 was yours because I have a couple oh okay and that's an addition and I would like to bring up our Thursday fire department meeting and question about whether we want to see if Calus in the fire department would be interested in postponing it given that Montpelier is having a big meeting about the future of downtown Montpelier that same time or whether we want to as Gina put it divide and conquer so let's go to the fire department yeah I'm definitely going to the fire department yeah okay I wrote down and then we're doing the let's see Miss Booking what about this debris thing you have that in here I have the TA report is where I was going to ask you guys about debris okay okay we can do it that way then the other thing is I want to bring up the repairs that I want to do that that's an event I listed in your report okay yep all right discuss maintenance okay perfect okay um review a minute to slide 24 Gina can we rely on you to annotate any changes we have a second second we have a second all those in favor please say aye aye you guys appear to have a little discussion what do you want to discuss well well Robert you should we had this question not over the chair but oh that's why I just made the motion not to oh so we made the motion sometimes we do discuss sometimes we figured we've already settled it all by then so if you want me to I'm learning your procedure well no okay so if you want to stick to strict procedure which is fine with me I don't like gray areas so just go over the floor no that's okay because I sense from you that you'd rather do it differently so we can do it exactly by the book which is fine with me you'd like to but anyway we already made the motion it's already been passed so there you go did you say I though I didn't really see you raise your yeah I didn't see you raise your hand okay so it's gonna pass unanimously for positive negative yes I got that losing thank you okay so we did the minutes the next thing we have is public comment I don't see any public here does anybody else see public because I definitely don't want to overrule or leave out public no public got it okay setting of the 2023 2024 property tax rates yes sir this is um this issue is is um kind of a foregone conclusion because the budget's already been set and is there any is there any latitude to to change this rate or is it just what's normal percent because normally we've gone along with at this point in time we've gone along with the percentage increase we did talk about it a few months ago that if we want to shave it closer we had that ability to do that but now and then we could try to find some savings if we're over budget and put some money so we did find some savings with this with very forecasting of salaries and benefits yeah a huge caveat that any change in employee elections could certainly affect this this figure but um you know and there are additional savings that could be for example we have a budget of $15,000 next year for emerald ash borer response um and we could decide to use ARPA funds for that we could also decide to reallocate the current year which will be a future discussion expenditure to ARPA so my question is there's only 10 minutes allocate to the assistance so that's why this is no I understand the question fully it's it's not we haven't generally changed course at this point though I think we could we could say all let's just go with 5% say 5% and of course then we might have a shortfall we might not but we do have but there's been a lot of discussion and debate as whatever going into this yeah this is well better yeah but we have a lot yeah I would say a couple things about that um after last meeting when we took a look at the um the average increase over the last several years and we saw because it uh had gone down in a previous year that the average increase was I don't remember what we said but it's under 2% it went down like 3.8 at least for one of them last year so yeah so it which is under the rate of inflation which so it seemed reasonable to me to not explicitly transfer ARPA funds merely for the sake of getting the tax rate down on the other hand what we you know the things that we've been talking about using the ARPA funds for in the future will have an effect of getting the tax rate down for next year and or the year after that I'm fine just waiting on that discussion okay thank you for the explanation so it is 13 3 4 cents looks like right increase just under 14 cents but of course I went down last year which is what happened the year before it was like oh you've got the tax rate of 22 must have been that's 238 but then the year before that FY 22 it was the tax rate was $2.47 it went down because the school had gone ours to go down so the school did go down so they went up see they went up only almost 10 cents yeah I was gonna say the majority of the increase this year is the yeah I mean we're not up that so when you figure it like that it's like well okay but we're not up that much we're only up four cents I don't know I think we're okay I mean there are wait I mean we put cheap at down no no you're right I mean we haven't really at this point time really haven't because we'd already put our heads to it we've been batting around for months yeah we're okay this is acceptable and that's kind of what we said at the last meeting yeah but I am not I'm not scoffing on your questions that's a good question just curious about the procedure how things go around yeah I think ultimately if I understand you I mean the select board is setting the tax rate so realistically you could do whatever you want yeah so in a way tonight we're doing this in the past that's what you're asking a procedure question basically about what our role has been at this point time yes exactly I'm generally going to do this and then think the key is you could make the tax rate whatever you want however then you have to figure out how the town's bills yeah so if that tax rate does not cover the town's bills then we have a future problem that the select board or we could raise that or we could raise the taxes and and have more money to spend I just want to say that you're always answered to the tax payers and I want and I always want to be in a strong position when I answer that question without a doubt yeah so there you go and the fiscal conservative I am too so we agree on something that's nice to see I have no tax progressive no I'm not even yeah so okay so you were kind of be happy to make a motion to accept the tax rate as as presented and it will be finalized the next meeting no no this is this is the actual setting of the tax rate oh right I'm looking at the wrong paper yeah you're looking at the minutes oh from last time yeah and then then uh Zoe you will be answering questions your phone so the um just for the record as presented is for a homestead tax rate of 2.523 and a non homestead tax rate of 2.4027 do we have a second on the motion then we can have further discussion sure you're the second yeah Kyle's seconding the motion now we're gonna open up for discussion per request from a select board member any more discussion just so you know so essentially tomorrow I draft a memo that goes to the treasurer that goes so kind of everybody here and like the listers will be locking down the grand list doing the pieces of parts that they need to do that kind of goes over to from a treasurer perspective from a tax bill so all the little things that need to be done from a system