hope message to Tim, hope you guys work on it so there are lots of other things that we've been working on but those are three highlights and I don't know if there's time for questions but I'm happy to try to answer them if there are take a cup you can pick oh I get to pick I guess it's Act 46 about the it seems like there's status quo thinking about this and not very much creativity and I have yet to hear anyone say is going to improve our education or lower cost and what I see is that it's institutionalizing and growing an education bureaucracy that is not in the best interest of our children and working with them for over 30 years they're in a paradigm that no longer exists that I saw back in the 90s where we needed welders electricians we're important people we don't have this idea that everyone needs a college education that went out of date a long time ago but the bureaucracy the education bureaucracy is hanging in there and now it's just consolidating more and more and saying oh by the way you're going to pay for it with taxation without representation we thought of a revolution on that but it's gotten to the point where it's a moral issue it's not even ethics what's happening is the moral is directly impacting our ability as a state and as a country to survive because we are not what we're doing in the education system as it is is out of date so I would encourage and I'm going to ask what is the senate and the house doing about this is these actually just sitting on their hands you know they're all passed so there are a number of questions in your question the the knots of bolts about 46 I certainly have made every effort to slow it down to change it and so on I've put in legislation I have legislation that came in again this year and the truth is that I've just not been able to get much of a hearing in the relevant committees the other issues it doesn't mean I won't continue to talk with people I will it's frustrating for me as well the other issues that you're talking about in terms of what I think of generally as workforce and thinking about the kinds of jobs that we really need to train kids for now and maybe rethinking this idea that everybody has to go to college I've got an 18 year old grandson and having that conversation with them as well I think it's work that is happening now whether it's happening to some extent in the commerce committee to some extent in the education committee there's also an effort that Matt and Cindy have been heavily involved in to focus on literacy because literacy is that's basically that's what we need to make sure everybody has access to it I'm not using the right words but when you look at inequities particularly between urban and rural when you look at inequities in terms of poverty literacy is where you see it and so that's that's work that the education committee has done a lot of work on that Bell's actually ended up in my committee now and so I think there are things positive things that are happening at 46 continues to be a frustration I'll be honest I don't know how else to say microphone is coming Peter Junkie East Alice I just want to add a quick note to the I agree 100% about the literacy thing but I also want to really emphasize financial literacy as well I think every that's really falling down and shows in terms of a lot of things I speak about okay we'll have one more question in front and then we'll move on I'm Cindy Gardner Morse it's come to my attention that in Cabot and in Peachum they aren't being treated the way Alice is under Act 46 and I just wondered if they would comment about that I don't believe they've been unified I know that that's true with Peachum and there were some special findings I haven't looked at what they are I don't know about Cabot well I guess Cabot had a vote and they ended up in a separate supervisory union but not consolidated there was interesting sort of history with Twinfield and Cabot and Danville I could probably find more information about it a quick follow up more than what happened with those towns I'd like to know how come Calis can't work something like that if only we knew something on the committee we had some power I mean there are different circumstances I can't give you a single answer at the moment but it's a good question for our online conversation yeah ok we'll give Doug the final question then we'll try to get back to her in the morning alright Doug Lillie I don't know if Lillie will come tomorrow I'm going to talk to you about a lot of things here I'm going to talk to Lillie about the Library Monthly I got to hear Lillie to talk about the chipper I heard when I continued the talk we talked about this for years I had a I had a I had a guy bring me a load of hay two years ago he went over the bank actually in Toan the Toan Company he rolled it over they charged him $7,500 to pull him back on the road I had a call all over the United States and I looked it up and there's a lot out there where they asked the Toan Company does not ever write to me about some countries can't charge you that once they hook on to your credit if you're a borrower you don't have insurance on your car they own that until you pay for it he's a poor farmer and I couldn't get I could not find an attorney to represent him okay I paid all his court costs he wouldn't go to court but I paid his court costs are you watching me or a little I can't let this hurt somebody okay so now so now I want to talk to you last year