 For announcements, I'm going to turn Cody over to Kelly, who's one of our table counter manager assistants. Kelly, help me. I have two tables. The safety line is out there, and they have a bunch of information about becoming an advocate. The Census Bureau is out there. If anyone looking for a job, they're employees. The RET Committee has information out there on the skate park. There's information. The Sanity Conservation Commission is answering questions about the light building property, the 428 Pleasant Street, and they're actually trying to find ideas on names for that property and what everybody would like to see it used for. The BRI has seen the list of classes, but there's a ton of great classes out there that are offered this year. The Historical Society and Gifford has a survey that's going around. If you want to try to catch up with Marilyn Pratt, she's got the Historical Society surveys and what they're doing is they're trying to do a book. On the history of the people in Bethel, and they're looking for photographs, names, any kind of information anybody can offer. She recently passed away, started the pie table, and she was a great lady that dedicated a lot of her energy and time to the town. So if you all have a chance, keep a piece of pie, and remember that great lady girl that she was when she did the town festival. We have some to appreciate you and thank you for the fabulous job that you've done. A brief description on what each committee does. So if you have to appreciate any volunteers that come forward, the DRB is one of the committees, the REC committee, and the planning commission. They're all looking for volunteers. So we hope you guys have a chance to take a look at any information you need or have to answer questions at the town manager's office. Have a great day and we hope you come out. At the center in the rear there are extra town reports. There are paper ballots. We have several items that most likely will be by paper ballot. So make sure you have a few of those. Everyone who is a registered voter needs to have a blue badge. If you're a visitor, it says visitor at the top. Only registered voters are allowed to participate as far as voting and speaking, unless you have the information. So make sure you have checked in at the back of the gym. Also on the table back there are a couple of items. There's the trash ordinance, a copy of that, which we will be discussing later. There's also a replacement article 13. We'll talk about that later. It was not fully printed in the town report. So also, I wanted to mention the Bethel Operators Committee. This has been about a five year project by the town meeting committee. It's now with the printers. We hope to have it ready today despite our best efforts. It was not available. It will be later this week. It's going to be available at the town offices. At this point, you've printed roughly enough for one per household. So later this week or next week, it feels so inclined to stop by the town's first office. We'll have some available at some other events throughout the spring to get those out. That's a very comprehensive menu of everything about Bethel. It's good for new folks as well as solar folks. So I want to take a picture of that. Just a little conscript here. Is there any new people? Anyone here who was your first time attending the town meeting? Don't be bashful, raise your hand. Okay, a couple here. A couple here. Great. Thank you very much. I'm going to sign on the speed of one hour. That was kidding. We encourage everyone to participate. This is your meeting. This is why you're here, to be involved in your local government. So now I'm just going over a few ground rules to go by and try to keep an orderly meeting. They sound a little far out in my name, but they're meeting. We go by Robert's rules of order, which are the basic rules of order. Except for Vermont law takes precedence. The body cannot change state law, but you can change Robert's rules. So an article must be moved and seconded by the body, then restated by the moderator under consideration and debate on an article may begin. So after I restate the motion, the person who made the motion has the right to speak first. Articles may not only have one amendment at a time associated with them, and amendments made to an article likewise may have only one amendment associated with them. So we don't get too far out. And after you've spoken once on a particular article, you will not be recognized the second time during discussion on that article or amendment until all voters who wish to speak on the issue for the first time are given an opportunity. So Robert rules thus allow you to speak twice on a given motion, but no more than twice, and limits the duration of the speeches for no more than 10 minutes. The vision of the House can be requested by one voter before or after a voiced vote. So Vermont State law provides for a paper ballot vote under request of seven voters unless the town has made other arrangements, which we can do, we have not done. But at this point, it's requested seven voters before or after a voiced vote, right off the bat, and you can ask for a request of a paper ballot, or after a decision of the House. So all motions, remarks, and discussion must be addressed to the moderator. And I'll do my best to recognize you in the order to raise your hand. I'll be recognized to speak, even to move the previous question, which means to reconsider the previous question that you just voted on. So after being recognized, stand up, or you can just come to the microphone in order and give your name. We need to have your name. You may be a longtime resident, but there are new folks here, obviously. We need to know who is speaking, who is making the motion, and who is providing the second. So I'll be asking for that. Come to the microphone and speak in a loud voice. Speak fairly close to the microphone. Last night we had a few little sound issues with people