perspective activate so that we actually get a pdf of every single tax bill and then from there goes to printer and then yes we'll be mailed out but yes this is this is the night of setting the rate that is the foundation for a memo tomorrow that puts everything in motion and if there's any questions about Robert's rules Carl is much more adverse in Robert's rules as I have sat through my meetings with well no it sounds like you've been brushing up on them so definitely follow it it's been my it's been my reading material for the last since the last meeting for two weeks I've been reading it every night oh good thank you it's surprising they're readable I have the panel um I might bypass them anyway so is there further discussion given Robert's rules all the favor please say aye all right all right the ayes are going to have to do that okay so that's it here uh to the tax rate and consideration of homestead filing penalty waiver I haven't answered Scott's question that he hasn't asked yet what's that uh what do we usually do with this you're not no I'm just going to fill that man in the background like okay I have I have the the um usual motion that we pass on this we did read it to incorporate all the information last year but other than that in the past bunch of years we passed a motion that says the town is allowed to assassinate percent penalty for residents who file their homestead declaration late the town also has the option to waive the penalty for everyone there are also certain hardship exemptions and the town has chosen to waive the late filing penalty in the past for a number of reasons one the penalty only affects those who do do file but file late those who are required to file but don't file are not penalized if they're not caught the town's revenues to the town's revenues are not affected by whether someone declares a homestead in town or not three it is in the town's interest to encourage accurate information about who is a resident here and waiving the penalty encourages people to file homestead declaration even if it's late and four for a time the state allowed a homestead declaration to remain in effect until the landowner rescinded it the select board does not see a good reason for reverting to a system requiring filing each year and on that basis the select board has waived the homestead declaration late filing penalty the president was sad after a much thoughtful discussion yeah it's not binding but that's that's what we've done for the last so we have to adopt it every year yeah yeah yeah so we can um we can make a motion and we can discuss it further I like the motion I was to my esteemed colleague here yeah I think she doesn't want to make a motion I'll make a motion well maybe she'll make a second I don't know she might have controversy maybe she's well first we can make the second then we can discuss it further I know I can't I can't second my motion I know you can't okay we're looking for a second oh all second oh okay now we're going to open up for discussions for robert rules just like a member informed me we have any more discussions about the homestead filing penalty waiver no okay all the favor please say aye the ayes appear to how do they do happen okay good okay the next item is discussed maintenance of town office building this is something I discussed with Gina a little bit um so as you know I had fixed the roof we had a leak the leak is fixed I had cut the sheet rock out of the ceiling that needs to be fixed and we need to put some insulation above it I have reached out to thank you for doing that no problem so um you know I'm not charging because obviously I'm not a contractor the um but what I did do is I reached out to a town resident that had been recommended by you Todd Whitehead and he is way too busy to do it do any work on the building the building needs some work on the outside which I went over pretty closely by the way he has tremendous damage in his basement that he's yeah I know he would get a river going to there I spoke to him this morning so then um there's a young fellow that's been doing some work at my place good the good carpenter's dad's awesome and I asked him if he'd be willing to do it I went over the whole building with him and then Gina mentioned in fact they should have insurance which they do so I reached out to them today I just need to get an email to send the proof of insurance to and he'll work for 35 bucks an hour he's a good kid he'll come in Friday afternoon when Patricia's in here and fix the ceiling do the insulation in there because I want someone to be here because obviously I can't give him the code to get in um and then we went over the outside the outside needs some trim replaced um pretty much everywhere on the building there's rotten trim there's a bunch of rotten boards on the side of the porch it's going to take a little bit of digging to get it all fixed which it needs to be and also needs to be straight and paint um also where the flower beds up against the siding they need to be pushed back we need to put some flashing in there so the siding goes a lot off the building there's a lot of little things that need to be done so I just want to discuss that with the rest of us like what it's we're not looking at thousands and thousands of dollars but it could be two three thousand by the time we got done so I don't know what you think but I I think it'd be a good move to get this guy involved and maybe get a bit on the painting and script and then if you want to put it out for a bit you can uh I do have one name but maybe we'll find somebody else but the problem is that it's starting to get late in the season so kind of have to get it done I think we should move forward you're thinking it's not going to be exuberant and it's got somebody he can start friday so yeah prevent it from going out you know what I mean it's like first we'll get the inside thing done and then we'll work on the outside I would I would guess that um the number of people who have the skills who have a lot of time on their hands is very low yeah well he doesn't have a lot of time on his hand but he works for me some doing some kind of work there his father's got other jobs going yeah yeah yeah he's a good kid so who's gonna oversee the the work I will and I'll and uh you know I go by here all the time he'll tell me what day he's going to be here I'll pick out which area we're going to work on first we're going to do the inside the outside of course he doesn't need people here so he can work on the outside whenever so to be clear he's not going to be doing this great thing in the painting though not him no okay but he does have a name of somebody that could do it but if you won't put that out for big I don't know what you want to well that's up to the board um I personally move forward practically in my opinion we're out of time to go through a bid process and do all of that so that likelihood of us having this work done before winter is probably not gonna happen um if we have somebody who can do that probably would be better to go ahead and move on and get on to their schedule would be my thought if this were my home and I was trying to get something done before winter that's what I think so but he can't he can't do the painting no but there's some relative of his that does painting gave me a name contact information maybe that's a woman I think she could maybe do it before fall if we what I was gonna suggest is we'll just do one side at a