on the and I called your house yes I did and you know technology today is so much smarter than you or me okay especially me so I called you and your phone was busy all day long so I called and you say maybe you said this year but you said you want to talk to me well I try to call you and I want to I want to take a bill a new bill for this action towing your car and my car you know how they can charge you most I've ever heard anybody get $80,000, $90,000 to pull their tractor trail back on the road okay so I wanted to write a bill for that and I wanted to talk to you about it and I tried to call you and you wouldn't answer your phone so I got hold of it it was liquidated by the way I know exactly what it was liquidated so I called your house phone was busy all day long so I went to the operator yes please take it I'm listening this is quite a story that's a girl story so now she I called the operator her phone out of order she says is she talking on it no she says she's got it off the hook I don't have a phone well tell me now it's two years ago I haven't had a landline well certainly two years how did you hold you then I have a cell phone and it's listed and it's online I'm happy to share it with you I will give it to you right after what the operator told me so now back to taxes yes I know I've got to be late and probably other people over here have more time and I am alright so I want to tell you you guys I want to tell you this right now I'm telling you now Lily Hill Farm is joint we're putting houses here and I told my neighbor over there she said you're trying to scare me well I'm not scaring you 35 years ago I had that farm purr that farm is purr if you're walking down top of the road and you've almost come to Lake Ridge Road you will see those you will see them that's what that's for that cost $35,000 to do that I knew this day was coming you guys schools, you guys have put me out of business you're dead to me point of order you have done it no he's taken out of order I want some civility you get out of here put him down he's out of here he always jumps out of order no matter what you talk about so you raised my taxes $1,700 this year my taxes went up and I'm almost $20,000 to pay my taxes last year I didn't pay my taxes I had to pay a late fee I had to pay a late fee and I paid all over I'll pay another $20,000 and you don't want to tell me they're going to have a share sale on me I've been here for almost 80 years and they're going to have a share of sales sorry but I can't put up with this Mr. Moderator go home go back there Mr. Moderator Mr. Moderator he had a statement he wanted to make and he's made Mr. Moderator he's out of order I think he's out of order he does that every time he asked for point of order you've had your statement Janet thank you very much for representing us in the State House it's about $11.35 I don't know if we'll pick the pace up or not I know once we break for lunch we lose a lot of folks Article 10 says shall the voters appropriate the indicated sums as requested by the following organizations in Callas and the Central Vermont area there are 24 organizations listed totaling $26,000 $13 we've had a committee review this article does somebody want to from the committee it's been moved and seconded is there some discussion from the committee Mac is going to have a word about it I believe there's three new entities on this list yeah we reviewed the list and I think we all agreed on all the things on the list the one thing we did have a discussion about is a couple of big ticket items are the senior centers Maltayers is going up by $600 and they serve about 55 people in town and we also have a lot more with the cost and they serve art times about 58 people so the committee is recommending you go ahead and vote for it if you want to cut something I think the committee was kind of wavering about the extra money for Maltayers senior center they are going up a lot this year and not a lot more users it's a little bit difficult about a price that would be the one thing okay the article has been moved and seconded any further discussion seeing none all those in favor of the oh there's a hand up there yes microphone is on it too I'm not sure there's anything to argue about this afternoon because nobody's moved to amend the article but we're seeing your center and if anybody has questions they could ask them of you when we break right now if there's a question there are no questions it seems we're ready for the article which is to appropriate a total of $26,000 $13 to 24 organizations all those in favor please say aye aye opposed the ayes appear to have it article 10 is passed article 11 asks shall the voters authorize payment of property taxes in two equal installments with the due date of the first installment honored before 4 p.m. on a date that falls not less than 30 days after the tax bills are mailed but not earlier than Monday August 3rd 2020 and the due date of the second installment shall be honored before 4 p.m. on Monday November 16th 2020 would someone like to move this article? it's been moved, we have a second second it's been moved and seconded any discussion? if not Mac I bring this up every year it just seems like we have a big deal of tax then we have these one, you know these two big bills coming due in the fall and then you know it seems like we should have these consider systems financial systems that we could spread out over the year I mean other towns