 Rochester Stockbridge Unified District Board of School Directors, special meeting of agreement review committee, Monday, December 21st, 2020 at 6.30 p.m. by Google Meet. Call the order. All right. And this time I will make sure we have a note taker. And, Justine, would you be willing to take it on again? Or we actually have, I don't know how you feel, Pat. We have, I asked Jamie, if it was alright if somebody was not on the committee actually took notes. And Pat said she would be taking notes anyway for the select board, so she would be happy to. I don't know, well, how does the committee feel about that? Charity, are you okay with that? Sorry, unmuting issues. I don't have a party problem with that. As long as we've confirmed it's okay to do that. Yeah, yeah, I talked with Jamie and he said, and Dean is nodding her head too. Tim, you okay with that? I'm good with that, but I thought that JC did a very nice job last time. But yes, I'm glad. Well, I just haven't heard, is JC on? I thought she was. I'm here. Oh, okay. I wasn't going to volunteer, but I will, if I have to, I'm going to be traveling a lot, a lot this week for work, but I can, I could do it at the end of the week. Well, how about, why don't we, Pat, if you don't mind, Pat, do your best and send it on to us and we'll, we'll take it from there. How about that? Would that be okay? Because I think it better, I'd love it, Justine, if you were more focused on what we're talking about then, you know, then trying to catch everything and write it down. Yeah, I think so too, but I would be happy to do it next time or something like that. But I'm happy with Pat doing it. Great. Pat, if you don't, Pat, if you don't mind, please take over. Thank you. Already started. Oh, really? Great. Thank you. All right. And we, do we have any questions about the Tuesday, December 15th minutes? I think we all looked at them after JC sent them in. I don't, I felt like they got to the charity thumbs up on those. Tim, thumbs up on those. I'm good. Good. Justine, thumbs up on those. Good. I'm thumbs up on those. I think for us that we'll do it, approve the meetings, the minutes of Tuesday, December 15, 2020. Okay, let's get to the response from Dina. And I'm going to pull this up for me right now. I apologize for not being a little more. Okay. Ethan, do we need to do any additions to the agenda first? Well, I thought we just approved it. We thought, oh, the agendas. Thank you. Thank you. Good. How about, what do you think? I don't have any. Neither do I. I like the agenda. Charity. I like the agenda. I just have one, when we do get to the response from the lawyer, I just want, I think before we start, there's an item I need to clarify, because I think my suggestion was misunderstood. And I just want to make sure everyone's on the same page, so we don't waste a ton of discussion time on that if we don't need to. Okay. Excellent. So this is when we get to one of the responses from the lawyer. You want to talk about it before we actually talk to Dina about it. Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. Good. All right. So let's go down one at a time. The first one was, can we warn articles of change to the merger agreement? Have them voted on by Australian ballot on town meeting day for Rochester and Stockbridge? If we need to wait until school meeting in May? And the answer, the board can, if the warning and notice requirements are done correctly, warn a vote to amend the articles of agreement on town meeting day. It would be a special meeting of the board, not the annual. So the warning would need to be posted and published realistically between January 21st and January 29th. The absolute last day, Sunday January 31st. If you want to have a vote on town meeting day, the warning sample ballot would need to be posted at least one public place within each town, published at least once in a newspaper, has a circulation in the two towns. I suspect that the towns are promoting mail-in ballots, absentee ballots. So it would be important to work with the two town clerks so that they have the ballots if, when people request them. The board will need to approve the warnings and the public question proposed amendments to the article at the meeting between January 21st and January 29th. The proposed amendments will need to be individual separate articles on the warning. Yep, we knew that. The vote is counted separately in each town, not commingled and is reported out to the town clerks to the union district clerk. While the votes are counted separately in each town, it is the majority of the combined totals that carries the day. Good. Do we have any, I mean, I think this pretty much answers our question. Are there any further questions on this to Dina, Charity? So just to clarify, even though it would be on the same day as the other meeting, it would essentially be its own meeting being held at the same time as the other. So two meetings at the same time, one after the other. So if I could say what you would be doing is my understanding is that your annual school board meeting is sometime in May. I believe it's towards the end of May. Correct. The fact that it is a select board town meeting day that they also in fact have their town meeting is not relevant to whether or not you have a vote to amend your articles of agreement. You could not wait, for example, and do it on the same day as your town, as your annual meeting for the school board. Because there's provisions about, especially when I asked about doing something by Australian ballot, it wouldn't be effective for the year you're talking about. You're talking about the upcoming 21 going into 22 year to have it done. If you did it at your May meeting, you would have a problem to do it that way. You can hold what's called the special meeting, which you can hold special meetings throughout your year anyhow, right? You could hold it on town meeting day. The reason why I focused in on town meeting day is I think one is I think that was the direct question, but also I think it came with an assumption you would have more people voting on town meeting day too. Yeah. So the idea, I think, to all the charity, are we, do we actually have to, as a school board, meet on the town meeting day? Well, no, because it's, because you're in COVID, we're going to be doing this by Australian ballot, meaning you're not going to have a floor meeting. So no, you do not have to. So all we do is get a ballot. You get a warning and a ballot. And I would prepare, the same way I do your annual meeting warning and ballot, I would do your warning and your ballot for this. I, the dates tend to are important, right? Because you have to post it not more than 40 and not less than 30 days before you hold the meeting. And so that's why I'm providing to you that the issue of having your warning approved, published and posted needs to be done before between January 21st and 29th, because realistically the 30th and the 31st are a weekend. Got you. Yeah, I just think it's really important that we make sure we're very clear that this is not a ballot that's being added to a town ballot in conjunction. We need to make sure that everyone understands and is clear that this would be its own separate entity of voting items just happening on the same day. And that there's that's a totally separate issue. Just so that there's not a ton of questions of why isn't this on the town ballot, like just make sure everyone's very clear that separate thing just happening on the same day for convenience sake. So, right. Yes. I mean, I'm going to tell the warning is going to say the Rochester Stockbridge Unified School District, you know, hereby warns. I've dealt with your two town clerks who are very well versed in how to do the Australian ballot at this point for you guys and they understand what that is. I just want to make sure that you keep in mind because you are going to do it by Australian ballot that people may in fact request absentee ballots from your town clerks and so this should be part of this. Does that affect the timing? No, we need to get our amendment posted and more? No, because the town is under the same pressures for posting it not more than 40 and not less than 30 before town meeting day. Okay. Okay. And town meeting day is the second in March. So I just counted back. Good. In Rochester because we do Monday night. Right. You do Monday night? Right. Yes, we do. That's right. You, so you, do you do it by a floor vote? Patricia? Well, it'll be Australian ballot. So I imagine our vote will be that first. Okay. So I will double check on the days to make sure that we have the warning and the ballot done. So that's interesting. So Rochester is going to vote before Stockbridge. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good. Do we have further questions on number one? Anybody, Tim, Charity, Justine? I'm getting negatives all around. Okay. Oh, Tim. Yep, you're good. Okay. Number two, we would like to have you write us a proposed article to change the way school board members are elected. This is our question just so we know the audience knows. We would like the article to have board members nominated and elected within the town. They was, they reside. That shouldn't mind this error there. We do not want that large voting. And answer is, while this is possible, how do you envision the vote taking place? In any non COVID 19 year, you will hold a floor meeting and vote on all items, except if you were to do a bond vote, including voted for directors. Are you contemplating making the election of directors to be an Australian balloting and keeping everything else as a floor meeting? The board should discuss this before I provide proposed language. So I don't quite, I'll start, I don't quite understand what you're saying. Is this going forward outside of a COVID 19 year? Yes. So you're going to be doing, do you have director positions which are up? Do you have director positions which are up this year? You do. So this year you're going to more than likely, I assume, because of COVID 19 being doing an Australian balloting, right? Doing a polling place, doing absentee voting, like we did last spring. Correct. You, however, typically hold the floor meeting. You don't typically vote on anything by Australian ballot, right? I see what you're getting at. Okay. And you have a combined meeting, right, where you have Rochester residents, you have Stockbridge residents. I'm not saying that it is not possible to, in fact, still maintain it as a floor meeting. It would be a little bit important, difficult, depending on how many people show up to your floor meetings, your annual meeting, to make sure that the individuals who are voting are only the residents of one town, not, who are voting for their representative. It can be done. I just was asking whether or not that's what you wanted to do. Got you, charity. So when I had originally mentioned this idea, one of the questions I had presented was, in doing this, would it be more practical to remand the votes back to the town level? Because that would essentially fix what Dina is mentioning. If these votes happened during town meeting, then you've got, then there's town control over are the correct voters voting for the correct parties, and it's happening at the town level. That was a piece of the puzzle that one of the two confusion pieces that I wanted to bring up was that I don't know the legality of that because this is a school representative vote. But because of the action we're trying to take, and the outcome we would like from it, would it, is it more practical from a legal standpoint to move it back to those representatives being voted for during individual town meetings? That would have no bearing in my mind, but I openly say I do not understand law. That would not affect any budget voting or any board voting, but it would entirely correct the piece that we're trying to work with of removing those from the board portion, the school portion, and putting it back into the two towns. But again, I don't know the legality on that, but it would certainly simplify things as Dina's indicating there could be complications. Would you like me to respond to that? There are three potential options here. You could keep it as your floor vote typically in May, which I don't think you're going to have this year either, but let's just say in non-COVID years you're going to go back to that. As I indicated, there is some sort of, you can do paper ballots in a floor meeting, so you could somewhat separate it out, but it would be difficult. I think it would take a lot of time in your floor meeting to effectuate that. There are school districts which do vote. As a matter of fact, I think White River Unified School District has a bifurcated floor vote and doing something by Australian ballot. I apologize because you all have separate articles of agreement. They happen to do them within two days. It's the day before town, the night before town meeting, then they break to go, they do town meeting and they have, they break it out. There are other districts that do that as well. As I'm sitting here thinking about it, Mount Abraham Unified School District in Bristol, Starksboro, etc. Dina, can I just get a clarification? You said town meeting. Did you mean the school meeting and then two days? Yeah, I'm sorry. I mean the school meeting, so I'm sorry. The three versions, thank you Ethan for making that because I always have to remember you are in May. You could do it the floor vote in May. I think that's difficult for you. You could still keep your meetings, your meeting and your vote in May and bifurcated out as having the election of your school directors being done in May by Australian ballot as well as having the remainder of your meeting done by floor vote, by a floor meeting. You could do that. You could not, there's nothing that I can think of that would say that you would have any issue of having your school directors being voted on town meeting day and still hold the remainder of your annual meeting. Let me think about that. I'd have to check into that whether or not we'd run a foul of the whole warning issue for that if we could separate it out that way. You definitely can do the first two that I said, but I would need to check into it because you have that 40-day warning thing. So I think that it would be problematic if your floor vote went first, that's different because your floor vote can be, you can push it off and hold it to a date certain through a motion at your floor vote without having to re-warn it. So I have to think about your question and I can get back to you about whether or not you could in fact elect your directors on the actual town meeting day and then have your annual, the remainder of your annual meeting in May. I will say this, the way your articles of agreement, if you can do that, talk about is that your, and the way the statute talks about it, is those directors, if you can in fact do what you're proposing, would be seated in March as opposed to in May. So the next meeting, they would be the members. Which is a little