time and then maybe she can start doing the painting behind the repairs that way we can get the whole thing done okay that's my thought so I guess some motion might read I authorized the select board chair to proceed with a project doing maintenance and scraping and painting on the town office building with the with the work done by local contractors that he chooses up the he deems appropriate up to a total cost of I can just surprise you of the cost and and we'll and we'll keep the select board appraised of yeah of the cost and progress yeah yeah I can tell you what is costing my point is not it's not going to be that big so that yeah at your discretion and you will give us yeah the painter can probably give you a ballpark price was that the painter yes yes and I can bring that to you but I'm probably going to reach out to her right away say what's your schedule let you charge okay yeah I'm just trying to capture what it is and we need a second that we can discuss this one oh you'll second it okay so how's this we I moved to authorize the select board chair to oversee maintenance work and painting on the town office exterior all this is exterior except for the okay on the town office using local workers amazing and rehabilitation using local workers he deems appropriate with the chair keeping the select board appraised at each meeting of the progress and budget yep okay and cost I believe you would want to use ARPA funds for this but please confirm that it would certainly be a good use of those funds and when we get to the town garage you're going to see that we may have some delays in that particular project so so yeah sure yeah it's not going to be a huge amount anyway so present present value wasn't using that yeah yeah that's part of the motion yes sure so further discussion all those in favor please say aye okay the next item is destination of town delegate to 2023 vlct annual meeting I failed to say that this particular meeting is held in south burlington this year okay for anyone that may consider going the location yeah just so you know the location alternates generally between killington and actually usually it's the fairgrounds in Essex here it's in the double tree in south with chitin and counting in killington so this is a good opportunity to um yeah meet other people involved in vlct to get a lot of information about how to be a better select board member find out about common issues that vlct members have you've been to it almost every year a bunch of times yeah so it's only it's an hour and a half well it's a it's a day long or two day long event but the actual meeting is an hour and a half or so two two hours it's um it's three annual meetings it's um the vlct itself passive the insurance and verb which is a retirement fund but the latter two are often fairly performatory but it's good information but don't you um isn't there some discussion before the one o'clock i mean have you always been i mean there are a lot of workshops yeah so they go starts early and goes late right right any select board member can attend yeah the full conference so yeah so the question that we are facing today is who will be the voting representative who will speak for us and vote for us and actually it's even just voting for us because i think the rules allow any select board member who's there to speak up so you're looking for something they can guarantee to be there pretty much yeah to be a representative but to be clear from my perspective these are things that they are trying to move forward in legislature a lot of it is yes and it it doesn't mean that that's actually going to happen it means they're going to try to make it happen so they what they do is they have various positions on different issues and then you know they so you may vote yes i want to do blah blah and they may advocate for that in legislature but it may not happen right right it may not get out the door but the league of cities and towns is influential in the legislature so we have been oh it's a good thing to do i'm not knocking i'm just trying to be clear on what the procedure is so we um we have not participated in any of the committees that that vet these proposals so but we have made comments on them on the floor yeah and some of the things that we've stopped is there was a one year when the proposal was to label natural gas a clean fuel for example another year the there was a proposal pushed by law enforcement to allow law enforcement to steal from citizens using the process of civil forfeiture and then keep the money that they take from people and uh that and a few of us um spoke up against that and it was voted down yeah so it's pretty interesting yeah yeah yeah so and really this decision doesn't have to be made tonight for the delegate i more put it on here oh i think we should make it well it's not here and yeah unless unless the select board members would like to go read about time maybe so i want to go you know i'd like to go but not be the delegate why not why not well it'd be too much responsibility i think other people would speak up more knowledgeably than me at this point yeah really don't get you know where they can go so some people just talk off the top of their head no i'd never go seriously i mean jump right in you're a resident with feedback to share yeah and you're a select board and one of the things that we we often do is we get the proposed legislative agenda and the changes ahead of time and and we look through it and give you feedback to bring to them so you're not entirely on your own yeah you're not just blindsided when you get there yeah we have we have uh basically we have all the stuff in front of us don't we we always go through it yeah and we say oh blah blah blah yeah and we say blah blah blah i would turn one to someone on planning commission fairly early and maybe i think just join this like we're something in st john and st j i think it was not yeah and it was it's kind of informative you meet people whatever i think it'd be a great opportunity for you thank you this and so it's something we can discuss because you may want to attend the full day at two days of the conference and i can help you so i can sign you up for that as well i mean you can as well on vlct's website but i can also help facilitate that when i'm signing up myself and because i i attend three full two days well there you go so do you want to take that plunge right now sure okay excellent boy you're bold yeah you'll let us know maybe some of us will go for one of the days just in the conference yeah yeah just let me know if any of them i can help i think i signed carl up last year but if anyone you i think you're welcome to sign yourself as well on vlct's website but i'm also happy to help with that for anyone that would like great i'm mostly just interested in the workshop so if anyone else wants to be the delegate please no let me know if you're definitely going then in case none of us went up going we should have representation yeah thank you thank you for stepping up so do we get involved with that yeah yeah so i i nominate zoey christensen to represent the town of east montpelier at the 2023 annual meetings of the vermont league of cities and towns and associated organizations you got a second for the discussion i'll listen favorably say hi okay the next item on our agenda is town garage project update discuss dissolution of town garage facility improvement committee so the long and short of where we are