do this I think it would be easier on people if this was spread out over I would urge the slight water and the school workers and the treasurers to think about doing it a different way okay any further discussion? yes Michael that's a good idea is there anything to prevent people from budgeting it on their own and making multiple smaller payments? you can pay your taxes ahead of time if you want thank you no one can hear you so wait for the microphone you are free to make tax payments at any time after the bills are issued many people prepay their taxes in fact I have several amounts prepaid for FY21's tax bills so that is an option okay are you ready for the question? it seems we are the question is shall the voters authorize payment of property taxes in two equal installments with a due date of the first installment honored before 4 p.m. on a date that falls not less than 30 days after the tax bills are mailed but not earlier than Monday August 3, 2020 and the due date of the second installment shall be honored before 4 p.m. on Monday November 16, 2020 all those in favor please say aye aye opposed passed article 11 article 12 shall each property tax installment payment be made via one of the following options by deliberative treasurer by 4 p.m. honored before the due dates is set forth in article 11 by U.S. Postal Service with postmark honored before the due dates is set forth in article 11 or credit card payment via www.calicevermont.gov by 4 p.m. honored before the due dates has set forth in article 11 would someone like to move this article it's been moved do we have a second second it's been moved in second in any discussion yes wait for the mic please Cindy Gardner Moore so I wondered how many people put their taxes on their credit cards is that an option take a lot of advantage of further discussion if not it seems we're ready for the article all those in favor of article 12 which offers three ways to pay your taxes please say aye opposed article 12 passes article 13 shall interest in the amount of half percent per month or any part of a month be charged on unpaid taxes would someone like to move this it's been moved do we have a second second discussion okay so we are ready for the question it seems and the question is whether that we will have interest paid in the amount of half percent a month or any part of a month on unpaid taxes is that we'll have the motion correct all those in favor please say aye opposed article 13 passes article 14 shall the town allow an interest free race period of seven calendar days following each due date is set forth in article 11 during which no interest shall be charged somebody want to move that article it's been moved do we have a second it's been moved in second discussion yes this question should be 14 or 15 yes we have a hand up on the far side yep microphone's coming why only seven days we changed it because it created a lot of I'm saying I can probably explain it better because she's the collector of the taxes but every time you do those days then if it falls on a Saturday or a Sunday and then it was sometimes the grace period would be so almost into the time when the second installment was due so there were a lot of different variables and it would be like to help me elaborate on that well over time it has become we almost have four due dates we have the due dates and then folks are starting to think of the grace period as the due date and then of course we have the second of the grace period so I think actually we want to make that grace period shorter and closer to the due date mostly because we accept post marks and that gives the opportunity for those post marked tax payments to come in on time without creating essentially four sets of due dates all within a 14 day period on the actual date any further discussion of this article okay so to repeat it the question in front of you is to allow an interest free grace period of seven calendar days following each due date as set forth in Article 11 during which no interest shall be charged all those in favor please say aye opposed the ayes appear to have it and the ayes do have it in Article 14 passes Article 15 shall a delinquent tax penalty be sent at four and a half percent of the total amount of the 2020 delinquent tax would somebody like to move this article it's been moved do we have a second it's been moved in second in discussion yes Mack we'll get the microphone to you okay we'll start in the back and come back to what's the current penalty I think it's the same no change is the answer and we'll go to Mack next when does the penalty apply is it after the grace period or is it after the grace period are you ready for the question I guess Sandra wants to open just to be clear the penalty is not applied until every grace period of the second payment there is no penalty for late payment of the first payment just interest of one percent it's only after the second payment is due the grace period after that second payment that penalty will be applied so you so for example you could be late on your first payment and you would have half a percent interest but your second payment but no penalty and you could pay your second payment on time so you would have paid in that example one half a one percent on that first payment that ran late but no penalty are you ready for the question I'd like to read it two questions number one the penalty, who gets the penalty does it go to the tax collector as a fee