odd. So let me look into that. There's no one I know who splits it out that far and I think it's a warning issue, but I will take a look at it. But you absolutely can do it, like I said, around when your May meeting is. You can bifurcate it out. It would be like the night before your May meeting, the day before your May meeting, do you do it by Australian ballot or you have your May, I would do your floor vote first and then you would then break it out to date certain which is the next day and then do the Australian ballot the next day. Wouldn't there be a problem with that? If the vote is after the annual meeting, annual school meeting that we've just created all our officers and stuff like that and then the next day they might all be voted out. Two days later they might be voted out, yes. You're doing a moderator or school treasurer. Yeah, you would have some issues. Let me think about that as well. Okay. That's why we called you on. Tim, yeah, go ahead. How come we can't do meeting the night of and then have Australian votes in both towns and then we would have the exact count of everything, you know, because the budget was voted down twice in Stockbridge and this way we would know, do it the way that we used to do the town meeting for the school meeting part and not have a floor vote at all, just have informational meeting the night before and then Australian for everything in both towns. Mr. Pratt, you could in fact do that. That would require and if that's what you choose, if that's what your board wants to put out for your amended articles, you absolutely could do that. I want to say that Royalton and Bethel vote on their budget by Australian ballot and that they vote on their school directors through a floor meeting, but I may be incorrect with that, but absolutely you could remove your floor meeting. I think part of what my recollection is and Mr. Pratt, you may know better is that I think one of your towns has historically done a floor meeting and one has historically done Australian ballot and I think it was when you all merged, I'm not sure why the floor meeting was picked, but I suspect that some people were nostalgic about having floor meetings. Well that, I mean if we did something like that, I would think that we would get into tricky ground because I believe Australian ballot for the entire budget has to be a warranted article at the annual meeting to change a year before. I think that's my understanding of it so that that would mean we wouldn't be able to change it to do the Australian ballot. So in other words, we've got to figure out this year and then also figure out how we go forward that there might be two different things, is that correct? Well Tim, for this year we could do Australian ballot and in separate towns and the board could approve to move it forward for next year to do that way. We're in a different situation right now where we can do Australian ballot this year. That's true and you guys can vote to change it back so that it's never going to be equal representation if we are able to outvote by 50%. But at least this way we break it out and we know where the issues are and we can at least discuss them and figure them out. Yeah, I would agree with Mr. Pratt. You're actually in a very unique position because as he's indicating, because of COVID-19 and because of the legislature's decision to make it as easy as possible to push Australian balloting this year, you're going to hold your budget vote by Australian ballot anyhow this year. Unless for some reason you all come back to me and you decide that you want to hold an outdoor meeting in May, but I would strongly suggest it's probably healthier and safer for everybody to do it by Australian ballot. You have it as one of the items in article which your electorate would vote on and it would then be going into effect for the next year permanently until voted out at some other meeting if somebody voted if you all voted it out. So he is absolutely correct. You're in a unique position. Just a further question. Is that your hesitation for giving us some draft that we could look at that we didn't know how to vote it? Yeah, I wanted to have the conversation with you all to understand what you were looking for in terms of that. I can, I mean a warning is a warning in articles and article. I mean I can do it for you but it makes more sense in my brain I think to know exactly what you all want to change and give you proposed language for that. Well that's, we thought we were doing that I guess maybe if we need, we might need some feedback from you of what we need to be more specific because we were looking at articles that from our fellow or whatever other districts in our SU and how they have worded it where they have local voting for their representatives. So we sort of took it from that and we decided okay what are the words that we needed and we said nominated and elected within the town they reside and not have large voting. So I don't you know if you need something more from us please ask the questions and I think Charity had some examples from those and you probably have them too because you have some of the articles from the other districts. Right it's whether or not you wanted whether or not the issue I'm sorry Ethan I wasn't being clear whether or not the issue is that you want to be doing it by Australian ballot moving forward because that's also an amendment to your articles. Does that make sense? I'm still yeah I'm just getting my mind around yeah Charity go ahead maybe this will help. Yeah I think what Dean is saying is that if we add into it the piece of we also want it to be done by Australian ballot moving forward it alleviates some of that confusion so if we indicate to her that we want to move voting for representatives to be both nominated elected and done so by Australian ballot that gives us more flexibility of when that happens. Got you so we could have it happening at town meeting day versus the school budget and just because I need clarification on this part we are doing the school piece of all this in May because that's when Rochester had historically done it correct. It was um it happened as I remember it of being on the board it happened uh mostly out of convenience because things were so late numbers were so late it kept seeming like hey this this makes sense to do it later because we have more firm numbers um it is traditionally yes it is traditionally when Rochester holds it but I don't believe that was the actual reason because I believe last year we actually we kept moving it we kept bumping it a couple times because we were like well can we do it here can we do it here um so I I'd certainly be willing to revisit the reason for having it there but that's sort of my understanding of why is that I remember when I I did mention it recently to Jamie and he was like I don't know it's pretty handy or maybe even Carl said this it's pretty handy because you have more accurate numbers by that time correct. I think this goes back to act 60 uh days I think a lot of schools went into May and then went back to uh the traditional march because of uh information the state was giving out for schools at that time but I think it is faster now and I think most schools have gone back to uh march. Yes it's it's it's certainly something we could bring bring to the board as part of our report um moving back because obviously that would um simplify some things yes justine I wanted to know if we know if the schools that we um that we were reviewing their language for for this process if if they use Australian ballot or a floor vote if there's multiple towns in a floor vote I just wonder how we would solve our uh equal representation situation or you know seems kind of chaotic to do a floor vote and separate only Stockbridge people are voting right now for the Stockbridge person I'm not sure how that might work but maybe well of course the one thing we can see is that they don't put it in their article that it's a by Australian ballot so we do know that um but we would have to uh check with them if you know it may say somewhere else in some of their other articles that they do everything by Australian ballot so then it would just be covered by that automatically but I think it's a it's a good question to find out um yeah I I would agree it's chaotic to do it on your floor vote I mean if anything I would say to you that I would I would think that doing bare minimum your directors uh from Australian ballot if you're going to do a nominate and elect from their own representative town I think an Australian ballot works um and I have to tell you it's it's sometimes also doing everything by Australian ballot is um it's cleaner I just think that some people are very nostalgic about the idea of having town meeting you know having a floor meeting right um you know it's easier you go in the polls are open until seven and and you vote right then it's easier for people who work I think um but that's that's a decision that you know I'm just I'm just putting out there but that's a decision it's not going to be something we're going to change this year because that takes where your date is is something that has to be done a year in advance I believe correct well what your what your date what your date is it would be for your next not this year it would be for the next year yes yeah but your decision to you know if you think you want to move to complete Australian balloting in a non-covid year I think this year putting it as your articles and in warning that for for approval from the voters this year makes the most sense for you to do it because you're doing a freebie here as Mr. Pratt sort of indicated so we have further on this well well my teacher wife just reminded me that teachers contracts come out in April and to be voting in May kind of puts a cringe on that thing for the districts and for our districts that vote for May instead of in March because they are they need to sign their contracts so that's one of the reasons that would be cleaning it up if we went back to March and going back to Australian ballots you know Stockbridge at least that way if they went to Australian ballot and and Rochester went back to Australian ballot would know how the splits go and then we can discuss those and if there's a big issue somewhere we would know it and then we could address it right now there's no way if we combine the voting that we can do that so you know that's not right now in an article of agreement but that's our SUD board that needs to decide that and decide whether you know we want clean voting or we want the most popular voting and you know that's that's one of the things that need to be addressed just I think I think what Tim is talking about is kind of is a different piece than who gets to vote for which director because I do believe there was a pretty clean breakdown and how the votes turned out in this recent director vote you know who voted for who for each town but Rochester admittedly broke the tie for me to be on the board and so that's the issue really is the you know the numbers were there but it's you know the question of we don't necessarily want Rochester voting for on Stockbrook and Stockbrook voting for Rochester people so that would you hold on a sec Tim just wait a sec Dina go ahead so one of the decisions that the board has to make and and and I can send you further information about this too your voting in your last election was an oddity because your votes were not were they commingled I don't believe they were come they were reported they were reported out separately which is I think what happened but then we commingled them correctly but the issue is is that a board would also be making a decision whether or not the votes would be in fact commingled on things so in other words I have clients who are adamant that things should be commingled in terms of votes in terms of specifically for issues about budgets because when you commingle it and you're a unified school district there's a value in having it commingled as opposed to breaking down as Mr. Pratt is saying where there may be some value for you all to break it down by town two but that also may provide sort of an ongoing hey wait a minute you've you know this town voted for it this town didn't vote for it right so I'll use again because they're not that far off from you the Mount Abraham Unified School District if you live in Lincoln you vote in Lincoln you vote I believe for your own representative you vote on the budget and when they go and they report out has the budget passed or has the budget failed the vote is you know a thousand people yes and 400 people no it doesn't break it out by town so it's a commingled reporting um that's also something that you all would need to talk about um in terms of how you report out some of what your votes are so there's that so I just wanted to make sure that we understood that for it as well yeah Tim did you have another comment that is correct but then at the same time the directors would be split so you know correct that we could write in that the directors are done by town yep and everything else is done by commingled commingled voting okay if for if like Dina said we can't split the actual voters up somehow so if we can't split the actual voting count up somehow so it's more equal and this is not just us this is throughout the state the way that article is written it's terrible so I think between our two towns we can come up with a way that we can fix some of the issues that are popping up and keep both of our little towns open the school's open so you know that's it good we think we're done with two and there's sort of actually there's three parts of this um charity has a hill and a raise oh sorry charity was looking at the agenda go for it oh you're muted yep um uh just to be very blunt you guys have heard me say this many times over the last year about transparency I think at this point if you were to change an article to add a level of commingling that's not already happening and take away another level of transparency you're going to piss off a lot of people in Stockbridge because that is one of their core subjects I for one will be utterly pissed off if that's a move that's going to come from this committee to recommend that the board move to commingling the budget so that we don't have transparency of of a thousand people vote we only know a thousand voted and it passed you're going to have a lot of ugly people speaking out about that me being one of them I would I would not be able to recommend that can I can I can I respond to that actually because I don't have a I don't have a dog in this show as they say or pony in this show every year that you've done a floor vote your vote is commingled it's only this past vote that you did because of COVID that broke it out um so when you do a floor vote people raise their hand you may be able to get a sense clearly that I wouldn't get sitting in the room of oh look you know I can see you know mr. Pratt of this town voted and you know somebody else you know justine from you know