 Now, I'm going to throw another acronym, but I'll say what it is before I throw it. Tax Incremental Finance, or TIF. Tax Incremental Finance is being used to finance the parking garage. Could you talk about other possible uses of tax incremental finance down on Berry Street? We could use it potentially, can't use it as far out as savings pastors because when we did the TIF, that whole design of the taxing district, we had to define it, and the state really has a cluster cluster cluster. So it's part of Berry Street, but it doesn't go as far out as savings pastors. It's a core downtown. So we're looking at partners. It's a public-private partnership. And so there are no projects right now, and one is because it's taken us so long to get the garage. No, that's true enough, sir. I mean, when we first, the reason we end up with Bar Hill here with Caledonia Spirits, we approached them or they approached us, Jesse Baker was city assistant manager at the time, and worked with them. That's Jesse Baker, the city manager of Winooski. Winooski? Yes, yes. Well, but her initial conversations with them was to buy the rec building, and then it would have been in the TIF. But now we have not been able to find a buyer, so now we're going to be looking at renovating the Berry building. But it's that kind of project. It's having somebody like Caledonia Spirits saying, we have a business. We want to move in, and us finding them the right property and working together. And I have to say myself, I was sort of skeptical about a project like Caledonia Spirits before I came on council. But it's one of the beautiful things, you ask what you enjoy about being on council. It's very tangible. You see it built up, and you see all the out-of-state license plates in that parking lot, and those people are poking around town afterwards. It really is a good boon for our city. From the perspective of my wife, who is a downtown business owner, they've stepped up. They really stepped up as corporate responsibility, defining it in this town in terms of what a business can do in support of its community. And I'm sure Conor loves this. They have paid their staff, so they don't have to be tipped. All tips go to nonprofits. Every month there's a designated nonprofit. They have an incredible space for receptions, and nonprofits in the city, and the farmers market are all using this well-thought-out design space. It's just marvelous. And the parking lot. And the parking lot. And employees, people. And it all goes, I think, underlying every decision we make lately. It's making our community face the river. And we've had the River Conservancy come in with some very interesting ideas. They'll be presenting a letter to try to get our support for an examination of the three dams in town. You have the Yankee Dam, you have the Rat Dam, you have the Bailey Dam. These are in a state of disrepair. And may not be serving their purpose anymore. Would it make sense to take out all three of these dams and really create a recreation space on the river right in town along Confluence Park? Someone had spoken of canoeing. Way back, when we first were looking at Taylor Street, we had a group come in and talk about building rafts, ripples so that you could do fast-water canoeing and such and kayaking. Yes. I would say stay tuned. As Confluence Park gets up and running, you might have some kayaking going down the river. When do you think that we're actually going to do something on the rec center? What do you think we're going to do? And when will it be open, possibly? I think it's going to be probably the August or November ballot. And then it's a good year out. And then once you actually start, it's probably another year before it opens. But I think that's a huge, well-placed investment, multi-ages right here in town to encourage health and fitness and fun. It was a difficult decision, some of this, because you did have a group of town Splash and Swim who were advocating very heavily for an indoor swimming pool and recreation center. Splash and jump. Splash and jump. Splash and jump. That's okay. One more than I got right. Very good, yeah. And I thought they brought great ideas to the table. At the end, the survey went out and there just wasn't the appetite for a project of that magnitude. That said, I'm excited after looking at some of the designs. We'll essentially have a little plan of fitness area in the basement of the new rec center. Where currently we have lead from a shooting range, right? Yes. We're cleaning it up. Yes. Yes, we do. A room full of code. I don't know how many people remember that. A whole long basement. It was a shooting range. Right. Yes. Yes. Jesus, you make me feel old. I know. Let's stay on the downtown and talk about traffic calming on Main Street. And I know that I sat in meetings with you on that. Donna, could you talk about traffic calming all the way from the light on Memorial, all the way past the library? Well, I would refer people to go online and look at the Main slash Berry Street scoping study. And it looked at all the interchanges and it had several conduits for public input and it really came down to some solid decisions of unfortunately I was a roundabout supporter but it's going to do articulated traffic lights. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I believe isn't there still a roundabout by the library? Just one. Okay. I wanted four. Okay, let's walk it all the way from Memorial because that's not going to be a roundabout. That will be the current light structure on the other side of the bridge on Main Street. Well, yes. I guess I hesitate to get into too much of all the detail. To me though, the whole focus is yes, we want to move cars but we want to allow bicycles and pedestrians to have safe sidewalks, safe crosswalks and a whole calming of the whole movement of cars so that people don't think I'm here and I've got to dash through town. We want them to slow down and enjoy downtown and enjoy the fact that they can see people on the street. And so we're looking at modifying some of the parking arrangements, narrowing the street so that people do slow down, shifting around where the parking is. Are we talking about possibly lifting up the pedestrian crosswalk so that even when there aren't pedestrians you're going to slow down or it will cost you your muffler? All of that's consideration. And the plan, this Main Street Berry Scoping Study lays all that out but it all will happen bit by bit as we incorporate it into our capital improvement projects. I can't let this go by without walking it step by step. Okay. So if I'm driving you, if I'm driving you. Okay, Richard, what do you want to know? What are you listening to on your car radio? There's a lot of you to know. I'm going to turn up towards the bridge and the shaws is on my right or on my left. What happens when I hit Berry Street? Well there eventually will be a light there and there'll be a safe crossing to make the connection of the Berry Street shared path on the Berry Street side to the side that's now over going towards. So that's the bike, that's the path that we put over the bridge. That will go on to Berry Street. Transit center. Whole intersection is going to be slowed down so that the bikes, pedestrians and cars coming out of Berry Street can do so safely. That's a light. Now what is the smart light? That will be a smart light. Right, so there's all the lights from Memorial, Berry, State of Maine will be in partnership with one another and literally having these sensitivity electronics to say, oh, it's slow over here. Let somebody through. It's jamming up. So it responds to what's happening in the car profile at another light to make its action. So at State of Maine, you will no longer know that when the cars come from going west on state, you know that the light is going to change. It's going to be a learning curve because people anticipate a certain flow. It's this street, then that street, that will change. It'll be up for grabs given where the traffic is jammed up and where it's moving. And the sidewalk currently that goes into Langdon Street there will be moved back, I think about 30 feet is it? Closer to 3-pinning. Right, okay. Taproom, yes. Over where the knit shop was. Yes, exactly. Because right now cars coming out of the light from state left on Maine, you slip around there and suddenly there are pedestrians there and there's no way to see them. There's too much cars and traffic. Now I've gone by shippies and I've seen that crosswalk and then a block away, I'm heading into a traffic circle. Around about, yes. Around about? Yes. And then I've got another roundabout at the end of the street. Yes, but we have a lot of J walkers and I'm hoping that we have a crosswalk close enough to the school main street one that people won't J walk. And now the one that's there at Langdon is just a little too far. So I'm hoping, shoving that down, people will use that. And we've got to stop the J walking, really. People, pedestrians have to take some responsibility and stay in the crosswalks and have illuminated lights. I mean, how many pedestrians from 4, 3, 4, actually from 4, 3, 3, 4 in the afternoon on are very difficult to see. So we need help. We need the cars to slow down and be attentive. We need pedestrians also to make themselves visible. Are we going to move those yellow lights that are- Flashy beacons? The flashing ones, are we going to move them anywhere? We're just going to get rid of them at Barry. Will they be elsewhere downtown? Like in front of City Hall or something? We have been instructed that they're good, but you don't want to use too many, that they become less effective. But they're not needed at Barry if we have a light. Yes, it'll get moved. I mean, we can move them anywhere we want to move them. And we're going to be adding some. It's like we found that the lower bars drivers don't tend to see during the day. So the monthly or transportation group has decided to put it around the edge of the sign, that it will stand out more. That's the things