or does it just go to the town goes to the town I'd like to make an amendment then to reduce the 4.5 to 3 percent for the penalty that's as much as you can get it a CD if you're really lucky and 4.5 sounds a little excessive so that's not like anything second it's been moved and seconded to amend this article to set the penalty at 3 percent we're up for discussion of the amendment seeing none all those in favor of amending the article by changing the penalty from 1.5 to 3 percent please say aye those opposed no the ayes appear to have it the ayes do have it and the article is amended are you ready for the main question as amended if so shall a delinquent tax penalty be set at 3 percent of the total amount of the 2020 delinquent tax all those in favor please say aye those opposed the ayes appear to have it the ayes do have it and article 15 is passed article 16 asks shall the town allow a penalty free grace period of 7 calendar days after Monday November 16 2020 during which no delinquent tax penalty shall be charged it's been moved do we have a second it's been moved and seconded discussion seeing none all those in favor of article 16 shall the town allow a penalty free grace period of 7 calendar days after Monday November 16 2020 during which no delinquent tax penalty shall be charged please say aye those opposed you've passed article 16 article 17 reads shall the voters authorize a reserve fund under 24 BSA subsection 2804 known as the town conservation fund to be used to acquire real property or other rights or interest in real property and undertake other activities consistent with the purposes of 10 BSA chapter 155 and 24 BSA chapter 118 as well as preserve historic resources and provide education and public outreach to promote natural resources conservation detailed guidelines for use of the conservation fund money shall be proposed by the conservation commission and adopted by the select board after public hearings somebody like to move this article it's been moved do we have a second it's been moved and seconded it's someone from the conservation commission want to speak to this one okay we'll get you a microphone anybody else from the conservation commission want to explain this no okay it's a little bit complicated and I will try to boil it down to its essence which is that in 1989 there was a vote in a town meeting to establish a fund a reserve fund and then there was a vote to a conservation fund and its purpose stated at the time was to acquire land or interest in movement since that time it's been clear that the natural resources in Calis are protected by many different ways as described in and this is what gets so technical and complicated but it was established and excited a statutory section that authorizes public agencies to acquire interest in land you have to tell me this is too obscure I'm trying to simplify it and so the purpose was to encourage and assist the maintenance of the present uses of Vermont's agricultural forest and other undeveloped land and to encourage the use of conservation and preservation tools to support farm forests related and engine process and that's what we've been doing with this money the concern is that the original authorization only authorized the purchase we for instance used conservation commission money you might say wait the conservation commission recommends to the select board and the select board then decides whether to use the money because it's their fund already since they aren't strong property down on the peak and that was purchased by a farmer that was purchased by a farmer and the conservation fund was used to help the farmer purchase it you remember we had an inventory this town had an inventory of natural resources it was a conservation fund money that was used what we're asking now is for the townspeople to clearly authorize this kind of activity it's all for the purpose of conserving Vermont's natural resources but it goes beyond just purchasing land and property and that's what this is, what this article is asking you okay Larry would you like a microphone yes Larry I'd like to I'd just like to make a sort of a lay of get them to what Stephanie just said if I'm correct about my generalization of jumping tones my understanding though is that when the town recently created the fund is the conservation fund it was done in a way that is often done by town for people making suggestions and other there is a statute which is I believe cited here in the state which authorizes the creation of conservation funds like ours looking at the history of the use of the fund it's always been consistent with what the state statute allowed the concern was because of the sort of lay person's way that this was originally voted on there is a concern that it might be perceived as not consistent with that even though it's entirely consistent with what the state statute authorizes and what I believe was actually referenced at the time the conservation fund was originally established so this in a very real sense is just kind of a tanicality that says yes we want to keep doing what we're doing and it's consistent with the state statute that authorizes conservation funds thank you so you're telling us you're not changing anything you're just making sure we're consistent with state law is that more money or less money it's nothing is changing except we're trying to broaden the purposes consistent with state law yes we have a hand up in front the microphone's