somewhere else you know but it's a commingled vote you don't report it out because you've never voted while you've had the floor vote as a unified school district you've never said okay all Rochester residents yeah you're an A so I just I just want to point that out to you um just in just in general I mean I get what you're saying but I just thought that I could clarify that I have to say I don't um I'm not I'm not as familiar with the articles as anybody else but I don't know I know we've talked about it in the board of whether they would end up especially this COVID vote you know were they going to be commended were they not going to be commingled um but I don't know that it's in our articles at all as you say because we were the summer that right now the articles are an open floor vote um so um so I don't think I don't think there's anything in there about it it would but obviously if there's an Australian ballot on something I I've got no you know I I think let's change let's change the specific issue that we're talking about and let's not try and you know change too many things in it I you know I don't I don't personally feel that strongly about commingling or not but let me let me clarify I didn't mean that we wouldn't know what the results were but we would know where the issues are with Australian ballot I don't agree with commingling the uh all the votes but um if we can't somehow split Stockbridge gets 1.5 votes to Rochester's one vote uh legally then at least with the Australian vote we would know where the issues were uh the justices of the piece in each town would count all the votes because then it's Stockbridge voters voting and Rochester voters voting we would know those results and then the the the directors from each town would be pulled out of that and then the rest of them you know if we can't change the whole article at least the directors would be the directors from Stockbridge directors from Rochester and all the other votes would then we would know the results but they would have to be commingled at that time but you know commingle might not be the right word and then if Stockbridge was opposed to something that Rochester agreed to oh oh heavily then our SUD would have to sit down and say boy you know we need to work on this I mean personally I'm all for more information myself I just helps us make decisions um but I do want to keep us I do want to keep us going on this if that's okay we've got um quite a bit more um so don't have to stop anything did anybody have any more pressing questions on this first part yeah so I think what maybe would help you all is I can lay out for you because commingling has some procedural issues that are different in terms of how votes are are actually counted so I can send you an email about that as well Ethan so you all can take a look at that great thank you yep um and then b and c sort of got run together uh b a question was what would also uh we would also like to combine article seven nine and uh roman numeral three into one article so that all the voting information is together and second part of that was c how do we turn off article seven and nine but leave them in agreement for historical purposes and Dean's answer was the language if approved by the voters would amend the articles agreement you don't want to move sections around that is not that is not needed and would only confuse people um we thought it would help clarify because the voting issues are sort of spread out through our articles in in not a very sensible way and we also know how fast this was put together um that was the intent behind this of just clarifying we want people you know we're going to work on this in several different ways to be able to look at the articles of agreement and be able to go bam bam bam bam that's all makes sense and right now that was one big one they came out to us was that it really didn't you know it just was they seemed to not be connected to each other in any sensible way so the the reason why I said that Ethan is that if we do that and it's basically it's an organizational issue and you may not be changing some of the language and all of them but you are turning off that when you said turn off is that I'm sorry my dog is came in um is that I've got to prepare an article to be voted on by your public that lays out what everything is and I think that's asking a lot for people to do that so say and I'm sorry I don't have your articles up but say article seven is is about how directors are nominated and elected at large you're going to see and and and what the article that's going to get warned is it's going to have new language underlined and old language crossed out so people are going to see that what the changes but if you start moving it I then have to come up with an article question to explain to people we want to move art you know these articles around and then you're asking people to understand something in order to be able to vote on it that is not going to be easily transmitted which is why I said as as organizationally is it's not you know smooth for you all how it's written especially if article seven and nine are the ones that are going to be impacted by how you do your nominations and your election and getting rid of uh voting at large I don't think you need to move it I just think that'll confuse people but maybe I'm but you know Jared and then justine so essentially there would be some visual format to it that would where we don't want to move it around and we don't want to rely solely on someone understanding that language in the new article 20 overrides articles seven nine and three there would be a visual format to help people understand what they're looking at with the amendments yeah so where it says you have a provision and again I apologize I don't know if it's one of one of these you have a provision that says directors will be nominated by their I think it's nominated by their town and then voted on at large what the article is going to to show individuals is it's going to cross out the at large part and it's going to be put by town of resident by the voters of their town of residents so that people and that'll be underlined so that people will see what that language change is they're not going to get your full articles of agreement to to look at you probably it makes sense to have you know a copy or two at at where the polling place is going to be so that people can in fact see everything but they're not going to get a 14 15 page whatever it is document to to go through and then say yep I agree that we changed that one I'm going to give the language that you're going to be putting into your articles of agreement does that does that help I don't know if that helps it does okay just one thing I do have to say is that these are the proposed adjustments are in paragraphs that are very close to each other and I can I could foresee that you could cross out the you know say seven part of seven we don't like and then we phrase it and additionally add the exact language from nine in article three and then lower down cross out all of nine cross out all of three it's really incorporating that information into seven so you're not skipping down skipping there's an article that has happened to deal with voting is really what we were trying to do it's not it wouldn't be a 14 15 page thing it would be like a half a page our articles are very sure I mean right now yeah so each change you want to make I have to do a different article for people to vote for each separate section so number seven you would have to do it right it couldn't be visually included with the other two okay so so in other words you know will the legal voters of the towns of Rochester and Stockbridge approve um and here's the language and then the next one would be will the legal voters of the kind of Rochester and Stockbridge approve adding that to to you know provision nine so you're going to have an incredibly that's that's why I'm saying you're going to have an incredibly long ballot that I don't yeah I just I just didn't think that it would I thought it would lead to confusion that's one of the warnings would be section nine and it's all crossed out and there's nothing to offer in that in that warning right it would be yeah it would be it would be you know the voters remove article nine and then it would be demonstrated by having it crossed off yeah I understand yeah that is confusing thank you for clarifying that okay Tim do you have a comment that's only for one year though if this marriage is going to last maybe we should do that one time longer ballot approve people were people were very confused uh the first one and it shows now you know we've got one person someplace saying that that's not what I thought was happening and somebody in another place saying that boy that's not what I thought was happening so you know if we if it settles confusion and after one year and we can make this so that it works for both towns and continues for next 10 15 years I think we should consider I think the other part of that for me is how how clearly we explain what we're putting in front of the voters you know that if we do a good informational article in the herald and you know at our meetings and stuff like that and at the informational meeting saying okay here's what we're doing we're taking these three confusing sessions and we're rearranging them into one that's going to be much clearer but to do that we have to do it in three separate articles so you have to approve all three articles to say to get this clean one article that solves all those problems so I think that's really about communication and if we do a good job of that then people will know very much what they're voting for and I hear you Tim it clearly one of the first thing main things I got at the last meeting was the confusion just on what's there on our merger agreement you know on on the on the the SU webpage so I it might be worth it we'll have to see what the board says about that if there if they're willing to push that but I I feel it might be any further questions on this bnc justine charity tim no no okay good no let's move on to uh three all right so um which document is the legal basis for our merger is it the warrant and voter on articles of agreement or the information that was presented at the b o e presentation for approval of the merger the basic language and the two versions of agreement have differences that are causing confusion over what the two towns agreed to answer the articles of agreement which were voted on and approved by the electorate are the legal documents of the merger whatever was presented to the agency of education is irrelevant if it was not voted on and approved by the voters of your towns for example one of the proposals at the beginning was rochester bethle and south wrote and together it passed then had to revoked and lost those documents have no control over the union school district good do we have any questions about this this sounds pretty straightforward to me i think we now know what we're doing uh charity so i don't have a question i have a comment um and i don't think anyone's going to be surprised by it um this is exactly as i suspected it makes total sense like you said it's kind of a no-brainer but i think even though there's no legal background that we need to worry about from what was presented visually and on paper to the b o e at that presentation i think we have a moral obligation for and i don't think this committee is the committee that necessarily would do this what i'm gonna propose but someone some committee or another subcommittee of the rsud really should for moral and ethical reasons go back and get a hold of the original 706 study as short as that time frame may have been for this rsud and go through the subject matter that was discussed in many of those meetings that was some very heightened argumentative conversations and some of that was brought to that b o e presentation and then just dropped like hot water on ice i mean it was never heard from again um that that i in my opinion i'm only speaking for myself but i don't think i'm alone in my opinion that is part of why there is so much contention and misunderstanding that is still lingering today because there were conversations had that were not represented as those conversations that happened in meetings at that b o e presentation and then didn't end up in the articles either that's like a ticking time bomb that someone really should do do diligence and go back through and say you know here's things that granted i realize he's not a part of the picture anymore but here are things that bruce lab said were definitely on the docket of this situation and then they were never heard from again if something took up that much time over multiple meetings why is it no longer a part of the picture if it was what led to some of the current perceptions that are creating all this contention i don't think we'll ever be able to answer all of it i think a lot of it's lost in time but i really do think that some group within the board sooner rather than later really needs to put the time and honest hard effort into looking into that piece and while we don't need we don't have a legal reason to go back to it i really do strongly feel that there's a moral and ethical reason to go back and look at say this is what all was discussed but only a one percent of it ever turned into fruition so i would just say and it's not a legal issue but if it's something you believe was presented to the agency of education they should in their archive of their meeting minutes have the documentation that was submitted to the agency if they don't for some reason have it in their website it is not that easy to go through i i can tell ethan who to ask up there to take a look to see if they can send it to you so that's what's presented to aoe that's not i think completely everything that you're talking about miss colton no no and i don't think there's anyone on this committee that doesn't already have all of the documentation that i'm talking about i just think that it's an exercise just as i had suggested for this exercise and this committee that when we're done this process this committee this subcommittee i really strongly feel that one of our suggestions to the rs ud board as a whole should be that we suggest they go back i mean let's be honest there are at least two possibly three i think members of the rs ud board that were also part of the 706 study for this rs ud that in just their minds alone we should be able to figure out are their notes still around to do an exercise like i just explained and again i go back to transparency and it's it's it's an issue and i do believe that it is adding to that lingering misconception incorrect perceptions i don't think you're ever going to truly i don't think you're ever going to truly get this situation to a more amicable position unless that's something that's considered i hear justine yeah i was i was kind of going back and forth and how to ask this when i kind i sort of asked it at the last meeting