 Let's call this meeting to order. So, thank you all for coming out. This is such an important discussion we're having. And I want to assure you that the goal here is to try to figure out how we can continue the having callous be run by volunteers. We've always had lots of people willing to step up and help. That's who we are in callous. But we've all been noticing modern life gets increasingly complex. And we're finding it harder and harder to find volunteers who are able to do this job. What's happened is we've spent so much more time now trying to navigate the legal hoops that we have to jump through all the time. And the process is that we're expected to file that we are finding ourselves unable to do the job without investing a lot more time that makes it very difficult for people to volunteer. And that's what we want to talk about tonight. We want to figure out how to be really smart about how we organize ourselves so that we can continue our tradition of volunteers running our town. But how we can structure our personnel situation so that it's manageable for people who are very busy, who have jobs, who have families. Donna has been... Oh, let me stop in a minute. Did Sharon or Paul show up? I was hoping we would get some past select board members. And Judy didn't come either. She's in Maine. Well, draft. So we're all new at this, as you know. So we don't have the long-term perspective to talk about how things have changed. But we can talk a little bit about that as we go through this. So Donna has been doing a lot of work, hours and hours of work. Donna's part of the Fitch dynasty. Her family's been helping... Recording in progress. Just missed it. Her family's been helping to run this town for generations, right? At least two, probably more. My grandfather too. So Donna certainly has the long-term perspective. Donna's also been our town clerk and treasurer. So she's really familiar with how Callis works and has worked in the past. Donna's been gathering information about how other towns... The other towns are finding themselves in the same position and how they're trying to restructure themselves to deal with all these issues. She's gathered all kinds of information. She's interviewed all kinds of people. And she's put together a lot of information that can help us. So the plan is to have Donna talk about this. And then we... I was hoping to get some of these other people who've been around for years to comment. If they come, I'll give them each a chance to talk. And by being around, I mean serving in some of these positions. And then I'm going to give all of you a chance to ask questions. Just to be sure we've all get the same information. People on Zoom, when we get into that period, you'll be able to raise your hand if you want to ask a question. Tegan is going to be watching the chat. If you prefer to write a question, Tegan can read it to us. And then we'll open it up for opinions, discussion, thoughts, concerns. We have to stop at 7. We have to stop at 7 because at that point, the treasurer is coming in to help us set the tax rate for the next year. And that has to be done. So if we get to a point where we think we need to continue the discussion, we'll figure out then whether what we need to do is just continue it at another regularly scheduled meeting or whether we actually need to have a special meeting just for this talk. So at this point, are there any questions about how we're going to proceed? And I'll clear. Okay. With that, Donna, can you tell us about your research? So there's a packet on the table by the door for everybody to pick it up. And the first four pages are organizational charts. And I'll go over these, and John's over there with the charts on the screen. But also in this packet is three other handouts. And one is possible options for managing the workload of the town of Calis. And that's what we'll be going over tonight. Another document is why create a new position. And then the last document is the possible job responsibilities of a new position. So I thought it would be helpful if we started off with how is the town currently organized? And that's what's up there now. So all the hired and appointed employees and volunteers report to the select board. And all commissions and committees report to the select board. The town clerk is hired and the town clerk appoints the assistant town clerk. She's elected. I mean, she's elected, yeah, is elected and hires the assistant town clerk. Now in the past years, we've had the same person as the assistant town clerk and the treasurer. And then, and now we have a select board administrator appointed on an intro basis. By the way, those of you who don't have them, they're over there. If you want to pick these up and look at them. Sorry. That's okay. So if you look at this, we have, we no longer have a highway operations manager. The person in that position is now the highly grants administrator. And two select board members have been pointed to act as the road commissioner. And then down the bottom here, you'll see the other elected positions. So I think what this points out is all the people and all the activities of all these people that the select board is responsible for. So if you go to the next one, page two, this is a possible option. These next three are just possible options that I've researched that the town might choose from or change around a little bit. So the town manager form of government is, it's defined in state statute. So the select board would hire that person and that person would report to the select board. But in many ways they're very independent. And in this scenario, the only positions reporting to the select board are the town manager and the commissions and committees. Everybody else would report to the town manager. And by statute, the town manager is also the road commissioner. And in this organization, we no longer have the operations manager. Grants would become the responsibility of the town manager. And that's why we have here an assistant to the town manager part time. Because if the town manager is managing employees, all these projects, and if they're doing grants, they may need some assistance, especially with the grants. Also in this