with the town garage project is we need to get a wetlands consultant to look at this site one cathleen jent was the first one to notice that there's wetlands potential wetland implications on the site suggested i reach out to the state which i did and received a response back that said yes you really need to get this looked at by a wetlands consultant before we move forward there's a map in your documents that shows that it's kind of probably where we would go with the building guthrie believes that when someone were to look at this it may not be as wet as the state originally thought it would be but we have to have a consultant go and do that and they need to do a wetlands delineation and first and foremost we need to decide where and how we can construct on this particular parcel so we lined up someone to come out i just got this this afternoon i need select board approval before i yeah so i did note i included for you the list of the consultants that are on the state website obviously there are some of them i like every one of these personally and i think they're all very very good well i did email with a long list i did email with the select board member who is not here tonight with john jewitt because given his previous experience thought and i did notice someone on this list who was from hardwick so john does have familiarity with this particular consultant michael lou smith who's with arrow wood environmental in hardwick and john has worked with him previously and did recommend that particular individual otherwise their names on the list to me so if the board has worked with any of these individuals certainly let me know otherwise i was kind of highlighting names that were closer to our location someone in randolph just you know to me if we have people that are closer than yeah and certainly a lot in the burlington chitenden county area so well i want to get people from massachusetts personally i think we should reach out to close people and see yeah time frame this so the question is how do you want to do this i mean i can we can i can start with the person that john jewitt has worked with in the past i don't know if we would need to rfb i have no idea what something like this costs this is out of my wheelhouse so i don't know what we will be looking at for this well we'll just find out what it costs reach out to somebody and find out if they can do it they can't then we need to move to somebody else and then part of the discussion needs to be what's the charge i mean i imagine that'd be an initial visit they got to pay for it or i imagine it do for just an initial visit right i don't know i would think so but we'll just find out i don't know we'll just find out of the essence we'll wait until each of you get those facts and figures or do you need to well first and foremost i think reaching out to somebody even see who has capacity because from my brief reading on this they need to be able to see the area when they can see water which means we have a limited amount of time before they're going to actually be able to see water that's not frozen so i don't know what kind of winter impacts may exist or may not again i don't know what this process is um what do you call the guy from erowood and just yeah that's what i was with him and just the sense of how much uh what the process involves how much she might charge yeah and um report back to us next time does that make sense that's fine with me is that a good time yeah if you email us and say you can come on next week and just charge us a lot of books yeah yeah fine yeah do it yeah schedule it yeah yeah because i don't want to get behind on this or like to keep it for it well that's the thing it's yeah it's i mean certainly time is of the essence in the sense that if we do want to consider a lot of our arpa funds to go towards this process this is where 18 months is not as long as you think and it's less than 18 months now but this is a necessary stuff right yes yes make sense to just try to be trying to understand the project if if this is deemed a wetland and we cannot build a tan garage are there alternative sites or we just are not going to have a tan garage waitfield currently has an rfp out to try to hire an architect engineer and their particular plan states that they would be building on their current site while not ideal that would that would be that is a potential it would not be the best alternative but i guess as far as that goes we get to it because i think it's fine look at how's that sure yeah so and that's the point the is the wetlands consultant we could find out that what has been noted here that's kind of been done by looking at maps and topography and things like that is not really here so i have a request for question for you to ask when you talk to him that is there was a recent end of term us supreme court decision about navigable waters of the us and what that means and the the mega majority threw out precedent about what that means and as i understand it removed a lot of protections for wetlands but but i i have not read it uh and frankly i haven't read a lot of the news news coverage about it because it came out while i was on vacation or just before i left so what i'd like you to ask is um does that decision affect the way that he delineates wetlands right now and if it does i would like us to have a discussion about whether we want them to be delineated in our town or for this project at least according to the old standard i heard when that really came out as part of this agenda item is discuss the solution of town garage facility improvement committee the reason this is here is we have had a couple of meetings and we haven't been tending to the open meeting law which is minutes etc etc so it would be a lot easier if we didn't have the committee and we didn't have to worry about that basically we would have some informal discussions among a few of us but everything is brought to select board anyway so i think we should resolve any citizen who would like to come to select board yeah yeah right so if a citizen a resident has uh some views on the town garage process and as a little hesitant to speak up at a select board meeting but would like to you know get some input from people who are involved who should they talk to about that they could talk to Gina okay myself um road foreman okay about the town garage okay easily enough phone call yeah okay easy cheesy yeah as we go through this i envision we need to have discussions on who is the quote unquote project team per se like who are the stakeholders you know and i've listed here that we would be i would want to run this past the planning commission the planning commission writes a town plan for us looks forward future how the how the town is evolving to me they're an important stakeholder and should be a part of this process energy committee of course would be a part of this process we would like to have some energy efficiencies in this building the drb will be involved as our development review board what are we going to be building so i think some of this i'm looking to the select board for help as we go forward of how this looks i don't believe anyone on this select board has been involved in a in a project of this nature of this size for the town because i believe the fire department which was last structure built in any way comparable to this was done prior to any members here we're on the board so it's new for all of us so we need to figure out how