standing back too far. Seth has also turned off the, I had the custodians turn off the fan back there. I can already tell it's helping immensely. Okay, so your speeches must be confined to the merits of the question. You will not be allowed to engage in personal attacks on a member of the body or their motives. We're going to keep it civil here. Remarks state law prohibits consideration of the articles that have not been warned. This means you cannot take binding action under the article, other business, and you can't amend warrant articles such that they would deal with business that hasn't been warned and so significantly that they would be significantly different than what was told. So reconsideration of an article is allowed by the law to stay up until a point has reached where the body has begun to work on another article. Basically what Chris is saying is that if we voted on something, and you being a person who voted on the prevailing side have second thoughts and you want to revisit that article, you may do so, but you have to be a voter on the prevailing side to do that. So my role as moderator is to help you accomplish the business you intend to do. Raise your hand and ask questions if you don't understand what's happening or if you think what is happening is wrong for some reason. Or if you want to do something but you don't know how to proceed and please tell me if you feel I'm ruling improperly. The right to challenge the moderator's rulings and I won't be offended. This is part of the process. It's done in many, many meetings over the years. It's happened and it's to emphasize this is your meeting. I might advise that state law doesn't allow what you're trying to do. You can do it and then we'll deal with the consequences later. Or state it would be a court issue that would be thrown out. So I mentioned before that only registered voters may vote or speak at the meeting today unless we make an exception. And I just want to go back to the reconsideration article. We can reconsider it. We can reconsider an article up until the point that the next article has been presented on the floor. And after that point you cannot reconsider. Okay. Yes? Can you explain what the vision of the house may be? Sure. Yeah, thanks. The vision of the house would be if I call for a voice vote and the hands go up and maybe it's somewhat close and I call it one way. And you'll almost hear me say, it appears that the eyes or maids have it and I'll hesitate. And if someone thinks that that's not correct, you would say you requested a division of the house or a standing vote. So then we'll go and I'll call for folks to stand. Usually if it's that close though, my recommendation is you go right to a ballot and then there's no question. But division of the house is beyond the voice vote. It's either during a standing vote or going to a ballot. Thanks, Carl. Okay. Now, our next part of the meeting as you historically those who have been here before our house representative is always here to bring us up to speed briefly on what's going on in a month here. We'll do that. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for inviting me to do that. Sandy House, as you know, has been our state representative for many years. And this economy here swans on the cast for speaking with us tonight today. So we thank you, Sandy, for all you've done over the years. And if there's no objection, obviously Sandy is out of order this time. We'll allow her to speak. If anyone objects, we'll vote. No, okay, it's me. Good morning. So as usual, when I come this time of year, we are at almost the midpoint of the legislative session. We go from January into mid-May. And this is the second year of biennium, which means that we're working, we can be working on bills that were introduced a year ago, but we have to get finished. Whatever we're going to do, we have to finish with before we adjourn in May, or those issues are dead. And what's very, what the immediate deadline is, we have what we call a crossover deadline between the House and Senate. And so by the end of next week, we are in recess this week for a time meeting. But when we go back next week, we have four legislative days to get bills out of committee on each side. So a bill that's in the House has to be passed out of committee there, or in the same on the Senate side. Anything that doesn't come out of committee by the close of business next Friday will be finished for this year and finished for the biennium. There are a lot of things that are, some of the big issues that you've been following, maybe in the news in the next week, and a lot of things will just fall off, will fall off the table for another discussion. The recent big news is that we did, with the Senate, we did override the governor's veto on minimum wage. So that actually has become law, it hasn't become law. What that means is that people who are currently earning minimum wage, which is $10.96, will go up to $11.75 next January 1st, and the following year it will go up to $12.55. Thereafter, the law reverts to the existing cost of living increase that's in existing law. Another big thing that we're working on, we have decided this year that it's finally time for the legislature to take decisive action to address climate change. And there are a number of proposals pending. The House just passed the Global Warning Solutions Act, which now will move to the Senate for them to look it over and take it through the process. As passed by the House, what that does is it puts existing goals that the state had for greenhouse gas reductions into statute. They were just visionary and this would make them law. It also creates a council to try to put together a plan that will bring together all state agencies. Right now we don't really have an overall state plan. And so the concept of the council is to figure out how we get everybody together at the table, how we move forward as one. And what they come up with will