situation, the idea is that the road foreman would spend part of their time doing all the paperwork. But then in the winter, when there's fewer road projects, the road foreman could become one of the road crew. And that might eliminate some of the part time road crew positions that we have now. There's a union now, so I'm not sure if that would work out, but it is one idea. Now on page three, this is a town administrator. And the town administrator would be hired by the select board. But the select board determines the town administrator's responsibilities. So the select board has a lot more input into what that person's job would be. And here we have the assistant clerk and treasurer. And then we have a part time assistant for the town administrator. And the town administrator would be responsible probably for grants with help from their assistant. Now on page four, it's the same as the town administrator, but it has one municipal assistant. And that assistant would support the town clerk and the town administrator. Now the town clerk, you know, hires the assistant town clerk, so I'm not sure how that would work out. But you can see that to the left of the town administrator, we have the position of municipal assistant. This happens to be the way Eastmont Piliers set up. They have one person in the office that supports the office. And I think that regardless of the title of this newly created position that would support the work of the select board, you know, whether it's a town manager or a town administrator or a select board administrator, there's someone that's dedicated to handling the business of the town on a day to day basis and in a timely fashion alleviating the strain in the volunteer board. And as Anne said, one of our motivations for going through this process is so that younger people can serve on the board when they have full-time jobs and families. Do you want to take questions out about this? Sure. Questions just about these organizational charts. You have other documents to walk us through, right? Well, this one, why create a new position? Is some of the thoughts that went into why do we need to create a new position? Do you have that to put up on here? No, he doesn't have it. Oh, but John's got his own thing going. Oh, I see. John's got this up here. Do you want to use this? I don't know if you want me to read through this. I think you all have it. Well, I noticed some of you have the packets, but not all of you. So, I guess... John, can I email this to you really quickly? Can you just throw it up? I don't know if you want me to read through this. No, we don't want to read through this. Yes. Do you have a thought? Do you want me to identify street names? 1553 Robinson Hill. No, you don't need to do that, but you do need to say your name. I'm just wondering, it looks as though it's basically the same structure where you're hiring somebody in the middle there so that the select people don't have to handle everything. So, it's funneling down into an administrator or a town manager. What's the difference between the two titles? If I have my packet, I might be able to find that. Well, the town manager is defined in statute. Donna, as I recall, the town manager can only be fired for cause, whereas the town administrator reports directly to the select board and works under the select board. The town manager does not. Right. So, this is from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. The town manager is a statutory position in which the state vests with the manager much of the day-to-day managerial authority of the town, normally reserved for the select board. So, for example, the manager would be responsible for personnel, highway maintenance, supervision of public buildings, et cetera. Leaving the select board to focus on overarching policy decisions, adopting policies and ordinances, preparing town meeting, holding hearings on zoning and town plan updates, among other things. Towns that want to relinquish control of the day-to-day operations generally prefer to use the town manager form of government. But the town administrator would be defined by the select board. So, also in this packet is description of job responsibilities. These are some of the responsibilities that a town administrator and the select board would have control over what that person does. So, Eastmont failure has the administrative model. They have a town administrator. She's also the road commissioner along with one select board member. Are there smaller towns that use the town manager position? It's usually larger towns that have the town manager. A lot more towns have town administrators. And I can see the callus might want a town administrator because it seems like you have more control over what that person does. Is the salary a big difference? Well, we haven't talked salary yet. But I mean generally as a manager. Generally a manager is paid more, yeah, because it's a bigger, usually they're in bigger cities. But also they have more responsibilities. They do not ask the select board for permission to do a lot of things that they would do. They would have more day-to-day running of the town without reference to us. Jordan. I was curious down in the conversations with the other towns that when you're discussing administrator versus manager, whether or not they alluded to any challenges filling either of the positions. Like is there a wider pool of candidates for the manager position because it has greater responsibility and statutory protections? Well, I don't think that ever really came up because we all know the job market's very strange right now. For sure. So now I never really had that conversation about, you know, a town's history of was it easier to hire a manager than an administrator? Okay, Charlotte. It seems to me that in all your different models of administrator or manager that there are actually two new positions. Here's the assistant. We already have an assistant to the town clerk and treasurer, but each of these positions has an assistant. Well, this is, I mean, right now we have an assistant town clerk, treasurer, and select board administrator that's one person. But I don't think that can continue like that. We never used to have an