this goes which is also why i believe that everything is coming to the select board now there's really no reason i think that committee was really formed to talk about location sites what to do it was more of that very preliminary we're now getting into this everything's going to come to you all for decisions before moving forward so one question i've gotten is uh why we even need an rfp for a special design are they're not standardized designs for town garages out there that we could just take and say okay we're going to build a box here and we're going to use somebody else's design what we're experiencing right now was exactly my concern and why we need an rfp you have to know where you're putting that building and what the implications are where that building is going to go as we see we thought we had a great site that's right adjacent to this one there may have to be complications with that i've said since day one when we started talking about this that my concern was always the siting of the building not the construction of a steel building these buildings are relatively simple they're not that complicated figuring out where you put where you're putting it is the problem so the rfp will be the cathlean is building it will be more that's the architect engineer the the it with the engineer component too i guess an engineer component would be the siting yeah yeah but meanwhile we're going to go ahead and working on the siting side so taking some well we're getting a wetlands consultant they're not necessarily determining all your pieces parts their septic implications for this there's the the the structure to me is easy well it's just i can't put the building there it's all the pieces and parts that's what the wetlands people say oh no you can't do this like okay done done yeah they might say something about sand pile again too okay thank you everyone's good with this yeah okay we move to the next agenda item do we need a motion to dissolve that committee or does it just disappear i think we probably need a motion to make a motion to dissolve the to dissolve the committee it's more of a committee gfi gfi c gfi c you made the motion we have a second yes okay let's have more discussion any further discussion oh no okay all those favorably say that all right the highest security have they do have it um so the next agenda item is update on road report repairs from storm damage so how holes are not storm damage that actually came out that the FEMA mean i know where it is and i avoid it the corner of the moon is really the biggest yeah that were that they've been working on and they have been working on that um the main delay from opening it really is not east maupilier it's that the contractor is working on a culvert near the dam yeah they expect to have that done over this weekend so the road crew expects to open the road then monday afternoon or tuesday okay next week and then i attended the FEMA applicant is that the only road left in east maupilier that's impassable sander circle is impassable the sander circle will remain impassable for the foreseeable future until we get a design for sander circle is that where there's a very large culvert that's not i mean i haven't driven i haven't driven down where on on the circle is it it's on the back side yeah it's on the back side if i can only have one of the moon take a right okay which i go around no i know i just run down many times after you another road yeah yeah after you get around the edge of that circle it's on the back side of the circle okay is it a parallel or downhill from that spur road that dead end road whose name i'll forget yeah it's downhill from that yeah yeah i believe i haven't seen it but i know the road this was a particular one that we met with uh um river scientist and we discussed and this one just it it needs to be completely redone and it's going to be a rather involved project so and the road is passable for all residents you just may maybe typically would have gone right and you're going to need to go left if you're from there and head around the circle so it's not a big impact to residents it's maybe a couple minutes yeah the road is it's a circle so they just can't drive the whole circle so it's not passable no no it's not passable no i know everybody has some yeah the current plan is to put some jersey barriers there to to make sure it's very clear the road is closed next step on ones like this on sparrow farm on sod and palm are going to be we're going to have to get an engineer so that'll be another discussion because as you all know Doug Newton was the previous engineer for everyone in central Vermont and is no longer with us so chase and chase has stacked up to perform that work so at some point i'll be coming to you because we won't need to get plans i mean we can't move forward on any of these until until the river scientists tell us what size culvert we need to have in the area and then an engineer designs how that culvert needs to be in that area so um those will be kind of future because we have temporary permit permits on sod and palm circle and on sparrow farm um to just basically fill those areas in right now but that is not a permanent so one question i have for FEMA is not only will we be reimbursing these temporary costs what is the timing and what is the process for designing the permanent fix and then being funded for that as well what does i'll be filling it in temporarily look like that's sparrow farm road i'm i'm afraid any temporary solution would end up mostly in the creek uh it's really just filling it in yeah unfortunately with that one i mean that's a it's funny they mentioned friday at the meeting it was thrown out that you know those areas where you have an 18 inch culvert and you really shouldn't have an 18 inch culvert you need a lot more than that that's exactly what sparrow farm is i mean it's it's wild to see that little pipe coming out um but uh gut three has a plan i can't remember the specific details right now that was approved by the river scientist um to um yeah we have temporary permits on both sod and sod and palm is done so having temporary permits means that river scientists oh yeah they issued us the temporary permits yeah yeah um no yeah we have the temporary permits on those but the thing is they are temporary fixes those are not considered the permanent fix so next step would be the permanent fix so that's a question that i have for FEMA but i was in an hour long meeting that was already at two hours so i just will save that question for when i'm actually speaking with FEMA so the next thing to let you all know is after that meeting um i submitted officially for our request for public assistance rpa is what everyone calls it for the town to be included for this event dr 4720 we have not been approved just yet but that the state approves us and that that was the big message delivered to the meeting is if we that's for the FEMA so they left the meeting we the biggest thing they impressed upon us is the main thing we need to do is just do that step i just hadn't done it yet because i knew i was going to go to this meeting and just in case they said anything i wanted to hear before i click submit yeah i waited so so i'm sorry for the minute i missed uh you said still working on horn and the moon and what's the hold up there uh the there is a contractor working on a culvert near the dam that we have nothing to do with it's outside of our of our scope but that's been