you learn by trial and error. Well, it still speaks Spanish in an area where French is more common. I don't know. The sign doesn't speak. The sign just blinks. So I don't know maybe our stop light sign. No, no, if you hit that button at Barry Street, it says it in English and then it says it in Spanish just for the record. How do you say stop in French? I have no idea. Okay, I didn't know it spoke at all. I was not attentive in junior high school. I have to go down there and push it. I really. Let's stay on downtown and talk about the master plan. That will be discussed at City Council on what date? Because this is going to show over and over. I believe we're looking at the. You mean the 26th? I'm sorry. I think it's next Wednesday. I think it is. When this is being. I think it's the 12th. It's the 12th. So, no, okay. So the first draft of the master plan that went through a great deal of public comment and all that will be presented before council. Are we looking possibly? Yeah, I'm sorry. You mean the city plan? Yeah, the city. Okay, they have changed terms on this. So I'm just trying to. Right, right. The city downtown plan. Okay, the city. Which will be at the 12th. At the council meeting. And you might be looking at this after the 12th, but it was presented. But when you said master plan, I'm saying a big zoning thing. So I was just happy to get in the right lane. Sorry. On that one, are we staring perhaps at a slower downtown traffic rate than currently in order to have mixed use of cars and bicycles and have them safer? I think so. I mean, certainly we're hearing a lot more from citizens, not just Berlin Street of saying cars are going too fast through town. People definitely want to see more bike lanes, I think. You know, I think there is a sense that it's a bit dangerous on Elm Street when you're riding down there. But we have to weigh that against eliminating parking, of course, too. Might those bike lanes be seasonal? There aren't many bicyclists in January, February, and March. And it's the same with the issue of having an abutment in front of City Hall in the parking area and on the Rialto Street Bridge. On winter days, not many people are going to be sitting there. Could those be temporary installations like the one on State Street was on the Rialto Street Bridge? And one of the things that came up with the Main and Berry Street scoping study was they say we want to do that. We want to do some bike lanes here. Temporarily put some up, try it for a season, and learn from that experience. There are several major cities who are doing exactly what you said, Richard, and they're seasonal. And we looked at some of those. Because yeah, you're right, in a city where the snow's on the ground at least like four or five months a year. I haven't seen many bikes out today in a bit of a blizzard. No, but I have seen them earlier this week. I really was so impressed. That bicyclist had headlights and lots of reflection all over the bike. I thought that it was really well lit. I appreciated it immensely. It was hard to see in the rain. What elements of, you've watched that study sideways now. You were at those hearings in the lake. What do you like in that one? What do you truly, what shouts out at you in that study? Is it Langdon Street, the rethinking of Langdon Street? Is it in front of City Hall and the Rialto Bridge? Is it the trees? Is it the new lights? There's a lot in that study. And that meeting on the 12th will be shown on Orca Live. And it will be in the archive on the Orca YouTube channel. I think so much of it is just about changing the culture. Can we make it a more walkable city? You talk about Langdon Street. You know, there's been proposals. OK, can we do a pilot project where Langdon Street is closed down maybe one Saturday, a month during the summer there. And it becomes a little mini-turch street type of area. Certainly, there's some problems with that as far as getting emergency vehicles. But we're trying to think outside the box on this. What is Montpelier Live's thoughts on this? You sit on the board. I told you I'd get that. No, I think you might have different opinions, depending on who's on Montpelier Live for that. But I've certainly spoken to some of these store owners there. And they would love to have more live music outside. Really use that. Maybe make it part of the farmer's market, essentially. And something coming up. The Rialto Bridge needs to be under construction and hopefully will be in the next year, year and a half. And when that happens, and we work, OK, I'm optimistic, two years, I'm going to say. And not only with the bridge, but we have a lot of underground utility work that has to be done. That can't be done until we do the bridge. That's way down here on East State and State Street interchange. So all of a sudden, we're going to have to be looking at alternatives. And oh, my goodness, look at that. That one section of State Street is closed, and we are surviving. So we can learn from that for other options. You mean