assistant treasurer until we had to have separation of duties, and that's when the town clerk assistant also took on some of the duties of the assistant treasurer. Now we really have NEMRIC filling that position because they're doing payroll, they're doing monthly reconciliations. So that separation of duties has kind of changed since the past. So this, well, on page four, the municipal assistant is one person. And on the assistant, the part-time assistant to the town administrator, which is on page three, and then also the manager of page two. The reason I put that there is because of grants. And if a town administrator is going to be doing grants, which we seem to have more and more of, they may need a part-time person. But the other thing about a municipal assistant is to create a job that is really a full, whole job with responsibility that's a fulfilling position rather than having two or three assistants. And also another part-time position because I believe it's harder to hire a part-time than it is full-time. So I think that was part of one of the things we're tired about with hiring a full office assistant. Do grants will actually bring in income for the town that we wouldn't otherwise have? That would be the whole good investment, I guess is what I'm asking. Yes. Thank you. I think also, remember we have a part-time person, Toby, who does a lot of the grants now. So that's, it looks like two new positions created, but it's absorbing that position and parts of... Certainly we have lots of hiring grants and that's our biggest... Exactly. Other questions on the organizational charts and the differences? I just want to make one clarification, that even the Highway Grants Administrator, that is an interim, like, thank you, thank you, thank you for helping us get back on track type of a situation. So really most, with the exception of town clerk and parts of Barbara's job, everybody else is interim. And it's important to note that they're interim and compensated, so we're realizing those costs already as a town, as we're trying to fill those responsibilities, we're just doing it with several part-time individuals who have generously volunteered the time and the capacity for modest compensation. I've got another question, I guess, about personnel management. So with the town manager or administrator, if the select board determines that it would be appropriate to add an interim position for FEMA grants, for example, just a very specific task-based interim position, would the select board still have the authority to create that position and delegate that responsibility or would that then go through the manager? I would think the manager would work with the select board. I don't have the full statue in front of me. You're asking the town manager could just decide, hey, we need this FEMA person and do it. And not consult with the select board. I don't know the direct answer to that, although we control the budget. So I would think that that would mean that he would have to ask us. I would also think we'd be looking for someone who, even if they were a town manager with certain statutory responsibilities, that they would still be a collaborative personality that wouldn't be looking to do things outside of the understanding of the select board. You sound like you know something about this. No, I had a question about it. I raised my hand a little bit. I think that was my biggest question from the beginning is as a town, we think of re-elect the select board to make decisions. We think there's a variety of opinions and personalities and backgrounds that kind of all sugar down to a final decision on something. So I guess, and I totally understand the amount of work that everybody's doing. So I guess, yes, then throwing it to one person also seems like it could be another face person volatility to come up. If that one person has a lot of decision making or that person isn't the club. I don't think we're throwing it all at one person and especially if it's a town administrator the select board can determine what that person does. And I think a lot of it is, I mean we had our old select board some of them didn't run again and some of them resigned and there's just so much work and so much pressure on the select board that they need help. So we're talking about somebody who, maybe as a background in human resources and administrative and management that would support the select board. They're really there to support the select board. Okay, so they're not going to be making even major decisions. No, they would do a lot of the research to bring to the select board and then the select board would make the decision. I think it's important to note that this in and of itself is an important conversation that you would want the select board to continue to have but this is a conversation that we have struggled to jump into as a new select board as we've tried to get up to speed on all of the administrative responsibilities that are more habitual and required by statute. There's just the scope of work that is just regular operating responsibilities that if you're trying to do a really good job staying on top of those really hinders the ability to do the longer term planning that's involved in these types of conversations and I think that's really why we're trying to have the conversation and move in that direction. Jamie was... Oh yeah, I was just going to sort of jump back on the conversation about it being two different positions and part of the benefit of that is when you sit down and start looking at all the things that we're asking this one person to do. A, it's really more than one job and B, it's a wide range of skill sets. So to find one person who can both lead the road crew and make decisions and knows how to jump in and make decisions on fixing an excavator and all that who's also a really good grant writer is they're very different skill sets so you could pair people in the two positions to sort of cover the breadth of that. So I want to note that two of our former select board chairs have now arrived. There's Paul Hannon, and next to him... Paul Hannon, yeah. Well, I definitely want to give you guys a chance to respond to some of these things and I see