when i brought up the the legality of using the other version of the articles in what we're creating for our new version and i just wonder charity did mention there were a few there are several board members that were involved in that and i just wonder how much we should be using of old information that was kind of flushed out by other people and and um maybe using it moving for how do we use that moving forward that's my question well and more clearly should it even be on the merger agreement page and yes at the su i understand why it should be there it seems like all that should be there i mean except for historical purposes as charity's talking about but i'm just saying if the if the merger agreement is what we voted on that shouldn't that be the only document there and the rest is you know in the archives right but how do should we be using it moving forward or should we be moving forward with a new process for that and it because we're new people and it's a new it's a new time i just i don't know about that's my question i know it's kind of vague but dina and i'll get back to you charity so i on the su's website i think is your study right i think it does the basic thing that's the history of rochester the history it does it does the basic we we were confused because it had sing sing article one and article all these things and then we realized oh wait a second down down down down down at the bottom which was just numbers was the actual voted on articles and one of them has 16 and there's a 13 and 11 or something like that it was very i mean it was very confusing for us just you know and i'm the chairman of this board for guys i mean i i just it was ridiculous i felt stupid yeah the it is a little difficult the first part that you're going through i think is actually the the study or or the initial proposal which i suspect somewhere in your meeting minutes the board um approved of it and and and there was a vote to approve it so that would be a board document it is coupled with your articles of agreement because i think that may be the whole packet that went to aoe i could be wrong on that um you're right you have to go through multiple pages until you get to the actual articles of agreement there we talked and none of it's labeled properly so that nobody would know what right you know yeah so it's a it's a little tough um to do that so in terms of that the study committee report was approved by the board the the study committee um and that was presented out so that is a board document so that is more historical it probably talks about what the populations of the towns were talks about what your enrollment has been for several years prior to the study being done where you think cost savings would be those kind of things um and so that was all that is a board document that happens to not be the actual articles of agreement that you're talking about and i took a very narrow view of that which is how do you govern your relationship between as a board in having these two campuses um in terms of maintaining that that is a historical board document so it does need to be the first part does need to be maintained in terms of uh i'm a little confused and i apologize jc about you know i mean you can always look at i guess previous iterations of what articles of agreements were proposed articles of agreement you can look at what your neighboring towns have but the bottom line is that what has the legal authority is what your voters approved and so in terms of if you're looking at it and saying hey we think this may be a good idea and um you know we think that this language is a good thing that's all well and good and that's fine to do that and there's nothing that's wrong about going and looking at what other uh towns do you know whatever town school districts do whatever union school districts do about things but in terms of what has the legal force is only that which is approved by on your articles of agreement which is approved by your voters but you can look at that stuff if i understood what your question was i have a hand back jerry yeah just hold on a sec jerry let me get to tim tim you got a chance what do you want to say i agree with everything that dina just said except that once again this is unique we were told you know we we were going to meetings we heard what was being said and it was very few people actually so um the articles of agreement are written written presented to the board the board approves them and that was early october october 17 2017 it's right on the retn uh video the presentation was given the presentation was then we voted in november to approve them we never went back and you know voters never went and looked at what was actually uh proposed and uh agreed to by the boe what was given to the boe for one could never have been financially done and uh uh the board voted then later on that never even had transportation built in so it could never have been done we we were given bad information on the articles of agreement compared to what was presented to the boe and the boe specifically asked several questions that were brought up uh in the 706 b meetings and weren't really addressed the way that we're talked about in the 706 b meetings so i'm a little confused how the articles of agreement can be uh more accurate or legal to voters that were not presented to the boe that approved it to go forward thanks so so in order for a merger to happen mr prat the voters have to approve it and so the voters approved and and i can send to ethan i i i think i more than likely have what the ballot was um i am also looking at an eight page submission to the vermont agency of education on october 9th 2017 um i'm sorry that was yes i i'm sorry i'm looking at aoe summary and then it's the committee proposal that's dated october 18th 2017 it was finalized october 5th 2017 then it has things like background um i can tell you how many pages this is is so there you know there is what aoe puts out as part of their meetings it is a 26 page document of what the committee the study committee was it also has the proposed uh language for the warning as well and i can i can send that out to you but um but um i i can't answer some of these questions because i wasn't the i i didn't handle this for you all um in terms of what you're saying but there is you know there's financial things that are put forward here as the pre-cla homestead tax comparison and think that i'm sorry um charity let's go i think charity and then justine i think that's the order it was um so kind of to reiterate what tim has and to put it into context of something else that jc had is um i agree we need to move forward i don't deny that at all because we're never going to get progress unless we move forward all i'm saying is that um you know the document that dean is talking about is the exact same it's the 26 pages that we decided at our last meeting we're not going to work from those because it only the last three pages of the rat are the non-stamped copy of the ratified articles that we all voted on what i am saying is this there are a lot of misconceptions tim mentioned the transportation piece last meeting i mentioned the fact that the presentation to the boe at the the meeting on video they mentioned the 300 000 and cuts there are pieces of the puzzle that we still don't know how did it fall how did it turn out because there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle that just got dropped on the floor never picked up and i do think that in order to move forward we do have to take into consideration those pieces that got dropped on the floor we need to investigate them a little bit and say here's the pieces that we want to look at and why did the conversation happen in such i'm going to be really honest there were heated debates that i would and i was president most of those 706 meetings tim i know you were as well um and other people on these this call are we're in those meetings as well and when you just drop those and there and then you find out that the articles that you voted on have little to no mention of what had been presented in those 706 meetings as the key points of why this merger was going to work but then they're not at all reflected in the actual voted on articles we have a moral and ethical obligation for some portion of the rsud board or another subcommittee to go back through and look at those and figure out what pieces do we want to represent do we want to figure out what went wrong do we want to figure out why they got dropped find out the importance of them and put those in are we going to do it for every single conversation that happened during the what 12 weeks of the conversations no there's no reason to beat a dead horse but there are some of them that are significant and were very significant at the time that are not represented in these articles should be represented in these articles and if they're not and since they are not need to be investigated in order to actually move forward and help make more of a realistic approach to having an amicable relationship that this merger can succeed in without doing that I do not believe that we will ever get to a atmosphere that is less unfriendly than we're in right now I don't know another way to say I will say sure to you I think I think that is the mission of this committee I mean I think going forward we have a short term goal you know which is what do we propose to the board that then can happen by town meeting day and we have a long term goal which is more transparency and I think if those of you who were at the 706 as I was not even part of any of that until you know the merger was really sort of working its way I would love a list of what some of those issues were that were mentioned I think that'd be very useful to work from to say boom boom boom boom boom the all these things that were mentioned that are not in the agreement then we can then then I can then I can talk to you about them and we can work on them and they can be suggested to the board going yes and that's that's why I mentioned that there's three people on the current rsud board that I do not know how to gain access to the minutes from those meetings but one of those three people may know how to get the minutes from those three meetings I'm not asking for you know anyone's personal handwritten notes but it you know I would assume that there are meeting minutes somewhere that would in my mind be a more concise representation of what was discussed in those meetings versus asking the three of them to try and remember from you know three years ago what was said I don't think that's fair of anyone I don't think it's productive let's not create more animosities or ugly meetings than we need to but I also don't necessarily want to say you know open up to the public and say tell me everything you hate because that's not going to be productive either um let's find a way to do it with as much factual information as we can and yes it would be on that long-term agenda so but I really do I just very very I feel it's got to be done I'm hearing you absolutely uh just Dean I just want to see if I know Dina may or may not be able to verify but she did say something that suggested that the Board of Education did get a copy of the warned articles so that kind of contradicts maybe something that I was interpreting Tim saying that the Board of Education didn't get to see what was actually voted on I just want to see if we can clarify if the Board of Education did see the our um the earlier proposal and the what was actually voted on so I actually just sent to Ethan by email the link of what I found from the October 2017 agency of education meeting and it does have art it does have proposed articles of agreement um part of the process of of going through a merger is that your proposed articles of agreement actually have to have a review by AOE typically they try it they would like to see them sooner rather than later um because if they have any questions about it and they also have at the time present recommendations to the actual board so the agency of education staff presents recommendations to the actual board of do we you know do we recommend that this is approved um and so I suspect that the articles of agreement that there probably was some conversation with the attorney up at AOE about you know if there was any concerns about making sure that constitutionally you you had the correct representation in terms of how many uh representatives from each town although I think the populations are relatively close to each other but I'm not sure about that and I'm sure Mr. Pratt will tell you if I'm wrong um but so they did look at it and so the document that the link that I sent Ethan is what the agency of education the state board of education excuse me um reviewed and voted on in October of 2017 so in terms of um what was warned um and there should be a record of what was warned and what was on the ballot and what was provided um and so if there are differences I'm not sure um I'm not sure how to answer that for you there should also be minutes I think Ms. Colton is correct okay I just wanted to clarify the board meeting the board of education did see what the public saw just to you know so we weren't I mean there was some representation that maybe the AOE saw something big and grand and then the town voted on something very different and they didn't get to see that I just wanted to make that very clear that the board of education maybe we can't answer that now but I'd like to look into it and make sure yeah so here here's what I will go out slightly on a limb and I will say to you I think there's a there may be a distinction here that you will find at the end which is I think that what the state board of education voted on is also what was presented as the articles of agreement for your electorate to vote on I think where a lot of some of the stuff over the years that I've heard is presentations that were provided um in informational meetings from the consultant it seems that that that seems to be a lot of the things that I've heard um from various citizens who who have raised a you know questions about things let's not get too much in the speculation I think I think that's charity's point is that we really want to we really want to get back to what what details we can find and and go from there because I think you know as we say if we get into the well I heard this and this or this that's going to lose down the foxhole well right so the reason why I say that is is that um one of my law partners is the one who did your warning and who did also I think assist in drafting up your articles of agreement I'm more than likely and I'll look in in the file I'm not online for work stuff um I more than likely have your final ballot that was presented to the electorate at least or the draft that was presented to the board and whether or not there were changes made from that point I can't tell you but what we probably sent to the board to have voted I will also point out um I don't know if it makes any difference in terms of