on its way in article 17 there's a reference to historic resources but that is not in the law I think the conservation commission could address what they interpret as historic resources the various papers I have all these state statutes I would Stephanie while you're looking I would guess that at a very minimum state law would refer to archaeological resources which might be historic in nature but I don't know if it's broad enough 10 power 5 check at 155 it talks about historic settlement patterns it talks about natural resources but it does not mention historic resources it does talk about the historic settlement pattern and I would imagine that the historic resources are part of the historic settlement pattern the compact village and urban centers rise to air collect publish advertising I would say that we would interpret historic resources as being natural resources now people disagree with that you can do what you want with it but we feel that historic resources are part of the town's natural resources I guess I'm wondering if there is you know a public understanding of natural resources because you have moved to purchase the building that the town hold well I can give you an example Memorial Hall asked the town for money and the town agreed to give Memorial Hall money and it's partly you know we could say well that money is only for protecting the shoreline but there isn't a historic house there and we would hope that we would be able to support that with the conservation fund money and in fact the select board did vote to do that hall so the witness is worded it's you're saying as in other words you cite this statute and and then you say oh by the way we also want to preserve historic resources so I'm reading this it may not be authorized under the statute but you're asking for the authority anyway say that if it's not authorized by statute yeah I mean that's what and I think that's fine as long as we don't run into the same boots we didn't do it quite right a few years from now we tried to be as broad as we could this time further discussion on this article yes thanks just a question about process it sounded like this was authorized or something similar in 1985 but sometimes in the past do we need to amend that authorization or send that authorization before voting in this article it's just a question of process I have no idea but it just seems like if something was voted and authorized we might as well do something without moving forward we have a reasonable question maybe the select board can answer it well I think you ran this whole process and made this change by the town's attorney he never suggested anything like that but I would think that this doing this replaces what was done previously yeah we shouldn't say that that's a good question I think the select board can probably take care of that this does replace the previous authorization we could amend this motion to say that and we could put it for minutes and we can amend this motion to say that if you're suggesting that are you making an amendment to this motion to this article I think he's just asking a question yeah it wouldn't hurt to do it so that it's crystal clear you know I see a bunch of lawyers and some of them are waving their heads like this and some are waving their heads like that and I'm just going to suggest that you guys take it up with the town attorney and if you need to do something more you can bring it back next year okay yes wait for the microphone can you go ahead and ask questions I'm just going to assume that since there have to be detailed guidelines that will be subject to public hearings that would be a great time to ask the question you're raising or say you're not being specific enough but I think that's in the as I'm reading the article I think that's there that we probably wouldn't get a definition today does that make sense to you okay you have a proposal instead so for clarification purposes this was drafted by our town attorney in concert with select board and the conservation commission so this works this replaces existing language it's technically an expansion over the previous authorization it's not in conflict with the previous authorization but an expansion of that and there are fun guidelines that are in existence now and as Gus said we select board notes to allow our meetings and we can let you know Rose you can attend it would be awesome and we'll have a lot of conversation about that language sometimes too much but it would be great if you participated we love that okay we have a hand up here on the left excuse me the question has been called so that's not debatable all those in favor of ending the debate please say aye we're continuing debate say nay we're done debating this article 17 shall the voters authorize a reserve fund under 24 BSA subsection 2804 known as the conservation fund to be used to require real property or other rights or interests in real property and undertake other activities consistent with the purposes of 10 BSA chapter 155 and 24 BSA chapter 18 as well as preserve historic resources and provide education and public outreach to promote natural resource conservation detailed guidelines for use of the conservation fund money shall be proposed by the conservation commission and adopted by the select board after public hearings all those in favor please say aye opposed the ayes have it and article 17 passes article 18 is to transact any other non-binding business