learn from Middlebury? Learn from everybody. But our own direct experience always is what makes it different. And I think if we handle any of those big road changes or demonstration projects, like we did the Montpelier Makeover, that we can get the public's cooperation and enthusiasm for the projects. In terms of Montpelier's strengths, what is Montpelier? I've asked this of everyone, and I'll ask it of you. And you've both have gotten this question before, because you've been in town or is it a city? It depends on what time of the day it is, I think. I don't think that's the question at all, because whether we have all the workers in here and we're big or whether everyone's gone home at night, to me it's still a sense of community and it's people's commitment, like our commitment of volunteers on our committees. But it's also, look at all the nonprofits we have in Montpelier and all the church groups, but all the other groups we have that are really working, like on the homeless issue, I mean, again and again, people step up and say we're gonna deal with this, social justice, we wanna have workshops, people are stepping up to say we wanna participate in this, we wanna help with the homelessness, we wanna help with social justice. So I think the sense of community is what we have working for. You tell me what other town this size has a public arts commission? With people like one fella who restores statues at the Smithsonian for his full-time job, this is the caliber of talent we have on some of these volunteer boards. Yeah. So you're talking about design review? That's one where you have dedicated people on that. Absolutely. No, again and again, but I mean, again, I really appreciate all the credentials, but wherever they come from, they're really dedicated to the community and it makes all the difference. Let's stay on the homeless because we have a $45,000 insert in the budget this year. Yep. Could you discuss that insert and what it's going to? Sure, sure. And that's, you know, I think we approach this just with the understanding that a lot of the folks you see, you can't be vilifying. These are folks from our community. I've spoken to many of them who are born and raised in Montpelier and for one reason or another, it could be mental health issues, it could be substance abuse, it could be domestic abuse where people find themselves on the street suddenly and need help. I would argue at its core, this is probably a responsibility of the federal government, but you know, in the 80s, I think during the Reagan administration, they dropped a lot of these services and the responsibility has trickled down to the state and the municipalities. Now the $45,000 in the budget, the bulk of that would go to peer support workers. What is a peer support worker? What are the qualifications? Well, I'm just going to say we have a lump sum and we're really going to negotiate how it gets spent. They did submit a budget and in that they had a peer support person and that is someone who isn't a credentialed social worker like the person we're adding to the police department, but it is somebody who's experienced homelessness, but they've now transitioned themselves to a place where they have their own home, but they really understand the elements of living on the street and they're trying to help people who are now on the street make this similar transition that they did. So it's a little different kind, we have a lot of peer counseling on other fields and so it's on that level but it's also to address the fact that they need a place to shower, they need a place that they can go to to secure the things that they use at night like their sleeping bags. Is this a regional problem? Oh yes, it's a statewide problem. I know that Mary Hooper, our former mayor who's now in the legislature, is working on the grants to put that person in the police car that Donna was talking about and that grant would be shared with Barry. Yes, that's right. It'd be a place of Washington County mental health, yes. What is that person? How are they credentialed and what do they do? They're a clinical social worker versus a peer support and they supplement one another and help one another in different ways. So one is working more directly with the police and one is more directly with the people on the street. I'd like to give a lot of credit to the Homelessness Task Force because they were only formed a few months ago. I think they meet weekly. I think that's incredible. I think weekly. What can I tell you? We have these volunteers. Ken Russell, if I could just give a shout out to him real quickly. He's spending about 30 hours a week on this as chair of the committee. He's spending all his time. If Ken sees somebody who's in trouble, he went to three hotels the other day to make sure they got a room. So that's the kind of, it's not just given recommendations. Yes. These folks are doing the work too. Yeah, amazing the amount of work that you put together. This is where none of us are lawyers sitting that