then go to the agency of natural resources for rulemaking. Anything that is proposed by the council or by the agency will have to, that requires either an appropriation or any kind of increase in either taxes or anything like that would come back to the legislature. That is exclusively legislative business. It has to be done by us. And very soon you will be receiving your notice of the U.S. Census and I want to make a personal plea for you to please respond. I met with someone from the Census last summer who told me that at least one nearby Vermont town was counted in the last census as having 150 people and when he spoke to the town clerk she told him no, there were 150 people in that town. This is a big deal because the numbers of getting a correct count, what they call a full count for complete count, excuse me, for Vermont affects the money that we get from the federal government. When we do our budget every year at the state level about over $2 billion of the money that we spend is money that comes from the federal government and much of that is based on the information that they have from the census. So you will get something in mail, you can respond by mail, you can respond by phone, you can respond online but please don't ignore it and encourage your family and friends to fully cooperate with the census. The final thing I want to talk about this morning is the coronavirus that's been in the news a lot. The governor has just put together a task force again to get all state agencies together and working together to make sure that we have a plan in place. At the moment we don't have any reporting cases in Vermont, but they seem to be but there's one in Dartmouth so they're getting closer every day. The Vermont Department of Health if you go to their website the very first thing at the top of the page is a link to the most current information that they have on how you as an individual and your physicians can deal with the disease. And with that I will say I wish you, oh one more thing I do have a written report and can find it on the back table and I wish you a very productive meeting. Our state senator, David Cormick is also with us today. It's so good to be as you know I live here in Bethel. One of the things I don't like about being a state senator I represent 26 towns and so town meeting day trying to get to as many times as I can has pulled me away from my own town. Town meeting has always been civil. Remember once about 25 years ago things got a little hot and voices were raised and a few personal accusations were made and a voice from the back said alright everybody calm down this isn't royalty you know so let me just add a little bit on the global one which is I would hope that if we had to choose between the short term bottom line and a healthy, useful beneficial environment I would hope we would choose the environment that we'd be willing to make sacrifices but I don't think that's necessarily what we have to do a lot of what we have to do to combat global warming is going to be profitable things like getting on renewable energy and insulating better that's going to create jobs and the more we get onto renewable sources of energy the less money we're sending out of state for the energy we now buy and import if we do have to make a sacrifice we're coming up on the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and I've been thinking what would have happened if in early 1942 right after Pearl Harbor if the American people had had this sort of casual attitude about the war that many people have about global warming you hear people say well yeah global warming is a problem but you know I don't want to be inconvenienced I don't want to spend any money people would say well you know I'm all for winning this war but what aggression you show you is just too extreme I think we maybe wouldn't have done as well as we did as a nation but again it's not just about sacrifice there are actual economic short term financial benefits as well I serve on the Appropriations Committee and the Health and Welfare Committee the Appropriations Committee does the budget we operate on a fiscal year July 1st to June 30th so we are now presently developing the budget for fiscal year 2021 and I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels old I can't believe I'm looking at 2021 but there it is we started the session dealing with the budget adjustment act which is in the middle of the fiscal year we make changes because no one no one's a profit no one can predict the future the budget is based on projections on best most responsible guesses and so it then turns out midway through the fiscal year every year well this revenue source wasn't as good as we thought it would be we gotta get some more money this revenue source was better than we thought it would be I wonder what we do with that this project costs more than we thought and so I mean it's just making budget adjustments people often say why don't you just get it right the first time and again it's because no one can see the future you make the best cases the analogy I would use is like driving down a road if you're going to drive straight you don't actually go on a wheel like this driving straight and well it's a little bit of this and that's the same thing with budget adjustment both on the budget adjustment act and the budget this year neither was particularly troublesome or controversial revenue revenues came in more or less as projected and as expected things have cost a battle we thought so it would make many many small adjustments similarly in developing the fiscal year 2021 budget the governor proposes a budget it goes to the house first because they're closer than people and then it comes to the senate because we're supposedly the wise ones who will make sure the house doesn't go off the demand I gotta tell you in 30 years I've never seen it actually work like that I don't think the house is any smarter I mean I don't think the senate