part of the delay we can't get the road open because it's closed there regardless so but the road crews currently working through um getting that so the contractor's supposed to be done over the weekend the road crew is going to finish up then their pieces in part it's kind of closer to that and then open the road monday afternoon or tuesday so is it accurate to say that the road crew is continuing to work on these popular part of the road yes and even if they finished uh it couldn't open right away because of the correct yeah yeah so we'll be on the line for fema just so you all know what i was told friday is next steps once we once it's approved obviously they're compiling all of this we will be assigned um someone that's with fema and someone that's with the state um i was told we will have a preliminary conversation with fema to just talk through what our damage is at a very high level then we will have a multi-hour meeting where fema will come and we will actually pour over everything from all the pictures the lists so i talked to gut three this morning um because ideally gut three is a part of that meeting so he can directly relay any information or answer any questions they may have at that time is when essentially i will have my own spreadsheet but fema we will actually start feeding data into the official fema spreadsheet and then believe it's we have 60 days after that document is kind of crafted to oh we forgot this road you know you can adjust what's on that list but then after that point that's your list well what a learning curve yeah so did you realize you know you're a fema expert or will first i thought the christmas storm was bad so you submitted the the rpa the west republic assistance from fema to the state well it's i submitted that to fema but the state of the state actually approved okay okay and um and then after that's approved you had these meetings with fema or is this okay yeah after it's approved at some point in the coming who knows how long um fema will reach out okay and schedule a time for us to have an initial intake and then have the deep dive into everything that we have going on so the approval of the rpa is merely saying you can go ahead with the process it's just putting us details with fema it's putting us in the queue it's lumping us in i think a hundred towns so far have submitted what you said and well not excuse me towns and organizations so organizations can also submit fire department will be on that list as well at some point what happened to the fire department they can be on the list for reimbursement for their response to the storm okay well they didn't have much they say they had some okay we're done with that okay thank you um update on county road events proposal i think that everyone read Larry's email i did and i understand what he's saying it's like turned into i mean i think he's very well meeting and he just didn't imagine that would be such a convoluted process to get this approved well i want to emphasize i've talked to him about this yeah and what he said to me privately also it was reflected in the letter i want to emphasize that he said uh so just for the record um Larry Gilbert sent a letter to the select board uh saying that uh after we discussed at a previous meeting that they did not want to have another county road open roads event in um august because the flood everybody so sensitive and busy with other things but maybe september and october they they went back and and thought about it after the discussion and they said i don't want to do it this year at all but he did say in the letter that if not for the flood it would be a different conversation and that he wanted to leave the door open for doing it again next year or as he put in the letter i think if and when things returned to normal so this may not be the last week we've heard of it yeah i just don't think it's completely the flood i think it's all the steps that he didn't think he was going to have to go through to make this an event he's somewhat he was naive to the ramifications of what he was proposing he he didn't expect it to be uh so much a so honorous process yes yes and whatever you know i'm not defending but that was saying that's what i think that was not definitive for his decision no but that's just my take on it so whatever so that's not gonna happen any other questions on that uh the next thing is curb cut applications yeah field access um okay for 1500 us reach us 14 north so he can access his property from daggett road and in order to access his field it's the most efficient way to to get there so it's asking for a curve cut to provide field access to his field that is on daggett road so you don't usually need a curve cut to that or field well he actually submitted this after discussing it with um with the road foreman so and deffery did review this in approval you need to go against something so on the construct a new access column there's an option of checking agricultural but it's checked for residential residential does require a court approval by understanding well he's not a farm so that may be why i think that they saw i thought the same thing as well but i think that because he's not necessarily a farm he's just trying to access his field to ah god leave the blank rejected but all right i think something i'm being precision at scott's just being scott yeah okay now we can have discussion well you could be more against it oh okay well i wasn't looking for pre knowledge of your vote i mean that's not democratic okay um so it was no more discussion no okay all those in favor please say hi hi the eyes appear to have or they do have okay so that is application number two three dash zero three zero three zero i'm gonna put scott down the voting against it just no i saw him raise his hand so we have warrants here and you have the original of the curb cuts i do right here you could pass that around okay i'll do that right now so today is it is thank you what's this year that's the financial questionnaire yes for you to sign you've already you guys already approved it but so am i just supposed to sign it and did did the don't know you get changed to uh yes or no or i think she put it is no because they actually did not pretend that okay it still says don't know no she may not she got an answer to that she probably heard about before yeah it says don't know okay there's that no this is about warrants does that just need your signature says no he's talking about the one there yeah okay yeah because that's we've already approved it i guess last meeting is what she said gavel bills just so you know a lot of the costs that are directly related to the storm we are coding directly to a FEMA account at the advice of our external auditors FEMA account it's currently budgeted at zero yeah correct yeah yeah they suggested that we do that just to keep the cost they're easily identified for any cost that or when he knows he's using an entire load of material or whatever the case may be then just have it there we obviously have some that especially at the beginning came out of stock but the other thing they did mention last week at the meeting was you know even if you're using a culvert from stock when you buy that new culvert that new culvert essentially is your FEMA cost um so like there's going to be more cleanup i'm sure as we start going through this so it's a record but we set this up right away um we have very good external auditors so they sent us