period. I don't pretend. I can pretend to be a lot of things and I don't pretend to be a lawyer. A lot of this deals with court cases dealing with homelessness. And there's a couple dealing with panhandling as a form of free speech. And the idea of encampment, which is not a wintertime issue, but it's certainly a summer issue. And there have been rulings all the way to the district nine court in the West Coast that if you can't provide any kind of shelter, then you can't roast people from encampment. Are we looking possibly at encampment in Hubbard Park? I think we are more looking at the moment of how we can expand shelter services. We did invest in keeping the shelter in town open a bit longer. But in addition to that, some groups- But you wouldn't have wintertime camping probably. Right. I know the homelessness task force is actually looking at a project that's been done over in Scandinavia, which would be a cluster of essentially tiny houses with a nest in the middle of them. The problem is some folks are just not suited to be with other people in a shelter for a number of reasons. So they don't find that an option for them. And some of these cold days, you just wonder what they're doing. And if it's between being on the street or being able to camp on public lands, the choice is no choice at all. Yeah, I think we need to look for two. One is a building where there is a clustering of people. But I think sometime of those really tiny, tiny houses that people then just need to be alone, still need to be out of the weather, that we really have to look at that. And that's much more involved and complex in Hubbard Park having encampments. That sure is. Because now we do have, and there's conflicts because there's not a clear place for them. And people who are using the park, who aren't homeless, then they don't- That's most of us, if we've got all of us in this town. But it's a matter that right now we need to work more with the homelessness and the familiarity that we need to share. It's like the streets. We need to share the sidewalks. We need to be respectful of one another. And it goes both ways. So we need to make sure that they're joining us and we're joining them. There's been discussion of panhandling zones that aren't in front of commercial enterprises. Would you support that? They would still be downtown, but they wouldn't be in front of commercial enterprises. I feel like that's a bit of a slippery slope and could be a bit draconian. I definitely understand the merchants in town. And I think we need to do a better job of making sure. There isn't vandalism or litter left in the storefronts. But I worry about, I opposed the smoking ban in town too. You pass too many of these ordinances and I think you begin to see a little elitism in town. But again, is the council covertly saying that begging is co-equal with work? I think the ACLU is... That it's a co-equal lifestyle. The ACLU has come out with the position that this is a First Amendment right. However, I'm not going to say that. I'm playing devil's advocate there. We've been told by the law that we have to share the sidewalk to some extent. But if you want to protest in front of Planned Parenthood, there's a zone where you are restricted from protesting in front of Planned Parenthood. When the Westboro Baptist Church came to our high school years back, there was a zone that the police said was your zone of protest. So free speech does have, say, if you want to protest with President Trump, they'll put you into a zone. Or Bernie Sanders. But you have the freedom to move. I think that's where it all comes together. But still, you do have as a community the freedom to regulate free speech to some degree. It's not absolute. That's playing devil's advocate. Those are the types of discussions that the city will have to have. Particularly on Hubbard Park, I imagine. Yes, lots of discussion and lots of legal. We're not lawyers. Again, we're not lawyers? No, but also a lot of discussions with the people who are homeless and the people in the community that aren't so that we can develop a mutual partnership of how to deal with the program. The problem, because it's not just us dealing with people. It's us in partnership finding solutions for their situation. We have council goals that we set years ago. And then every year you guys go into a retreat after town meeting day and set the new goals for this year. And those new goals look like the old goals. They're variations of the old goals. We have the same goal as Saban's pastor every year. Grows older, the chalk goes older and older on that. Are there any new challenges that you can see for the city that weren't envisioned last year or two years or three or four or five years ago? Well, I've seen those goals change. And I understand what you mean. And especially the whole... They're aspirations. The whole format changed three years ago. So I see the climate change huge. Financial and human resource demands that we have to be upfront and deal with it. What does that