what you all are talking about because I'm not necessarily clear about it is that under 16 vsa 706 f there are basically only two articles of agreement that need to actually be be presented to the voters right so you but we'll take a look and let me see if I have information that will help answer what your questions are I very well okay well this is this is the whole point of having you on tonight too is we these were our basic questions and this is the deal that we need to we need to pursue charity you raised your hand uh just the the article the pleb that sorry the document that you just sent that dean I believe forwarded to you it is a culmination of the 26 paid document that we all decided last week we were not going to work from we were only going to go from the stamped ratified copy and also an additional add-on in the beginning of it from what looks like AOE itself kind of summarizing it so it again is that same culmination of added together documents that we've said we don't want to work from but it does clearly show that the what was presented included 13 articles and actually JC's shaking her head so I might be wrong but it's it's another piece like again like we need to move forward and figure out I think I think for tonight too I think we need to move forward in the sense of what do we really want to get accomplished quickly and we've clearly set some agendas for what we want to look at as we keep going with this committee you know for transparency um just Dean um quick and then Tim I just want to finish up if you had anything and then I wanted to move on yeah I want to move on too just for the record though in that document charity attachment E is the proposed warning to the public I just wanted to clear up for the record whoever is listening that the board of education did hear the 26 pay uh did see the 26 pager but also saw what the town was going to vote on that's all I wanted to clear up in that question to Dina and now so attachment E they did see that thank you okay Tim do you have any final comments on this section before we move on yeah so yeah in that BOE meeting that our ETN had it on they said a couple things you can go back and modify the articles of agreement sometime down the path and at any point the board can look and make sure things are going smoothly they put a five-year timeline on that but they didn't say at any time you could look at it so that's what we're doing now uh for a legal question and bringing up uh consultants at one point the consultant said a 706 B committee legally had to stand by the articles of agreement that were presented to the town I've got a question about having three 706 B committee members and uh can they change that or not I'm I'm sorry can somebody repeat what Mr. Pratt just asked Dina and just with the dog isn't it yeah I'm sorry it's my dog um and I don't have I don't have a headset sorry my husband's trying to get him to be quiet um I'm sorry Mr. Pratt what are you what are you asking can you still hear me I can hear you now yes because my dog finally I'm a dog person I have no problem with that so my question was are 706 B members that were there at the time of the article that are now now on the rsud board go forward with new articles or are they legally trapped from the old ones if they help create if they help create and devise at what the previous articles were as a board member there's no prohibition if they're a board member now correct there's no prohibition on on them being involved in it if you wanted to amend your articles okay thank you you're welcome good okay I'd like to move forward if we can okay oh you have one more comment charity yeah go for it no this next one coming up is the one where I really want to clarify because I think my statement was misunderstood I I think I I think you sent me something afterwards that I yeah I get it I get it but that's okay it's not a bad question to ask anyway and um so do you want me to clarify indeed if you could just mute between your talk that way we can at least yeah so let me read this is our fourth question an article in the agreement stipulates that after the first year budgets from the two campuses should be merged in all district budget documents do we need an amendment to change that back to separate budgets as it is an article in agreement or could the rsud board instruct that change to happen at a meeting and the answer is it would need to be worn vote held and approved by the majority of voters who vote at that meeting I do have to say this is dina um it is not an efficient to require your business office to do two budgets and realistically it is just additional work as the vote for your budget is the amount required to maintain both campuses combined keeping the campuses separate keeps the division between the two towns ongoing and what do we go charity right to you so you can clarify that yeah um I never intended for us to go back to two separate budgets okay my intention was um so prior to moving back to this valley I worked for a company internationally and I did the books for three extremely large um international computer companies around the world and handled a large portion of their you up Europe and US holdings and every single location I have would have had some sort of clarifier so if I was paying for safety shoes for a guy in Germany it might have you know safety shoes as account 155 dash one and that would clarify what site it was happening at whereas 155-2 would clarify Burlington Vermont so I never intended for us to request that the uh bunch of business office start doing a separate set of books but there are definitely items on our budget that are can be specified in a manner such as that to clarify are these expenses happening in Rochester are these expenses happening in Stockbridge and then there are also likewise some that we can't do that such as SU spending that's not going to be able to happen that way because that is allocated it's funded um it it it happens from a different bucket of money with a different set of mathematical parameters around it um those I think the best we could hope for would be some sort of mathematical algorithm to um proportionately expense them if we even needed to do that depending on how much there is of that but one of the things with transparency and accountability and I have to mention that um Superintendent Kanani recently I believe is on Friday sent out a letter to all families in the SU this is not just RSUD but that is a goal that his his office is working on when it comes to all budgeting and expense and accountability issues is they are trying to find and work on and he had a very in-depth letter to families about it that that is one of their huge goals moving forward is to take actions that will promote more fiscal responsibility more transparency easier access to accurate numbers at a more rapid pace of availability um that was my goal in asking this question and this hotspot so it's and I do believe that there are pieces of that puzzle that are already happening with Rochester and Stockbridge um I just don't know that that information is being presented to at meetings in a way that that's understandable to the layperson at a meeting that doesn't understand counting the way I do um that was my goal of this I never intended for us to say oh Rochester you've got to have your budget Stockbridge have your budget that completely defies the the concept of the Act 46 merging those schools together and creating one set of books versus two but creating one set of books that has a mechanism within it to make that more easily make information more readily available without causing significant impact I mean in my mind having worked in accounting for a very long time anyone that's working on the books at the SU should not be unfamiliar with what I'm suggesting I mean that should they should learn that in like accounting 101 is there is there you have a clearer I mean what what is this you called an algorithm a what is exactly we're looking for a mechanism for more it's basically you have a site there's a site differentiator so and I don't know I think she's on here because her name just popped up so Janet Whitaker is on here and I know that this is a piece of the puzzle that she does for both Rochester and Stockbridge I believe and and as I said I believe Superintendent Carnarini is already trying to implement this exact concept it's just a matter of do we need to write it in and when I mentioned at the last time you know I think we need to find out from the SU what their intentions are along this line because it may be something they're already intending to do SU wide but I know that it's something that did not happen at the beginning of this merger and it caused a lot of frustration it also did not help that we went through multiple business managers all with different interpretation of how the world works of accounting you know you know I don't step the same way as the next person steps so um that's it I think my my intention and my suggestion got taken a little bit out of context got you I understand that good so so if I can answer that you don't need to mend your articles of agreement what the board would need to do is have a conversation with the superintendent about to what level of detail that they would want regarding what the finances are I will tell you there are some things that would be concerning for me you're not going actually no I let me remove concerning I guess that's not it I'm not sure the value of some of some of that I understand um I think it's also a conversation I have with Superintendent uh Superintendent Canarney and he can have with the auditors on that and I believe that Ms Whitaker indicated that something I don't want to speak for her but it looked like her comment was that the um the program should have the ability to do that or something I'm sorry her statement says if I understand charity correctly there's an accounting process that does code in the manner that she is referring to um but in terms of the I think the discrete legal issue that you were asking that's a request from the board to the superintendent in a conversation with the superintendent about to what level of specificity do they need or believe that they need financial reports to be great so my so my question would then be is do we not necessarily need to amend at all or do we need to amend it just to the sense that um I guess that's where I'm confused is do we need to amend it at all or can we get an agreement from the SU which in my mind the letter that Superintendent Canarney sent out on Friday sort of spoke to that already um so I think that's just maybe the board having a more direct conversation and getting clarification on that and this isn't an issue we need to put on this hot spot piece well what what would be useful charity too is again um a list of areas that you would like to see the differentiation you know look they're even like literally line items you know I think they're I think it's just in general um I think it's in general because again I think you're gonna have to get um um I never remember her name correctly is it Tara so I think you would have to have her probably explain it more because I've only ever seen the budget in pieces at you know proposal time for voting on the budget um what she sees in a computer system is very different than what you're seeing on paper and you know myself I'm used to 132 digit coatings just to signify I spent 36 dollars on a pair of safety shoes so she's familiar with that and she would be best and Superintendent Canarney um with her their accounting teams to help figure out what's the best way for them to utilize and make that mechanism visible at meetings um not everyone is gonna understand you know a 85 wide excel spreadsheet the same way I do um and you have to find a way to present all of that information to the public that doesn't make them want to run for the hills and never deal with money again um I'm not saying it would be easy to do it but I do think where I myself have been pushing for transparency and accountability this is something that's you know basic level accounting Janet has confirmed that it is it is a piece that's in in the puzzle um but as a board we need to figure out how to get that visible to the public so that they can understand that when it comes down to brass tax if you have a hundred thousand dollars of income coming in from Rochester for tuition kids but you have a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of expense going out because of you know a boiler that just keeps dying every other day um and no company in business that has multiple sites isn't going to take into effect the consideration of yes I have two sites but are both of them profitable it's no different in this situation granted we're talking about children's education but there still needs to be even though we're one budget some form of mechanism to allow for site accountability from a fiscal and you know responsible fiscal standpoint good I'd like to jump in here Tim go ahead Tim so the reason it was split up 60 40 was very simple and it was accurate at the time it became inaccurate when we didn't dump daycare in the high school so to have an accurate budget without a whole bunch of nonsense I mean charity's point is exactly right the way it stands today because for for reasons some people don't trust how the budget is and I think it's accurate you correct them but you know reasoning so Rochester school is 2,200 square feet Stockbridge school is 1100 11,000 square feet so Rochester's is 22,000 square feet Stockbridge has roughly 45 kids in elementary Rochester has roughly 55 kids in elementary but we have almost exactly the same number of kids K through 12 so we have like 90 kids a piece so to make this completely so that somebody could just go to the budget and say Rochester is double almost but not quite kid-wise so 60 40 is correct without the high school and the so what Rochester people have to understand is that Rochester has to dump this high school to the town of Rochester then the question is does Stockbridge really need to pay $100,000 whatever it is and pay that 40% because that doesn't make any sense so you know this isn't Rochester Stockbridge this is let's get rid of what is the issue then our rsud board doesn't have to dub around with the high school and can actually start concentrating on kids so and I think it can be done fairly simply if we just put out the transparency thanks justine trumpets thoughts nothing right now okay good I think we've I think we got it Dina thank you very much much appreciated your time and effort on this and clarification very glad we had you on tonight thank you for making the time not a problem thank you all I'll I'll look even about the documents that we talked about and see if I can't get you some more information as you say that's as we as I hope you got the sense that's not an urgent thing for us this this sort of voter allocation I think is something that's you know we're going to find out a little more tonight and you know in our