an email very shortly after the flood and said hey uh just to give you a heads up it would be smart and make sense to go ahead and set up a FEMA account so we did that immediately provided that account number to Guthrie so that he can he essentially started using it right off the bat for anything that he was buying that was directly related to the covering from the shore so i just mentioned our external auditors uh Sullivan Empowers they will be on site next week and they will be essentially doing all of the onsite work uh for the audit next week and then i don't i can skip over the next one because then we can get into the debris thing but um two zoning permits were issued since the last meeting an addition basically both were additions to homes um i will be on vacation the last week in august and i'm not planning i'm planning to actually take an eight hour at least day away from this office for the first time in over a year so um i will be making every attempt to to not come in here FEMA may be the only thing that i would alter my schedule um so technically kind of we have debris i have a note in here about debris removal i wanted to talk to the select board i think previously it had been discussed that we would not be participating in debris removal but the state seems to have a pretty good process in place um and it's a question for the select board of would you like me to reach out to the state contact steven young who i think set has been in communication with to uh pick up debris in town i guess that there's a need and it's not that big a deal well i guess we could do it i mean it doesn't sound like the hazardous waste thing is an issue because i don't know what they do with people with pain cans out of the cell or instead of taking away i don't know what um what uh set provided an email um that he received from steven young when he came tonight what he explained in this email to you set is what dan and i don't recall the last name that he came here today from central vermont solid waste said to me there are two contractors saris and tetra tech who are involved in this process um and they're essentially doing all that needs to be done to get full FEMA reimbursement for this debris removal the impact of the town should be relatively small anywhere from two and a half percent to seven and a half percent of the total cost how much need we have i don't know direct calls to here have not been that many yeah some of what we hear is more second hand information of someone else coming in for something else and hey someone has a bunch of has debris so what i was thinking today was one approach we could take if you wanted to pursue debris removal is number one i can reach out to the person from the state and get on this list and then from what i understood today this person will then get me in contact with these contractors who will then come and meet with us and get the ball rolling however i think also what we need to do is simultaneously put a post out on front porch forum is the best means i can think of to reach out to people and say if you have need for debris removal please call the town office i would ask rosie rosie is actually called in but i would ask rosie to please create that list for us names addresses who has debris that they would like picked up once i speak with the contractors and i know the timing will continue putting posts out the state okay here's the plan here's when they're going to come i would give people a deadline to let us know that you need debris removed and all this will be driven by the timing the contractors tell me and then here's when it'll get picked up that's the best approach i can think to take i have some reports from 211 of who's called in but if you've looked at those reports they're not if they're they're driven by mailing address so they're not necessarily inclusive of all of our actual least non-pillier residents that may need help exactly so um there's cover miss playing field um this is not it's kind of short i think i don't think so because these contractors are not going to be here i don't think a month from now new they're coming to the end of this right now so when i attended the last emergency briefing that's one of the things they were saying is we're coming to the end of this of this process so once these contractors are once the state releases them and they're gone they're gone so we would have to then contract with a casella or someone like that but the one thing that the gentleman that came today did tell me is the reason these two contractors are involved is cirrus is the one picking up the debris but tetratech is the one doing all the documentation that's going to be needed for FEMA so some of the initial trash removal that was done in Mopilier where they just went and started picking things up they were then having to go in on the back side and try to sift through all of that because it was not done in a FEMA compliant way so this is all very FEMA compliant way but we are we're probably looking at a few weeks and these people will be exiting the state that's it we talked about this in the last meeting of the prior help this this is going to work for you this is a whole rigmarole is it really is it really necessary I mean is it demand? I told the guy it wasn't and he got kind of huffy so then I was there okay just send me an email and I'll bring it to me did you put put out the thing on front porch forums that you're not going to do this I guess yeah well from what I was told so here's my take on that and yes of course this has worked for me but if our residents need help and need this to be removed then we need to do this is my opinion as a town administrator and as a resident so um it's not the hazardous waste thing that we were kind of grappling with before it doesn't look like we have to provide a place for hazardous waste which is what our concern was if we don't have a facility for hazardous waste that seems like a structured proposal of the hazardous waste dumpster that seemed a little bit less controlled this is just we just call it a three but the question you're going to get is a flooded seller can I bring my stuff out my flooded well a lot of these will be I mean it is going to be my basement flooded and you know that but that qualifies um so that's the thing I imagine to the guy today was well paincans were in well there still could be hazardous waste in this process and we would that's why I would want to talk to Stephen Young first before I even put a post on front porch forum because I need to know what to tell the residents to do yeah because I do believe they still need to separate that debris so if there are paint cans and things that are considered hazardous hazardous waste they need to be in two separate parts I would hope so yeah I mean the other thing that needs to be stressed too is the stuff has to go in the right of way because people can't come on proper parking yes yes how has been by the road how worried are we that people will take advantage of this to say oh I've got all this junk in my garage right well we don't have it's not the dumpster thing that we're thinking of this is a little bit different process the state comes along the grapple truck or whatever it is put it in the back of the truck so a little different than what we envisioned my understanding is I think essentially I won't even say most that all other towns have done this and taken the state up on this so well if you want to do that that