Sharon has something to say. Yeah, I want to say that this time I can see you guys. I want to just fill in the point that Dorgon's making a minute ago and just apply you for thinking in this way because having this conversation with every single person on the board buying into it means that you're entering this period of delegation. Regardless of the model, you're talking about delegating a lot of day to day work so that you can be leaders and that can be really scary because doing work can keep you busy and occupied and feeling satisfied but in my experience it isn't what gets the work of the town done, leadership and being able to look ahead and trust that you have strong staff to do the work that you have shaped. You decide what work you want to delegate and you have a pulse on oversight but you're letting other people be involved and make a contribution so that you can be leaders. I think that's really courageous so thank you for working on that. I think that's a really good point, Sharon. Willa, you had a question? I'm wondering, Donna, in your research it sounds like the town manager would be a bigger shift for the towns than town administrators. That's how I view it. And I'm wondering in your research if people talked to you about when they made a switch, what was the transition like? How did people in the town I guess I didn't talk to enough town managers to be able to answer that question but I think towns they come to the same situation we're in now where there's just so much more work and the skills that you need to deal with some of these issues they just had to figure out a way to do the work and then they moved to the town administrator. What are the benefits to a town manager? I feel like you talked about the town manager being statutory which means it's more specific and more regulated. Why would you choose a town manager position over a town manager? I personally wouldn't. Why is it an option? Because I went through this with a select board and they asked me to present all of them. There you go. In general my understanding is that a town manager position is more prestigious. People actually train for these jobs and they're not going to want to just be an administrator so it could give us the opportunity to talk to people with the actual skills more of the skills that we need. Okay. Yes. I just had a question about would the town administrator as both the town manager pressure off you guys? Like a town manager would take a lot of pressure off you but would the town administrator take enough of the pressure off you? Or would that just be another person you'd have to watch as you go? That's the question I had. We certainly hope it would. That would be the idea if we could find the right person. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not just supervision. I mean take for example our response to the flood which of course none of us had ever done anything like that before. We spent hours. I think every one of us spent hours and hours. Ann's been learning a lot about how the road crew works. You're working like 10-hour days sometimes just on roads. Am I correct in that? Maybe not. Maybe I am working my actual job during that time. That's right. Yeah. Jordan spent a lot of time figuring out we were trying to get the gravel pit open at the other end of town here for the short term. Jordan spent hours and hours researching how you would do that. Jamie has been focusing on the Curtis Pondam and spent hours just trying to understand the processes and the hoops we have to jump through. Gabrielle's been working a lot on the finance, the FEMA part. How do we get through to the FEMA stuff? I don't know. I guess I've just been trying to help everybody. Intimating all of the phone calls. I can't. A full-time job. No, seriously. I've been spending, I think yesterday was the first day I didn't work on select board-related stuff for several hours and Saturday afternoon since this started. But my point is that almost everything all of us did could have been done by somebody who, like that, a town manager, and they could have then come to us, a town manager or administrator, with the information we could have looked at and had a discussion about it and made the decisions that it would be appropriate for us to make and delegate the decisions that it's appropriate for someone else to make. Now, whether one person's going to take that, I guess we'd learn as we go along. Siever. That was just my question, Siever Roth. You're talking to all the work you did and then you're thinking that one person has been able to do all that now. I think that's a leap. I agree that having as many as you make more sense to me, that you have control over what the job description is and it can change over time. If you're working, you can modify the description to fit what you need. Remember though, I was talking about a very unusual circumstance in the example I just gave. Normally, we don't have that much we have to deal with. Yeah, but it's just in that situation, it's all hand-bunded anyway. Everybody's got to kind of pitch in. That's true. Here's a very little example then. We got a phone call once a few weeks ago that there was a hazmat spill over on Moscow Woods Road. Jamie and I had to go over there, meet with the crew, figure out what were our responsibilities versus the town's responsibilities, do some legal research, did we do maybe not in that case, but things that we could have delegated to somebody else in order to deal with it. That was a couple of hours of each of us. If a person could just full-time take away a full-time amount of that, it would take a lot of pressure off of us. I don't know if it would take it all off. That's also why we have an assistant in here for the town administrator, whether it's full-time part-time or an assistant for the entire office and especially if there's grants involved in the position. It seems like an assistant could do a lot of the legwork on that while the town administrator projects. Paul. It's been 15 years since I sat up there. Things have changed a lot. I have a specific memory of talking to Ann saying, you should not do this legwork. He's gay. He did say that. He called me a year later and I would repeat what