is any smarter than the house but it doesn't hurt to have two separate bodies consider everything so everything gets considered twice not to mention what we consider the governor I think we're going to give the governor we're going to pass more or less with many many many changes but nothing radical nothing really upsetting you may have noticed you haven't heard a lot of argument about the budget which has happened in other years so we're going to end up probably passing more or less with the house gave us which will be more or less recommended but always changes and advocating for the parent child centers I think they do work that no one else really does as well and I don't think we can support them enough no one has ever complained that a speech I gave was too short so but what I will do I've had several other towns I want to try to get to luckily the Tuesday morning meetings are all in the same part of the county so I'm going to try and already make the stock rate I'm going to try to get to Barnard next but I will hang around in the hall for a little while if anyone wants to talk to me rather than just skip out but you have a town agenda to deal with and while I'm here I'm also going to say thank you for your support in the last election and all the elections before the thank you I'll wait out in the hall also we do have in Bethel a legislative breakfast last Monday of the month at 7.30 to 9 o'clock down at the Bethel sandwich shop so Sandy is usually always there Nick's usually always there we also usually have the two other senators for this as well we have more things to talk to them about that's the place to go so before we get into our articles today let's just do we'll introduce the head table way we'll introduce the details here I'm Mia Brown I'm a town clerk's treasurer I'm Teresa Kirby I'm your new town manager Lindley Bradner select board member Chris Jarvis select board chair Paul Valney select board member Kaye Betty select board member thanks very much also the audio today is being provided by Seth's daughter from back road audio works he's around somewhere on his little iPad so if you're talking mostly on the center microphone and it doesn't come up right that second just keep talking because he has individual mic controls on his iPad and he'll bring those up as needed and so it doesn't get a lot of background unless he turns them down alright I think we're finally ready let's get to work here article one is to elect the town moderator for the term of one year and I'll turn the podium over to our town clerk Pam Brown nominations are open for town moderator Benson has been nominated are there any other nominations welcome I don't need a second I say we cast about for Rick Benson as your moderator follow the paper say aye so the pose thank you article two to elect a town clerk for the term of one year floor is open for nominations Pam Brown Louise Burke is making that nomination nominations for a position of town clerk and for the nominations seeing none all those in favor of Pam Brown as town clerk for the ensuing years say aye pose you have elected Pam Brown article three to elect the town treasurer for the term of one year the floor is open for nominations for town treasurer okay Pam Brown is nominated I'm sorry that was Judy Brigham for the nominations for town treasurer seeing none all those in favor of electing Pam Brown as your town treasurer say aye opposed you have elected Pam Brown okay article four to elect by ballot a select board member for a term of three years to succeed Paul Valley whose term expires floor is open for nominations stage your name please thank you okay technically we don't need seconds but that's a good voice of support for the nominations for a three year term Paul Valley Paul Valley has been nominated for the nominations for the three year term entertain a motion to direct the nominations cease and the court be directed to cast one ballot in the name of Paul Valley and entertain that motion it needs to be moved thank you Jean is there a second on that do we have seconds very good all those in favor of electing Paul Valley for the three year term for select board say aye opposed say no very good Paul Paul you had mentioned you want to say something now that you've been elected I'm sure you still have something to say sorry about that I spent a lot of time writing this speech so anyway underwear underwear they're all in the room so tomorrow I'm going to come today participating in the process I want to give you just a little bit of an insight into the life of the select board when I first got out to the select board I had a vision my vision was to change everything that was going on at the town office I didn't like the communication I didn't like the way the finances were I didn't like any of that stuff and I was going to change all that I was going to march right in there and make everything better didn't take long before I figured out that's not how it works at all I was given the book and the book tells you everything you ever wanted to know about being on the select board and I was told it was going to take at least a year before I knew anything of what was going on and how the process worked so shortly after that we started a search for a new time manager it was a long process a very informative and learning process we thought Greg was the one and unfortunately he wasn't able to complete his turn but one of the best things that ever happened was that he hired Theresa although I don't know if we found her or if she found us but we're really glad that it did the primary duty of the select board members is to oversee the overall operations of the town and protect the interests of the taxpayers this involves a lot of reading getting familiar with state statutes local ordinances and policies also we have to study each one of the budget to be sure we're operating as efficiently as we can in spending our money it's all our money if you come to