mean? That means all these extreme weather changes. It's the extreme weather changes that give us busted pipes and flooding unexpectedly and heavy rains are supposed to come and winter that's not a winter. And the weather changes are extreme. So to me, that's huge. It hits us financially, but it also hits us in our human resources. Our staff get long hours when one of these episodes happened. So I think that has to be there on all of our constituency plans. Are we staffed correctly in public works? I'm sorry. Are we staffed correctly? We have tried to increase it. A lot of changes have happened this last year in our budget. Yep, we've added a new position, Bush. Didn't we take a supervisory position and change it? We changed several like that. We did. Move things around that really give us better coverage. But there's, like people say, get rid of overtime while we're trying to reduce it. But emergencies are emergencies. So you can't plan on them. But I think our current staff level does a better job of eliminating unnecessary overtime. But likewise, I think the issue of the homeless, it's been there, but now it's really more in everyone's face and awareness. And we've got to deal with that. And in our goals, it's very clear about inclusiveness. It's very clear about trying to resolve some of these issues that are based on economics disparities. So I think we're more aware of those and want to deal with them up front. Some of these issues will be there every year. You'll always see a designer to increase affordable housing. I mean, with 40% of the residents in our town being renters, we see it untenable for some of them to afford these prices. Oh, the tax base of only $7,500. We need to grow the grand list. We do. We absolutely have. $7,500, that's population. Kids do not pay taxes. That is, that is. We have, I don't know, was it $2,000? I'm going to say, how many houses? $2,500? Yeah, that sounds right. OK, all right. So see, it's small. So sometimes we have to step back and say, we are this small, people. Health insurance really brought this budget into disrepair. Bill will be talking about that in his discussion of the city budget. It's the entire increase. Without doing anything, we were seeing a 4% increase just with health insurance. So you look at issues that the legislature like, single payer health care, universal health care, something like that could have a real and immediate impact on our city. Yes, but I think without Bill and his staff, his department heads, helped us do things. Absolutely. We added things because how they move things around, even with the heavy insurance. So again, the staff is so supportive of us and our goals. They went in and tweeted here and there and came out with, OK, you now have an option of potentially adding a little few things, just a few little things. And next year, you have a fire truck to buy. Yes, now. $1 million. Yes, yes. And that's why regional public safety is so important. All this large equipment should not be bought town by town, bit by bit. Are you on the ballot twice? I am on the ballot twice. I thought you were never going to get to that, Richard. I'm running for an at-large seat in the center of Vermont Public Safety Authority, which Conor has a different name for. But that is his name, and that we are on the ballot to do a complete telecommunication needs assessment for all our 23 towns. How long has that agency been going? My heavens. Well, the seeds started for this particular one. There have been plenty of other regional attempts. But this one started around 2006, when I was president of the Central Vermont Chamber. George Malick was here. And we had a committee, Berlin, Berry Town, Berry City, Montpelier. There were some other towns who were interested, but those were the four key ones. And we had a core committee that was appointed in 2009 that started working on the charter language that got approved in 2014 by the legislators. So since 2014, it's like August, somewhere in the summer of 2014, that we actually were formed. And we've had appointments two from the city of Montpelier and two from the city of Berry, and three at large. So the seat I'm going after now is an at-large seat, which we voted for in Berry and Montpelier. What is going on with the Joint Dispatch? Joint Dispatch is at a standstill right now. We have helped with getting the dispatchers the opportunity to be trained to be certified, so they're all on the same expertise and professional level. And we upgraded the equipment so that Montpelier and Berry can back up one another. That was a huge thing to put them in sync and upgrade. And so now we need to go the next step, which is to really understand the towns that they serve. Montpelier serves like 17 to 20 towns as dispatching. And Berry serves, I think, has three to five contracts in a year. So all these towns go through Berry and Montpelier, but we don't know exactly what's going on in each little town that they serve, where the fire trucks are, where their radios conditions are. And