she called me. But I think the first big issue to come along is the East Montpellier fire department and that sucked up a whole lot of time. Were you on together? Were you and Ann on together? For at least a year. Yeah, I think it was a year. But I got off before that because I guess my point is since 15 years things have gotten absolutely nuts and I'll lay some of that at the feet of the legislature. Oh, let's let the towns do it. Oh, they'll figure out how to do it. Oh, here's something they can do. I know in my worst in my most cynical moments I think that should be a grown town government even. But I'm not going there. So don't worry. I do think knowing this town knowing the characters and the personalities in here, I don't think the town manager positions what we want. I just think not having that direct control and not having the ability to say hey, this isn't working. You're now growing more effortlessly isn't right for this town. I think the administrator would be great. I think we do need it. I guess maybe I should start with that. I think something's got to change because I've watched, I listened to Sharon for six years or however long she was on. It's just crazy. And as you pointed out, it would be nice if you didn't have to be retired or not really working full time to step up to the plate and do some of this stuff. But like I said, I think the administrator with some pretty good assistance I don't have an opinion right now whether it should be full time or half time but I think you got to go there. That makes sense to me it seems like the jump to a town manager is a huge leap into a bit of the unknown whereas the administrator could step in the right direction and a much less risky path. And I want to avoid policy by anecdote but I've had some anecdotes that I didn't like but I saw a town manager do and it's so important not being able to reinvigorate so I'm a journalist on that. Especially for towns. David. Just to reiterate that I think there's been more town manager lawsuits in the state of Vermont with my facts than any other position. Because they get fired and they have a three year contract and they want all that money off the run. Okay. Tegan are we getting any hands raised over there? No. Nothing in the chat. Yes. I think Gabrielle touched on it a little bit already but he was just saying it has to be a sustainable job so it has to be something that doesn't burn out that person and I think the town manager has the prestige that is often a high turnover someone moves to a town and they think it's going to be this great job and then it burns them out and stresses them out. I think there definitely has to be some real care taken if that position is created for it to be a fulfilling job for that person as well. And for the administrative assistance I know my only work that I do the new people that we hire we give them all crappy stuff right away it's not that fun but they don't want to do that forever right they want to still be able to participate in some of the more rewarding parts I think that's something that definitely should be thought about because it's very expensive to have a brand new town manager and then next year have another brand new town manager there's a lot of onboarding that would need to happen. Yeah. I'm deaf New York and my question is is this largely and ultimately a budgetary question? There's money in the budget right now there's $146,500 that we do not have people in those positions so hopefully that would cover a treasurer the selects were going to be hiring a treasurer and the new position but right now we have the road commissioners position which is not filled well it's filled by volunteers but it's free and then the DP the director of public works is in the budget that position isn't filled so it might change it somewhat but we don't know yet how much Donna did you have more to present? I don't think so I mean people you have to pack it if you want to read through it and have questions so what would the next step be after you get this feedback that's a good question I was not expecting everybody to be so coalesced around so I expected that we would continue this hearing unto another meeting but it sounds to me like the town at least those of you who are here feel that we should move forward with this so I think probably we go back to the drawing board with the feedback you've given us and come up with a proposed job description and proposed salary and tax impact yeah I'm not sure how we do that compared to what we've already gotten the budget that we're not spending but we can we've gotten the budget that we far overspent from what was budgeted for so that's going to have a tax impact but it has nothing to do with hiring a town administrator I'd also like to unpack a little bit more the responsibilities between the manager slash road commissioner which is statutory and then the town administrator I'd say in the current flow charts the town manager and road commissioner also has road form in between the road crew and the commissioner and then the town administrator has the road foreman and then road crew members is there one that doesn't I think they all do well the road foreman the idea was that the road foreman would be the ones directing the road crew and they'd know what's going on with the roads but they would also be working on highway grants and other paperwork things especially in the summer in the winter they could be in a truck plowing but I don't know how that works with the union because like somebody said that a foreman can't also that a road foreman can't also be a worker be in the union but I don't know it's a little challenging because we have a tentative agreement it's confidential so we can't really get into the details about it but generally you know it's still to the towns it's the town's responsibility to define the roles that it wants and so if it decides in the future that road foreman position would be created then there's nothing really constraining that it's just that if they're forming the work of a road crew member then it needs to it will then fall under the union contract and frankly I think this is a pretty anecdotal broad assumption but the management of the contracts