next meeting what are our real priorities that we're trying to get done now but okay the more information you can find and certainly if some of it's in your office that would be great that would be very nice not a problem thank you have a good night yeah you as well thank you everyone thank you um all right I want to get to our public comments there's the agenda thank you yes let's see who's on if we have some people who would like to speak um uh Janet do you have a comment for us Janet Whitaker no no I'm all set thank you okay thank you Janet Joanne do you have a comment for us no I think you guys are doing awesome I don't want to I don't want to hold up your time get get back to work yes thank you thank you so much thank you Joanne okay Karen do you have a comment Karen um yeah I actually I actually do I just want to um say that I appreciate charity being so passionate about the excuse me um the idea of transparency um going back to when you guys were talking about voting I think having those numbers are not necessarily a us against them type of situation but it is an indication to the board as to what the communities actually our feeling and that in itself is going to be what ultimately makes this merger a success so I do agree with that transparency and having a count that's um more accurate as far as either town is concerned and again not to cause animosity about issues but to fix issues if a town has a predominant issue with something and they're outvoted by the other town it's important to know how to balance that and it's important to know who we need to talk to if you combine those numbers together we don't know who needs to be heard and what they need to be heard about I don't know if this is the vehicle to do that I'll be honest with you that's what you guys are the experts and on this committee for but if it is I think it's imperative that we not um the things aren't done everything's not done quickly because quickly is what got us into this problem in the first place um unfortunately I understand that you know it's it's time consuming and also time sensitive but you know again what was said last week it can't be rushed the other piece of it is again that transparency I think that um the the position of being able to identify locations in some of the budget items is extremely important I know that there are multiple payroll tax groups within a business uh so you know which are profitable in which are not so obviously it it does happen and as Janet said it can happen so again that piece of transparency is going to lend well with the voting transparency as well so that's my point I think keeping things as transparent as possible and out there not behind closed doors no dark curtains or anything like that and also making sure that communication is is out there as much as possible I think if you guys communicate as long as this first stab at the the merger um articles will be and it will be painful for some people in next year I agree with Tim it's necessary it has to happen in order to move forward but we are all really intelligent people and as long as you guys find the appropriate methods to communicate that information beforehand keeping it transparent I think that the community can take a large document as long as you guys are using your vehicles of communication as effectively as possible so thank you guys for doing this for showing up and spending this time on it um I appreciate it I really do because I think that it will make a huge difference to the success of this merger for the long term thank you Karen that Harvey do you have a comment for us I've been taking notes um you know my ears are usually open towards conversations about the high school it really only came up once I'm sure it will come up again um but yeah I'm just I'm just sitting in and taking it all in and writing it down okay thank you thank you um and then we have one phone caller in uh 44315 do you have a comment for us this is Rob Gardner can you hear me oh hi Rob yep so I have three points and I'll try to get through them fast um first I'd like you to let me know and I apologize if I'm the only one that doesn't know this exactly what the charge for the mission was this committee had what was the what's the point because it seems to be you're talking about so many things here that's a very broad so I'd like to specifically know what the mission was what the charge was who the people are on the committee first and last name of what town they're from so I'd like to know that just for my own benefit the second is that I would be concerned that the board or the committee or whoever they are is seeking to dissolve the merger in place by rewriting agreements rendering a merger in name only separate budgets however that's worked out and separate voting blocks for board members to me does this uh pretty much remand renders a moot and this is just my opinion not uh just an opinion I think that transparency to one person is an indecipherable pile of data to somebody else particularly a layman so I would just kind of caution that we don't for the sake of transparency produce gigantic amounts of data nobody can make any sense of finally the whole BOE meeting on video is a gigantic mess the process was a huge mess there was no time the consultants were questionable there was a chaotic process there was questionable competency in in my view it was a huge mess the charity's right about that but but that's the past that's the it doesn't help us all this discussion and sort of prosecutorial questioning of this and that how does it help us the biggest challenge I think facing is to establish good faith good faiths have been damaged and I'm hearing an all a lot of anger and uproar about things we are not helped by going back to that tape or tracking stuff down or saying what did he say I'm I was there for the video thing I was on the study committee it was a mess and I won't take everybody's time up telling you why it was a mess and it is a huge mess it's a huge mess but but here we are now and we need to look at what we have now and try to solve the problems if you don't have good faith between the two towns the merger can't work anyway it can't work anyway if you don't have trust and good faith between the two towns the whole thing is it's just not going to work and we should be working towards that oh and that's it thanks good I'd like to respond to that anything well hold on no no no Tim this is comment and I think yeah but I think we need to address the comments as they pop up no I I actually really feel it's important to hear people okay and to just hear them okay I just um and not that I support or detract anybody I just think that's part of the rabbit hole that we can go down if we start um you know I I always personally I always listen to everybody and I always get and I look for okay what what's useful here what's useful here um one of the things I'm going to just make clear I will respond that we have four board members our committee members here Ethan Bowen from Rochester I'm the director of the of the school board um or the chairman of the school board uh Justine uh Kalin Kevakis who is a Stockbridge member um of the board um Charity Colton who is a Stockbridge Town member and Tim Pratt who is a Rochester community member and our mission as I wrote it out to Tim was to look over the articles agreement and um and make any recommendations to the board of improvements we felt could could strengthen the merger so it was very much about strengthening the merger um that was our um that was our goal um so that's that it's um that's far it's the rest I think you know uh we have we have our opinions um and I think we're we have our our forward task and I'd like to keep going on that um I also need to find a power cable quickly for my computer so if we can just take a brief recess for a moment and I'll be right back I think I hopefully know where it is okay thank you for just a few minutes thank you and if we're back I'll see who's here Charity I just wanted to point out your hand is still raised I don't know if there's some way to put put your hand down now there you go thank you sorry still learning this me no believe me I've actually never even used that this is one of the first meetings anybody's actually used those things um I will openly say I'm not tech savvy yeah wait but you must be with excel sheets and all that right I mean that's that's trade that's trade tools that's that's not tech like I couldn't tell you how to share that a month ago I very recently learned how to share those like widespread that is not something they teach you not when it didn't exist I hear you so um you know just um I I don't want to cut us off at all it is eight twenty I just want to see what our objective is for you know because get through view hotspots and categorize and have another set of public comment doesn't seem to be because we don't have that many people on I'm happy to go anyway the committee wants to go tonight if we want to keep working for another I'd say probably we got a good hour into categorizing if we want to do that because I have a great clear idea of what we're doing we're basically going down to charity your list that you gave us last time and we're going instead of saying okay do we need a question oh sorry Tim are you back just want to make sure I made sure I'm back okay good thank you sorry um uh we want to make sure you know what's a question for clarification what is a suggested area for change and I didn't know if I thought there was a third sort of but I sort of felt like there's maybe maybe it's just two clarification and suggested area for change for each um each article we went through and just sorry no that's good um do we want to do we want to do that tonight um keep going well I think you need to add one more okay it was left pretty well up in the air if there's a three three tie how that's going to be broken I think there needs to be an article of agreement on how that is done it was it was you know I asked Bruce that and he said they stay locked up until they come up with a decision so that is what's what do you mean a three three tie well if three board members disagree on something uh and uh can't make a decision oh no I see okay the mechanism the mechanism for breaking a tie in a in a in a in a vote like that okay and also so here's the other thing if if a member is missing that could break the tie too which then a board member might come in and uh halt the whole process and that's exactly what happened in the building committee and I you know so I think we need an article to uh fix that problem uh it well let's let's let's let's be disciplined in this and organized in this I think we need to go down our list one at a time before we um let's add that one to it to our discussion well I want to know if it's a committee if the committee really thinks it's even worth going down that hole right now but I think it's certainly worth considering I mean it's something to put down there I mean do we want to do this do we want to get this job done tonight yes no I don't think we can I don't think we can and I think we can uh give you the go ahead to talk to the board I mean you can do whatever you want you know we're just committee you're the board chair so you can pick and choose whatever you want to bring up with your board no no no that's not that's not the objective I want from this committee I want this committee to give me a very uh with me to have a very clear series of one two three recommendations for the um for the board to consider um I I I don't feel comfortable being left with the leeway to sort of decide I also don't think we know yet um where we are on quite a few issues um so I would not feel comfortable making up I would literally be making up sort of you know ideas about this there's some that jerry brought up that I still don't understand completely and that obviously from our fourth article what we put to dina there needs to be more discussion just to make sure I'm understanding some of these issues um so um well then let's we're going to take this on and let's let's do it um and uh we'll we'll see how long it takes I agree and you know I strongly disagree that these are our committee is not putting good faith to both towns I think this committee right here can bring both towns to a reasonable agreement and the what the first agreements like rob said we could have had a potluck dinner and shook hands and come out with a better idea than all this bureaucracy so I you know I'm all for making agreements that work for both towns and keep both schools open and keep our kids right here yeah well I mean I'm I'm certainly you know I have I have an opinion yes a charity why don't you jump in here uh we're talking about lots of things here I'm not sure um so I think I think we definitely in my mind I don't know that we're gonna finish this tonight only because in my mind I think we have pieces of puzzle that dina needs to get us some solid information even though we suspect we suspect we know what she's gonna come back with I think we need to get some clarification and we don't have we don't have verbiage tonight to present to give you to present to the board so I don't think from that perspective we will finish tonight no I think we may end tonight with a very solid plan of what we hope will get presented and you know I hope that what the four of us come up with is we will end when we say we're ready for you to present something to the board that you're completely content with what we want you to present as a group not as one person taking the liberty to decide and I don't think I want to see it differently and don't forget I mean I very much hope that when if we come to that agenda item at the next board meeting well one justine and I will both be there but I hope you and Tim will both be there for clarification and you know communication but yes that is my goal is I really want us to be together in what we feel is proper to go forward to the board um and I think you know that it's definitely not my show here at all that's that's that's the problem been the problem perhaps is that I think um there hasn't been enough collaboration about what what the issue is so well then without further ado let's let's let's let's let's work our way down here I I think I think Tim's point is something we can add add in there it's not it's a we don't have a section for things that should be in the articles that are not yet um so that we will have to create a separate section for that let's start with um what's the top of of your I think Charlie's was the most extensive list so what's the first one in yours and give us a number and a title if you will shoot let's see I think so the the two of my big ones we've sort of clarified and we're waiting on answers from Dina that's the representative voting process and that the changes we would like to see happen with that and that encompassed a few different pieces of language on the original articles um the budget breakout go ahead just do a quick straw poll of the four of us um of those three