sounds like it's a good plan do they guarantee how much FEMA do they guarantee how much reimbursement FEMA will give because it looks like well an email that Seth received they said that we'd be looking at it's the anywhere from two and a half to seven and a half because that's really the difference yeah for our cost that's really the difference between FEMA reimbursing 75 percent or 90 percent the state believes it's probably going to go the 90 percent route because of the amount of damage it's a minimal cost for for a providing some service that maybe we should be is what you're saying if people have a need I mean someone commented to me today that you know this could certainly open up a whole other can of worms of we've said we weren't going to do this how many people potentially have done this on their own dime yeah yeah and now we are so you know I'm asking for help not lately there haven't been as many calls lately no what's that I don't believe many calls are coming in now so I don't know what response we could do this put a post on front porch forum at three people call yeah I mean it could be you know maybe this would be helpful or whatever right we don't is there a need is there a need we would like to serve the residents and if there's a need we'd like yeah and we'll do something for you you know it's like you can make the message sound you can make the message sound like we're not exactly backtracking we're just trying to work through the process right yeah yeah which is honestly true I mean I think what's tough is we don't we don't have that road that you're driving down and the whole road flooded you know we may have one or you know we have you've count them on one hand the ones that you don't very visibly see the flooded basements we don't necessarily directly you know we're politicians so we're not always supposed to tell the truth someone said that the other day it's like really so we want to I do I'm a naive person and I don't think every politician's crooked as an elected official I want to de-sting my ties that's very good Carl but we also you know we also make decisions that we need to rethink and we need to have the courage to when we get more information to rethink but we're really not rethinking the decision where it's a little bit of a curve in the road yeah it's a different thing that's we're re-sunking we're re-sunking we're making a slight turn yeah we have a new opportunity we have a different opportunity yes that's come to our attention yes so that's what we need that yeah okay you good I wasn't asking you okay so what's the next thing we've got the the next thing is we have a fire department meeting on Thursday so the question is now so Rosie said there are still at least two residents who need assistance getting rid of debris okay so thank you Rosie so that would work really I mean because if it's only two or three to me that's fine it's worth the effort to help those two or three residents clear out their debris especially because it's different than what we're envisioning it's not a dumpster setting up that we have to sort through it's a truck that's going to come along and pluck the stuff off their front lawn right Steve did you want to kind of tell this is that why you lit up your screen no okay very good okay I have a mattress and a box spring and a rug that got wet I don't think it's a burden for the town I left it on the floor and it was raining so you know I said my neighbors have to uh subsidize my uh lack of uh foresight yeah how about my payload we might hear that from others too yeah okay so did you want to talk about the fire department well I think that was part of it I brought that up and yeah just to reiterate on Thursday at 6 30 I believe there's going to be a meeting in Montpelier at Vermont College of Fine Arts big big hall noble hall and it'll be about what do we do about downtown Montpelier when we keep getting flooded out like this and that will be of considerable interest to many people who use Montpelier as their city so I wanted to just check the temperature in the room about people's interest in either I mean it's kind of late with both Cal us and the fire department board planning to come to Thursday's meeting but you know in emergencies we we do change things do we want to see about postponing the fire department meeting which isn't urgent it's just a routine meeting that we have several times a year or do we want to say some of us will go to one some of us will go to the other I don't think we should postpone the meeting in East Montpelier but I'm not why some people are you conflicted on which meeting to go to? I have a board meeting that I'm going to be in Montpelier for and I'm just going to go up to the Montpelier also. So you won't be at the fire department? I'm sure. And Zoe are you going to the fire department meeting? I was planning on coming to the fire department meeting because I know I have to learn a lot about what's going on. Yeah so we have two representatives. I will say one thing about the fire department meeting I think in light of the flood I do think there are some topics that could be discussed as well with the fire department they did stop by here last week we had a conversation I I believe there could be some value in meeting with them Thursday night if anything to talk about yes the regular stuff that's done the financials and all that kind of fun stuff but also somewhat of a recap of the because there was really no collaboration between the town and the fire department throughout this flood well I don't know what it's just supposed to be I mean what what do we talk seems odd to me that what's that there's no communication between the town office and that's all fire department I mean that's sort of a larger conversation about having our fire our essential fire services provided by an independent organization that we don't have control over the board or the hiring or anything of so what I don't understand well I was asked last week why you know that well the comment was made no one's called us and I threw back well no one called me either don't know but they get called if there's a fire or there's somebody needs to go to the angles there was some criticism about there was no reaching out across the aisle to the fire department to communicate with them after the flood yeah I don't know what their role would be put cones on washouts or help the road crew I'm not really sure what they're that's talking about hence my point of it would be worthwhile to have a discussion with them yeah sure we'll find out and so okay so your question was answered yes are you going to the mob I'll go to the mob okay so it's just Zoe and I maybe John okay and the only other thing we have is a personnel matter so that will be the executive session yes okay I move to go into executive session to discuss a personnel matter for the essay is it for the discussion all is a favor please say hi I secure to have it that you have the select board has emerged from executive session at 757 right was I supposed to allow you to say that no yeah okay and I don't have center stage we have decided to extend a temporary arrangement with an employee I move we adjourn oh very good is it for the discussion on the motion to adjourn it's not it's not a motion it's not for discussion but you can't you can't discuss it it's not every motion was not a motion not not adjourned oh you're discussing it no he is but there's not okay all the favors we say