we need to get the towers, both for what do you call it? The fiber and the internet and the tower for the radios. So we want to do a full assessment and a real clear statement. We hear problems. Right now there are problems when the first responders get in a building, when there's a fire. Sometimes the chiefs can't talk to them on their radios. They're in a building. Their chiefs can't talk to them. And that's not safe. And I mean, it happens again and again with situations right now. And likewise, on our radios, there's over this overtalk. We hear Canadians talk. We can hear sometimes taxi drivers, hand radios. So then the dispatchers can't hear the first respondents. So it becomes a very ineffective, dangerous situation. Then we have towers that are really, really old at any time. Could just, like a light bulb, go out. If you're getting an email on the snow emergency or you're getting a message on your telephone, you're picking back on a state system for emergencies. Vermont Eller, yes. In this system that you're talking about changing the towers now, will that possibly someday be able to give us internet connectivity? Hopefully, for civilians, for those of us. You may have heard of net zero, not net zero. So you see it's another one of the first net, first net. It's a national response system. And right now, they're in partnership with AT&T. And AT&T has been very much a priority, protecting their patents. Proprietary. Proprietary. Words, words. And Massachusetts is testing them. And we hope they win. Massachusetts is assisting no matter who gets their contract. They have to open up and share. So Verizon and AT&T would need to share in Vermont. But we see this moving forward. And there is a whole plan from AT&T through the state public safety system of them upgrading all the towers. And that will really, really help for cell, radios, a lot of things. But we also have a new public safety commissioner coming on board, who just came on board, actually. And he's announced a lot of changes to modernize dispatching in Vermont. And to put everybody on the same page. Because right now, many towns get free dispatching. Free dispatching to the state police. But others don't, like ourselves. We pay all of it ourselves. So he would level the playing field. He'd start offering grants and make it a priority that you should be through a centralized dispatch center. Burlington has been working to get their centralized. They started after us. And they were going really, really fast. And now there's been little resistance with staff and community. And so they've had to slow down a bit. But it's the same idea. You can't afford to do it alone. The equipment that is so expensive, the federal standards are higher and higher. For the equipment, for your training, for your professionalism, nobody can stand alone to do this. Do you think that we'll be coming into the Montpelier taxpayers for part of this? Montpelier taxpayers? Absolutely. Montpelier, Barrie, but all the towns. The whole idea being regionalized is that instead of Barrie and Montpelier carrying the load and always responding with mutual aid, that now we have a distribution of all the towns in proportion to where they are. But at least some response financially and resource-wise for trucks and humans. Do you see that spreading into fire in the communities that we don't, that we provide fire service for just for free? All the dispatching that we're talking about as far as dispatching right now. Yes. So in theory, those towns will come. And now they have ambulance contracts, but they'll also have fire contracts? Yes. No, they have fire. Right now, all this dispatching that Montpelier and Barrie are doing for the towns is fire contracts and ambulance. Well, I think with Donna, with Kim Cheney, with Tom Galanca when he was on this, they've had a pretty hard, heavy lift on this. Because it's been a long slog. Because I think you have communities very protective. Regionalization. They don't. But it's been interesting. We've actually had joint city council meetings with the Barrie city council. It's interesting to hear the different perspectives there. Yeah. Well, I am going to call this. We're reaching like the end of a four-hour football game or something on that level. And I am going to say thank you, Connor. Thanks a million. Not only for appearing, but for stepping forward on console, I think that's great. Well, thank you. I hope it made sense. I would like to thank you for watching. But I'm going to ask something of you. And that's that you consider watching the other shows, watching the candidates in district three. They're all good candidates. Watching the school board candidates, watching Bill and Libby present their budgets. And more importantly, getting out and vote on town meeting day and making sure that your family and friends get out to vote. Because you can't take voting for granted. It's a sacred right in our country. And it is a responsibility, a personal responsibility. Thank you so very much for watching.