options for representative what's I'd be sort of curious to hear what people think is the best one um what do you think charity you're on right now I mean the Australian but the open meeting Australian ballot two days later the voting at the town meeting um or the or the everything on Australian ballot I think those were the three most realistic possibilities without having time to sit down and really think about it and look at a calendar my instinct tells me that going to Australian ballot for representatives but allowing it in town meeting to like happen on the town meeting time frame um and having the way we change the language change it to that moving forward it'll be Australian ballot that gives the board the most flexibility because you wouldn't actually have to say that it's going to happen during town meeting even though in discussion tonight that would be the most practical place to put it for time reasons and making sure that your representatives that have been voted in are the ones that you're going to be putting into positions you know elected positions within the board um you know like I said not not getting time to sit down and actually like map things out on a calendar and stuff that makes the most sense to me right now off the cuff good justine I agree with charity in general I think Australian ballot is a very clear and concise way to represent what happened as well as go through the process of voting um I'm not exactly sure how I feel about um when it should be I think for this year the town meeting idea is appropriate um but I'm not sure what I think about the future and whether it should be at the school meeting or or the town town meeting Tim um I would go along with charity if it but it might make it a little uncertain about uh uh to people about that it's actually the school so we would have to make that you would have to make we board would have to make that very clear so um I agree wholly that it should be Australian ballot and it should be divided by town for the directors I think that would be a fair and you know make make people feel good about that that they're voting for their own town people and can't be overvoted one way or the other or you know it could go the other way so uh one way or the other we need to get to an article for Australian ballot and whether the school the school board takes this year and it would only have this year to do it at your next meeting to vote to do it Australian uh with and change the way that it's done or um and move it to March instead of May which at this point would make sense but it does take one year and you know you you would have a hard time to do it but I those are just in between it there's a good point was raised to me by someone in between our two meetings um in the week between our two meetings was to really think about the unintended or almost the unknown consequences of a particular proposal and I think this is Jared you saying boy I need some time to think about this that is exactly what you're talking about so it seems like a clean quick fix and then Dina brings up well there's this issue here and then we sort of go oh and then it's before this or after that I mean you really want to be clean and clear um in in in our and how we go forward and think that through so I I respect that I just was curious just top of our heads sort of where we were good okay I won't stop you next time this time charity please go ahead that's okay um so the other one that I have that was a kind of a big one that was on my hot spot list is one that I apologize everyone it's one of those ones that's written into the original document but not in the articles I think that were voted on but it's the language that is used to state that the board only can decide what kids go where um with the rearrangement of grades meaning third graders could all get moved to Stockbridge fourth graders could all get moved to Rochester um I really would like us to um looking through it really quickly sorry I didn't look at it beforehand um but it might be it might fit more in that category of something that's not in there but it is a piece of the puzzle that I've heard a lot of people speak about it um that you know they want to have a say in what happens with that and I do think that if there is a way to add it in or if there's language that is in there that we need to modify that the board itself would not you know I would like us to consider the idea that the board itself would not decide we're going to move all kids for certain grades to one building um and completely revamp what kids go up to what campus for what age without voter input um um but play devil's advocate just for a sec um if if financial constraints come up such as you know major deficit from the state um something like that um and there was a matter involved I'm raising a question not out of any just just playing devil's advocate and I think those are pieces of the puzzle that we you know if we are going to present this as an idea we need to list those out I mean that's a part of being transparent uh I'm not saying we shouldn't mention that we should we definitely should because if the state comes down on us and they're going to say everyone has to have a certain number for this type of expense under this limit and it means that every school in the state needs to move all six graders into one campus I mean I'm obviously making something up here um but that is a reality that could happen is it likely I don't think so but did any of us expect that act 46 was going to roll out the way it did and have so many loopholes and missing pieces parts I don't think so so welcome to the world if anything can happen good but I don't think this is a piece that maybe I I'm going to have you know we're saying this but you know maybe we don't necessarily vote but I think there needs to be some mechanism to allow that people within the two towns get some sort of a say or input or time frame to be a part of that type of decision because I know for me personally I've said it many many times it would be so counterproductive for my family to have any one of my kids that are in Stockbridge going to Rochester because that would literally mean because of transportation restrictions and where my children do all of their other activities I could not feasibly have my other child in middle school in Rutland so and every family is different completely different so I think we I just really want to take that into consideration one of the things that's really important that we do to get through this list is that I think we category we title it we number it and we say what is it I think just so we stick to that because otherwise I know there's a lot of feeling around these but I think to get this job done we just need to sort of push through a little bit can you give me even if it's in you know the DOE presentation or wherever you're getting it from what is there a number oh justine you found this go ahead justine got you in the warned articles at section 4a and I just want to clarify the way I understand that section says that at parent request the unified board may adjust the enrollment based on student circumstances at parent the way yeah and the way I interpret it is that the parent will have to request that prior to the board of directors deciding that and I just wanted to that's a different piece that's a piece that allows a Stockbridge parent that wants their child to go to Rochester to request that that's not the piece I'm talking about yeah okay so there I apologize for not having it like already prepped out but my question then is are we are you wanting to add something in there that will ensure what you're describing does not happen or are you specifying I think actually been been voted on in his law at this moment that I don't and I apologize again I don't know because I didn't look at it clearly journey let's let's move on yeah we've made note of it um we need a title for it um uh campus and grade rearrangement thank you campus and grade rearrangement grade rearrangement and we at this point we don't know how to categorize it because we don't know if it's an amendment or if it's a suggestion you know or if it's a clarification to the board so we don't know yet so I don't think we can we'll put a question mark there I just want to keep us and uh and it's a new we're going to put new on it new article along with Tim's oh my god my notes are a mess okay all right let's keep let's keep working down please what's your next and again if we have a number and a title even if you make it up off the top of your head just so we can know how to refer to these each time uh that's it for me I agree with Tim's tiebreaker issue um something definitely to discuss but that's it on my list but there was some things about um budget uh where my my notes don't seem to be I think Dina pretty clearly clarified that tonight that that is the my intention that I had mentioned last week once I clarified it that's actually an item a discussion point that the board itself got you would need to discuss with Superintendent Canarney and address it at that level not necessarily address it in these articles so I kind of see that unless anyone else sees it differently in my mind that can be taken care of from a different avenue got you okay okay so then I'm what I'm hearing is that we have a representative vote tiebreaker real real realignment is that a proper word realignment grade grade realignment grade realignment well I feel wrong because I I had my notes very close by from the last meeting and I thought we had more of these that were hot point issues um and that's what I'm trying to look for um sorry it did not get mentioned in our think is um we had sections about the personal property it was 6a and 6c thank you okay and my the my hot point in 6c was specifically that it says the board gets to decide at their discretion what happens to the real property and whether it's useful to the district I think that I don't love that language um I believe charity was interested in 6a but I can't remember why oh looks like she's found it or maybe uh yeah I kind of clarified uh 6a was mainly because of I just wanted to make sure that some of the language I've seen in the write ups so far knowing that it's not complete for the sale of the high school building were in my mind potentially contradictory to 6a and that kind of went along with what jc had just said not so much that it's a huge issue but we don't want to have something written in the sale of the high school that's kind of come back and put a kibosh to that process if we have an article that says you can't do that um and I did clarify jc is right it is for and it's that that language is missing and I would like to see us add something to that effect excellent representative uh my brain slowing down um yep classroom and this is an addition okay so the budget the budget question is an advisory one that we do some site identification the repers um the reassignment of classroom of grades would be an addition a recommendation for an addition tiebreaker would be an addition would be a recommendation for addition he did not just classroom but campus as well campus campus and classroom and Ethan I think that the one I brought up the board can actually uh talk about and you guys can change that you mean the tiebreaker and if you vote on it in that path is that would make it uh legal but yeah we just have to come up we have to come up with some ideas of how it happens I don't know if that's Jamie can vote or you know we flip a coin or whatever we just have to come up with a mechanism right and you know kicking it down the road for six months isn't going to do it so I think you ought to put as an amendment on the agenda for your next meeting and just put it out there how your board wants to do it and then and then the article people don't have to do it but well I think I mean obviously I would say I would think our you know we want to have but we want to do amend this little not not because we don't want to make change but we want to amend as little as possible because of the involvement of that you know we want to make sure I think we all and I hope you agree with me that we want to be really clear and clean and have really thought through uh suggested amendments because that's such a big process and if a lot of these can be taken care of an administrative or a board level great you know that's that's really and I am by the way we talked about it last week um rewriting the labeling of how the um this was another issue the the labeling of the articles on the su page on the merger agreement um webpage that's something that I'm starting to work with with re so that we can get some labels there and possibly even um I would love to put the articles first and then put the other stuff as historical background data second but I'm seeing what we can do about that so I am I'm working on that now um all right so just I'd like to go over these things a couple times just so I make sure I've got everything uh property allocation or property dispersal is that the proper term justine property dispersal I would say conveyance conveyance thank you conveyance and this is um a recommendation is this an article what are we trying to do with this um this is just a re uh it's a recommendation or change to um the wording or so that's an amendment so that's an amendment yes um because right now it states that the board it's the at the board's discretion that uh property deemed unuseful shall be sold or conveyed you know um and I think that the public may want to be more involved in that and it might be better to amend accordingly and just while we're here as Patty's taking notes I want her to put her select board hat on and make sure that uh as select board member she understands how important it is to Rochester voters and taxpayers and parents to keep Stockbridge and uh she's aware that there's a petition down in Stockbridge to move to get out of the merge so we do have to uh do this committee quickly but the town of Rochester isn't uh as upset with this merge as Stockbridge is so um they will be if Stockbridge unmerges and uh you know can't say more than that any comment I'm not I'm not going to speak for the voters yeah good thank you happens it's it's not going to be my decision on what path to go pro con left right um up the alley down the main street it uh it it will be something that we have to go to our voters with um acquiring the building um the only thing that was like I'll reiterate this again the position of the building was something that was voted on with the merger um they're not voting on whether or not we're taking that building back we already voted on it with the merger the day after we acquire the building now we have to go and do all sorts of what you're doing pretty much um do diligence and hopefully our committee is already you know pulling things together so that we propose to our voters what we're going to do with the building so um the town would take the high school building um with the contents uh if the building were