that may legally come before the meeting so anybody have some business yes right in front Wilson Wilson Hughes from North East Dallas just want to remind everybody that April 1st is coming up it's time to license your dogs again license your dogs thank you okay butcher the mic is on its way I just wondering if the town has any great discussions about the coronavirus and if the schools pay not to close if there are rumors of around the country and not the world just so what would be the communication to the townspeople and if the schools should close do we have contingency plans we have a plan another used plan for the coronavirus so I thought this question could come up at town meeting and I hadn't seen anything from the department of health or emergency management or anything so I contacted the health department and they sent back a rather long statement I won't read it here but I will post something on the forum with a link to what the health department has said and the governor also has released a press release just yesterday so we're working on plans the state's been in contact with the modern emergency management they've created a task task force and they're supposed to contact towns and tell us what we might do in the event of the corona we've got food supplies and fuel and all those kinds of things that people think about when there's something like this going on so we'll keep you updated I'll make posts on front porch forum I'll give you a link to the press release that was just done that goes into a lot more detail and I can give you right now about okay Chris Noel yeah I want to talk about I understand a letter that's gone out from our superintendent at Washington Circle Unified District about the corona virus and how they're going to deal with it so all parents of students would have received this and maybe we can get that put on front porch forum excuse me it would be good if that could be shared if you could share it I can I'd like to see what that says and I don't have kids in the school right now Chris Noel from Apple Hill Road and back right before Christmas we all suffered a collective loss in the closure of the East County General Store and I'm representing a group that's doing a lot and has been doing a great deal of work and trying to resuscitate that to raise funds to rehabilitate the building and open the store back up I this picture here is taken around 1860 which is the very near the beginning of photography itself and a century later I moved here as a 12 year old anybody remember Willie Sares he would put all your stuff down and he said that will do it yeah that'll do it and the store has been the central part of my life and I know many of your lives ever since then for the 50 half century after that and so it's important that we come together to try to not only reopen the store in a newer more sustainable fashion but also to think about revitalizing the center of East Calis itself we have a Facebook page called East Calis Revitalization Project so it's a public group please join up if you are interested in discussing this and there's a long term fundraising effort going but we need to raise the money by May 1st in order to get this done in this current effort we have fantastic brochure back at the table in the corner the back corner there what am I not getting what on the Facebook page we have wonderful photographs you're going to create a website too if we still need it up to the Facebook I was going to ask you we still need that but I will if we need it some of us don't use Facebook that's right some of you don't use Facebook and so I can create a website too anyway we have other photos back there and any questions they're also back there we're looking for your input on what your vision would be in the building so just stop by and John a quick note down and we'll gather up all the suggestions suggestion basket like having a cafe type of format in something similar to what they have in Maple Corner lots of other ideas have been floated we just want to breathe life back into the middle of these callas because with the loss of the store it's like a big tooth has been extracted and we need to do some dental work yeah I drove by the other day and I saw there is a real sign out front and I thought what does that mean we have we have an option to purchase the building that's why we're doing fundraising and we need to generate those funds by May 1st so the sign is still there because it's technically still on the market but the first option goes to the East Callas Community Trust other business anybody wants to conduct today you've got a few people ahead of you it's sort of a resolution but I really don't know how to get it all started but I really want to have Callas build a school support committee and my thought is if some select board members and some of the Washington Central directors and the principal of the school could get together and figure out how we want to populate that committee how big we want it to be and get it started and the purpose is to bring to the main board what we feel are important issues for Callas thank you okay Mary get to the middle there yeah it's going the other way hi I'm Mary Jameson and I live in North Callas and I feel like I call somewhere in between East Callas store effort and God Building Town Hall effort I'm working on the North Callas Memorial Hall Association and last year we were here I was here standing up to say thank you to the select