with the road crew for outside contractors management of road related issues, construction, scheduling hiring, all of those things are in and of themselves I think enough to be a full time position if it also involves doing the work my concern would be making relying too heavily to Jamie's point on a foreman who would also have the responsibility of filling out grants I think that they would be involved in providing the quantitative information for them but the organization and submission for them would still likely need to that work is so critical that I don't think that we can make it a side responsibility of somebody who's also coordinating the road crew well and maybe just you have a road commissioner like we used to well then even a foreman, someone who's directing the road crew and even doing some of the grant work, grant trap work um um the work on vehicles I mean there's, it's literally a full time charge, there's all those things and that pragmatically if you get someone who's good at those type of skills they're probably not going to necessarily be ones that want to jump into a truck at 3am and go plowing and then otherwise if you have someone who's really got all those skills in a CDL they're going to be really bummed out to be in the office all day but I think the select work now that was exactly what what's needed in the highway department so you can look at, you can write a job description and call it whatever you want but you know what has to get to us Toby's interim uh, grants administrator highway grant so I wonder if there's this, so the manager the town manager and road commissioner is the statutory position I wonder if we have the administrator if that person can also be the grants administrator as well so, you know, we're highways department road grants administrator or just general that would be the administrator I'll just say a word about like I lived in Houston for quite some time before we moved to Calis and they had a town administrator that was in many ways in my mind he was a town manager and he was I believe a lawyer by training like there was nothing sort of what's the word I'm looking for there was nothing secondary about his position he was in many ways a leader of the town and kept the select board on track and yet the select board was still very independent and you know demanded a lot of that person so I think a town administrator is not anyone fixed thing I mean any of these positions are going to depend a lot on the skill set and the personality and the communication skills and all those kinds of things of the person that we that we would maybe hire so yeah and I had exactly the same question why couldn't a town administrator be a road commissioner that there's nothing to prohibit it especially if the focus of that road commissioner is highway grants administrator as opposed to plowing it through in the morning so I'd like to make a suggestion recording in progress come on Tim I think we've got a good direction from all of you and I really appreciate that and I appreciate your support we need as I said to go back now and start talking about what this might look like and come back to you with something like that and I understand that something I hadn't planned on and needs to be talked about tonight and we've got a little over 10 minutes before we have to turn to setting the tax rate so am I correct in this some people are here they want to talk about the East Calis Dam yeah so would it be alright if we ended this discussion for now and let these people express their concerns okay I'll take that as a yes who would like to speak about that thank you Donna yes oh Donna yes thank you so much I just wanted to bring to the everyone's attention that this dam is also in need of extensive repairs and also just how important it is to the town and also just how important it is to the town in general but to East Calis Village the people that own it are tending to wash their hands of the whole thing to walk away from it as he said today when I was talking to him let the state tear it down I don't know what that looks like he doesn't seem to want to to be involved in any kind of committees to get you know prepared and all that he just kind of wants to walk away from it so I don't know what anybody would want to do about that I think that if somebody wanted to form a committee or whatever look into that that would be okay with him but he doesn't want to do anything what's our time frame for fixing I'm not really sure I was hoping that we could all have a meeting of concern these and whoever town residents, Calis residents maybe some of you guys would come to talk to him about it he doesn't live here full time he's a lot of time he just comes and goes he's gone again now until Friday I don't know I mean if there is no interest in doing this then I guess it will just go away but I also don't know what that means what that looks like for the whole historic areas and the whole town in general Jamie you got thoughts about this Jamie was really tired and Ben too both of you have been very involved in the Curtis pond dam I've had some emails back and forth with the owners and my experience is sort of the same that their inclination is to have the state take it down unless a community group came together my experience with I didn't talk to Ben Green about safety about these callus dam myself but my experience with him in the Curtis pond dam is that depending on the state of the dam if a dam in Vermont gets so dangerous that there's immediate concern of downstream loss of life for property or significant damage they'll require to be taken down in a quick time frame and if it's just sort of you know, yeah it's in bad shape but it's probably not going to go this summer if there's a group working on it they usually give some flexibility and they say we'll keep watching it over the next couple of years but as long as there's a plan moving forward they give you a little leeway and getting there I don't think that they told them they would just recommend it that it be taken down or be fixed and asked but they were recommending taking the dam to hit which is what this state is pushing for all dams so that's just the standard they've talked to