ever to be continued as a school we certainly wouldn't want to have to go out and buy all of those contents again so um it it keeps that avenue open for the voters of Rochester if that were to ever come about and I'm not saying it is because it would have to be voted good um well here's what I would propose um I've got these five issues um and and and sort of I would I would sit down and do a recommendation um basically I'll put this into a report to the board um and then um I would recommend maybe we have one more meeting before the board meets in actually it's two it's the fifth yeah it's the fifth I think January yeah first Tuesday is the fifth so um you know I hate to call another meeting but I think this might be a fairly quick meeting with though we might have some more information from Dina and maybe some language as well um but that I would be willing to put together a statement from these five points um and then have us look at that um next next week how how do we feel about that and charity why don't you go first um I'm okay with that because I think the reality is the most we can do is make the recommendation to the board through you guys through you and Justine and then Tim and I remain involved um throughout the next portion of it to get it to the vote um I the part I'm a little concerned with is that we have a few different things happening simultaneously um one of them being the moving forward with the sale of the high school um or you know the town acquiring that um and I think have we presented the concerns with the what's in the building question and ownership and that combination of the language being contradictory because I think that might have just been recognized as a piece that needs to bump right up to the top of the ladder and be getting answered ASAP because that could put a hold on a whole lot of stuff um I know that that kind of supersedes all of what we're doing but I would certainly not want to get to you know the day of signing and find out that oh wait we waited three months to find out that an issue we recognized three months ago is going to hold this up even longer um everything else I agree with but that one particular piece I really think we need to to get clarification on because as patty just said the town is assuming that they're going to own everything that's in it but there's language that I think contradicts that in these articles so or could potentially contradict that okay justine do you have a way in please yeah yeah I I agree with charity the 6a does uh go does list land buildings and contents and um I that was part of what charity was really wanting to bring up last time I think it's important I don't know how we can get an answer ASAP but um it would be um it is a potential issue if we are going forward with a conveyance based on um something different than the language that was voted on especially if we know that I mean I know I've heard Bonnie mention on different occasions that they are storing things that the elementary uses in that building um I would hate God forbid that we find out that 20 000 worth of you know educational supplies was left in that building and now there's an issue because it was in that building when it happened so I think we need to clarify that language and we also need to reach out to all the parties involved and make sure that they are all aware of when their timeline is to get things in out or whatever in accordance to what we figure out the language means got you know I I'm hearing you and I really appreciate your emphasis because yeah it didn't sound like a biggie to me but I get it um and I think that's something I can absolutely put to um the superintendent canarney and also to the main lawyer and sort of say hey look at this what is this and Bonnie and Lindy and or Bonnie in particular and say what does this mean um we need a definition on this before we can do anything so I I hear you um and I will I as board director I will act on that pat you have something to add to that yes I uh I've been through the high school building and I do know that face every has a room where she has items stored um I'm fully aware of items that are are not staying with the building um in addition to electronics that have to be moved out of the building um intercoms and whatever um but yeah that that's already been identified and it's it's not the type of take away anything that the school still needs the um I mean yeah good okay point taken that that becomes the priority I thank you for that um uh and but let's um and it's possible that that I may not I might not wait for that to get put out there I think I may put that to the lawyers tomorrow uh lawyer and and Jamie can already tomorrow well here here's something I just like to add and this is for both Rochester and Stockbridge we can trust Patty to make a fair deal she is not an enemy or uh rooting for just Rochester so if she did it with the daycare she can do it with the high school and we just need to trust her and we can make the articles to go forward with this and it doesn't have to take forever to do it we need to dump the high school and get it off our SUD and we can do it fairly rapidly if we just agree to do it and then taxpayers will have less taxes on two buildings in Rochester and we can concentrate on education in both districts yep good thank you um so aside from that priority um I would certainly be willing I mean the legality of that I'm not sure whether we can I think we have to you know I could send a draft around and I don't remember if you can make comments on that draft and send it back to me before we present it next week or whether that all has to happen in public um let me get clarification on that it's certainly be the easiest way for me to send out you know like we did with the the minutes basically send out my rough draft and you have your issue you know and your additions or subtractions to it and then we keep working on it and then we maybe meet quickly next week to say yes that's good or this issue still needs more discussion charity um I do not know the legality of this that's why I'm going to bring it up is is there is there the ability for a board a public board like this to utilize a google doc where or even like a word doc that's shared because the comments that people that put in are that you can keep them with it I don't know how that works is that considered us having a conversation about a document I don't know but that may be a a quick way to get the original document out get everyone's back and forth and then we're each seeing each other's responses live versus us three minutes after one person just did another email and getting I know I got confused but I don't know the legality of can we use that type of a platform let me let me find out it may be it may be something we have to do in real time I don't I don't know so let me find out about that on a document because that was also certainly you know let's say save us a lot of time and you know this is the holiday week so it would be nice not to have to warn another meeting but and that might be useful for the board as a whole if that's a platform you're allowed to use that just hasn't been used because of the not knowing if it's allowed or not just an idea so in general though a charity you're in favor of me just taking a stab at a document and once we find out if this is possible and then passing it around everybody okay good Justine and you're good on that Tim yes but does that mean we don't have another meeting before your meeting or I I'd like to have another meeting before our meeting I think we're I think we do it I think you know as I said that idea of unintended consequences to take to have a meeting where we just sat down and took our recommendations and just really hashed out each one and thought of all the possibilities I think that's be really really time well spent because we've sort of been trying to get to where we you know what we believe in or what we think is really important and then to really have some final time to do that so yes one last meeting should we look at that now time-wise it's calendar-wise what is let's see I can do the 28th but I it's it's less likely that I'll be on time on the 29th if that was to be a choice next Monday what are we charity how's that work for you I can do that I can do Monday okay Tim yes I can do that okay I think let's do it let's let's schedule ourselves to another meeting same time and I'll get it I'll get it I think the agenda will be pretty simple review and comment on report to the board but I will have a response to you as soon as I know tomorrow about whether we can work on this document it may be that we have to wait for the meeting to work on it but I hope that charity suggestion is doable because that certainly would get us a lot farther along I think the thing is is I I get my instinct is that it's not a problem to rewrite something I think it's it's the discussion of the rewriting that again it's all this thing about making any decisions or conversation that is the public you know the public meeting law but I will get clarification on that for us good well I I totally expect that I'll get some suggestions tomorrow privately so you know it is a good avenue to go down and I think that the BOE would much rather see articles of agreement than the stock bridge board putting to the BOE that we're unmerging so we I think this platform is better that in the long run oh yeah I I mean that's why I'm here you know I I I want I I want this there's no way to force this to work it's the only way we work is that people come because they they trust each other and this is about opening trust and talking about it not putting any limitations on what gets talked about so let's let's do that okay great if we're we've got another meeting set and we have is there a chance to talk sorry is there another chance to talk oh sorry yeah we did jump over that didn't we yeah right let me let me do a round got you um thank you thank you for reminding me Joann Janet do you have anything to add and no no I'm good I sure without hesitation no I'm gonna just see how things all play out okay thank you thank you uh Joann I it's probably too late but I've been sitting here contemplating and I just I I have a couple of ideas and I know you probably can't add them to your list of hot spots but number 10 um talks about the five years and I know it's very confusing for a lot of people or it certainly is for me and that after five years what happens and it talks about um that the board has will review what has happened with the you know the unified district and have we met what we were supposed to do now do the townspeople vote on this or is it just the board decides that we're good after five years how does that work I don't know that's a good question and yeah we need to follow up on that yeah yeah let's I'll add it to our list I think and I'll go ahead justine I'm sorry um Joann still Joann still got the floor yeah but I want to hear what justine has to say oh okay go for it I just wanted to clarify the wording because it says that the union district uh the board will decide whether to recommend to voters the disillusion right so then do we vote right so only if they recommend well so that's what it sounds like to me it's in six people's hands then if we're done after five years I mean this is why we're working on the representation piece so that you have represented representatives that you trust right so I would like to ask a question it's not going to be popular if it goes to vote could we do it by percentage of population so if 80 percent of stock bridge says yes and 80 percent or or 51 percent of stock which says yes and 51 percent of rochester says yes it's yes I mean can we do it by percentage or do we always our stock bridge always behind the eight ball because we will always get out voted I don't know that's a constitutional question so can it be asked certainly can be asked I'm writing it down and and my other question is is there any way that we can be protected from a large bond before the five years is up we being stock bridge or rochester that would be in addition to the articles yes yep okay okay I hear you both of those take a minute go to charity sorry my tongue's failing I just want to clarify so Ethan you're adding her concerns as another hot point item of both the manner of voting and that language be possibly modified in regards to that five-year language I'm at I'm adding two I'm adding two I'm adding um five years uh can't well we just need clarification on this right recommendation and we need to know uh and then it we may come back and we say it needs to be in there that it is a vote you know yeah changing considering the language just as we did with four that we need to possibly change the language to make sure that there is the option for uh community vote and input um and then also mechanism of voting possibly a percentage of the population not just per person one person one vote well I know um maybe we need an electoral college I don't know no maybe not okay um glad you're still keeping a sense of humor Ethan what yeah no you're still keeping a sense of humor bad bad bad pun late at night um thank you Joanne thank you thank you um let's move on Karen do you have any further did I skip anybody no Karen you'd be next yeah thank you thing um I just want to make it clear that there was no one here this evening that suggested separate budgets not that I heard anyway that was not what I took from that conversation at all um and I also think it's reasonable to believe that articles of agreement are a living document and it's unreasonable to think that they would not be amended to ensure the success of this merger if that's what's necessary to happen to make it a success uh I feel that clearly there are citizens of each town who feel that there is the ability to have a successful merger so long as the articles create a fair and balanced relationship between the towns um and then I also feel that every citizen of Rochester and Stockbridge has access to this meeting and has a voice to the committee to consider uh as taxpayer payers and benefit you know the benefit the both of the schools Rochester and Stockbridge um and then it doesn't always need to be considered as hostile communication at all it actually um is rather enacting our own due diligence and civic responsibility to both of our communities and and that's all I have to say but thank you all of you for the time being taking thank you Karen good Pat any I know we've been talking with you but just wonder if you have any other comment no no I'll set good thank you and then I believe 443 15 Rob do you have a final comment no no comment okay all right then I thank you Joanne for reminding us for public comment I did skip over that just trying to get us out okay um I wouldn't entertain a motion to adjourn uh unless there's any further questions yeah so move charity was that a move or was that was a question moving moving uh I'm good second same Tim all in favor signify by waving your hands uh I'm waiting oh yeah