board and the Callas Conservation Commission who have been incredibly supportive and with your support we were able to generate more support because we can say that we have town support and many conversations will be in the conservation so my update this year is good news and gratitude for anybody who is a fan of the Memorial Hall we received $100,000 through the historic revitalization grant this year we just received our 501C3 so we are tax exempt and we have registered from the profit so we're still raising funds but we're almost there and we have a team of an architect who lives in East Callas north of the Redfield and is a sixth generation from our to Ryan Edwards and we're working with Ryan Hart as our project manager and we're working with engineering ventures as our engineers and we're at this very moment drawing on the plans working on our cost estimator to put the job out to bid and knock on the wood start construction to restore Memorial Hall and bring her back to her beauty this spring and summer so I know there's kind of people giving volunteer hours and money in this room and we're still looking for some contributions so www.memorialhallcallas.org you can find out and I wish luck to everybody else who's working on huge projects like this thank you yet another month profit has been formed only within the weight of the Town Hall project we now have friends of the Callas Town Hall as an official group they too have a Board of Trustees that is beginning to form but you can get in on this free of charge by signing the cards at the table in the rear putting them in the box and you will be a charter member of the friends of the Callas Town Hall we want everybody in Callas to be a member of this group that will start to operate the cultural aspect of the Town Hall in addition to its municipal uses in the newly renovated downstairs portion of the building and we hope to take occupancy in the coming month so it's very exciting time at the Town Hall we'll be having a big celebration very shortly as we open the doors to the community once again and all of the money raised from your $5 lunches today goes to honor Donna and John and the Town Hall ok? for them Doug just give me $5 just give me $5 so I can have lunch I don't want that money anyway I got a few things I want to say and I'm going to get out of here I don't know where my buddy is I think Town meetings is old school I think there's 200 people here and there's another 1200 people in this town that are not making the decisions because they're working people people that are not making the decisions are here they're making that decision spend their money they can afford to be here but they're spending there's other people that's not right that's not right ok so I no they don't come to vote they can't take the time off anyway I want to see the slack board I want to see the chair you've been here too long it's old school you need to rotate I'm sorry we just get there year after year after year we need to clean the swamp the old Trump deal we need to clean the swamp we really do folks I'm sorry I believe in cleaning the swamp ok I'm out of here thank you Rose hi I respectfully disagree with you Mr. Lilly that we're not swamp people and I want to say that our first organizational select board meeting which happens next Monday the select board nominates a chair and a vice chair and our town would be nothing without the absolute phenomenal work of Denise Wheeler co-anchor by Jennifer Henson two things next Thursday, March 12th from 6 to 7.30 is the annual rabies shop clinic at the East Montpelier fire department 20 dollars a shot and I just wanted to touch base with Michael Fullerton when we talk about the library each year for those of you like myself who have been coming here year after year after year and maybe we think we're not really changing anybody's mind there's one person in our community who isn't here this year elderly whatever I brought a card if anyone wants to send well wishes to Geraldine Gilman a real wonderful lady who always spoke up about the library against it and I miss her here today so if you feel like just sending a well wish to Geraldine I have a card just to put your name any other business John we've got a hand up up there John Rosenblum from December to April 1 I just wanted to thank Alfred and Toby from the road group for helping solve a really big problem with Curtis Pond getting run off from Worcester Road the hill above Worcester Road has been washing out for years and they put in a solution you can see it from the road where there's a settling on this motor that crosses the road and runs out a lot of it and runs off into a long flat area so and they took care of this problem within a week after we met to talk about it so it's a huge improvement to first bond to be the final solution but it really helps because Curtis Pond is still being and the little events are growing because of that so it really helps and it was a great job very quickly done thank you anyone else come back I just wanted to thank the trails committee there were some great trails on the big corner side of town and up in the hills there just last weekend we hiked over to Worcester they're doing a phenomenal job on the trails on our side of town and hopefully these cows can get some trails in the future too but I just want to thank Reed and Aalil and the average the trails committee for all over they're doing a great job and I'm joined by Eusef