engineers they've said you don't need to do that it can be fixed it can be saved the last engineer I talked to about it could be fixed did he mention a number 350,000 350,000 wasn't it like 50 for the engineering my time starts when the number goes up so it's hard to get back that was our experience it's a million but it was in like 200 or 300,000 it was a very low risk dam when the event happened I think they upgraded that they upgraded it to a higher risk because I saw I'd have some leaking significant risk I think is the category from low risk to significant risk is how it works I would just observe that the amount of money raised for the store in East Calis is incredible to me just absolutely amazing and it was much more than we raised for the Maple Corners store and I don't think the community could find interested parties and start raising money this is the first thing that we started to talk really talk about this he didn't put it out there he didn't tell anyone any of this and finally he said you need to put this out there people care about this and to be clear the store raised a lot of money through a lot of historic grants and community members I mean we did our best to raise money but it was not where the bulk of the money came from most of that came from state federal grants there was a good chunk of donated money so Jamie how did the Curtis Pond Dam Association get started does it require like one or two people to say hey we're going to do this yeah so the Curtis Pond Association actually formed a couple years before we started working as a group on the dam and so it was an existing organization and it had filed for state tax ID number and all that and it was it was three or four people sitting around saying we should really have an association it was a 501 C3 isn't it it's not it's an LLC I think that's level and the community center has acted as a fiscal sponsor for collecting donations but yeah it was really started with two or three people and grew to four or five and then twelve and it's ebbed and flowed but so I would see a first step there's been a little flurry of emails and posts on front porch forum and so I would think emailing everybody who posted or who you know is interested and saying let's have a meeting let's talk about this let's see if we collectively have the energy and capacity to really launch a campaign and if a core group sets up a meeting and puts it on front porch forum or you know just to sort of gauge energy I think that there are a lot of people who would want to see it repaired and I think it's a you know realistically I know from experience it's a heavy left the other questions I had is and Toby's not here but I'd be curious what the fire departments think like how reliant are they on that access point and if that's a critical piece of their capacity in that part of town then that changes the dynamic a little bit it also opens up more money sources to it so to me that would be sort of a first big question to find out I have a question about the dam that maybe one of you all can answer I read that it's hydroelectric is that true so yeah there's a small plant there I don't think it's running for a few years okay so that's an orphan that's an orphan power plant okay and cable built for years he was an electrician he powered the mill in his house with the power from it and a little house behind I think too and the idea like when it's output was historically or anything because I wonder enough for a little housewife a house or two not right it's not going to light up the town it might have sufficient head it may just have a small turbine so that the new turbines are more efficient and could potentially power the water system down the east callous area east callous area just the village the historical it was a mill a good long time so historically he did certainly offer you enough to be a commercial venture that served not just east callous but the whole area and that was quite significant and then in the fifties who was anything about the furniture factory that was on the river just I don't I think the penstock from the dam helped support the venture factory which burned down do you know this yeah a bigger generator planned down in the middle of the river with a large bigger head and then the little one up near the dam right so the bigger one the bigger mill the factory did depend on the pond to power the to give the power the penstock so that so I'm not sure what the history has to do with it but there is significant history so our treasure has arrived and we're going to need to shift gears in a minute but it sounds like we've got to identify some people to lead this effort and if nobody steps forward I guess we lose the pond don't look at me I won't come to the meeting we would just start with the meeting start with the meeting see who shows up and I would put pretty early into that conversation what do you think the Curtis pond the management of the Curtis pond has shifted to the town as a and that's a pretty big responsibility the town to assume and now work through and that was a complicated process and so I think that the the calculus around the East Calis Dam could be different or it could be similar relative to it as an asset to the community and to the infrastructure so I would get to think about like what do you think the long-term management of the dam and who what that entity is and what the responsibility is for continuing to maintain it as an asset and part of that is a frank conversation with the owners about if the community steps up and puts in all this energy and raises money is it just giving the money to the owners to fix it or is there a shift in ownership of the dam as to a community group or to the town there's some of the fairly early questions to at least start thinking about it. You guys I'm sure on the other side of town are willing to offer your help and expertise. Yeah, yeah and I'll come to a meeting if we can and yeah, several members, core members of the Curtis pond association have said they'd help and advise. Maybe we should start like a consulting firm with him. I need another job. I'm sorry to recoup. Dam reconstruction. Alright we're going to shift gears now to your tax rate.