a select board meeting or you view us on Orca we address a multitude of topics as simple as coin drops or as complicated as the $2.8 million water line replacement project and everything in between I also serve as the chair of the Board of Civil Authorities and we deal with all the election material that happens as well as tax assessment appeals and abatements I also sit on Human Services advisory board and those folks later recently I got involved with two rivers on the Quichu Regional Planning Commission as Bethel's representative this is a regional organization of 31 towns that meet to oversee town plans and proper land development policy I also review the payroll and tables each week as the select board representative why be on the select board it's certainly not for the money it's figured out to be less than a dollar an hour if you do the math it's not for the recognition I'm on the board not to give back to my community but just to be part of my community I love being approached down the street and ask the question of total opinion and I try to answer as best I can don't promise anything I can't deliver and if I don't know the answer find out and get back to the folks and let them know of what's happening I feel very fortunate to work with the other four members and Therese of course we're all having diverse backgrounds and various areas of expertise we don't always agree but we always discuss the topics and find a consensus and make decisions that we feel are the best of the time thank you for your support over the last few years and I hope one of you did return me to the board for another term thank you very much have a good day okay on to article 5 to elect by ballot a select board member for a term of two years to succeed Lindley Bray who's term expires and he has to disappear since her did wrong in the report we can do that if you'd like the legal posting was correct what was in the paper was correct so what's in the report is not technically because obviously you see it wasn't signed so if you feel strongly about it I can certainly do that but not an okay motion to do that if you wish but if not understanding this is a two year term and again floor is open for nominations okay Mary Boy is there a second I'm sorry we don't need a second on the nomination further nominations for Lindley further nominations for the two year term maybe I should add another copy of that further nominations for the two year term before I call for the motion to end nominations we're going to have Lindley speak this time before because I know she's prepared something to open good morning and thank you all for coming today it's been an honor to serve this town for the last two years and over this time I focus on getting to know more residents listening to the thoughts and concerns of individuals and learning more of the history and a wide variety of perspectives that make our town so unique we've had some major ups and downs of the last year and I'm proud to be on board that has handled major weather events and the unforeseen transition of a town manager with such a poise and focus everyone on this board brings a different perspective and different strengths I believe together we are able to work to benefit the town and of course we would be lost without town offices and town crew that do the real heavy lifting on a daily basis personally I've continued to work with the community on a number of fronts through the Bethel Revitalization Initiative Downtown Businesses, Conservation Commission, Energy Commission and Rev Departments and many more I've also been attending trainings and statewide conferences focused on the larger issues facing our state I hope to bring what I've learned to aid in our town's decision-making process as these issues arise if re-elected I plan to work with Therese and the Downtown businesses and businesses throughout Bethel to improve our economic vitality as a town as most of you know I co-own and operated Downtown Business the Arna Block which is part of a larger effort working to keep our downtown sectors thriving none of our businesses would survive without the constant support of everyone in this town despite road work traffic hang-ups, economic downturns this summer we'll hold a similar story to last summer as we continue to support each other and keep our downtown businesses alive through the water main repairs I'm proud to now work with the Bethel school system getting the opportunity to know more of our future generation of Bethel residents some of whom I've seen here today we have a really fantastic group of kids and young adults who I believe will make our town and the world an even better place I've learned so much over the past few years and feel ready to embark on another term to generate even more positive movement for our town as we move into a new decade I would be honored to continue to serve this town and all of you to the best of my abilities for the two-year term select board member seeing none I entertain a motion that nomination ceases and that one ballot be cast in the name of Lindley Brainer thank you is there a second for that motion we have a motion and a second to end nominations and that the clerk be instructed to cast one ballot in the name of Lindley Brainer for the two-year term of select all those in favor say aye opposed you've elected Lindley Brainer article six to elect by ballot a list for a term of three years to succeed Louise Ferrisburg whose term expires and I believe Louise would like to speak before we open nominations I'm sure I need this down someone else can move it up I'm not running for the three-year term I'm going to be running running for the one year this will be my last year I'm going, I'm nominating Judith Brigham for the three-year term the Lister's office has been a little bit in turmoil due to health reasons and people having other avenues of the work so I do want to thank Jim Gray who's been my right-hand person for many years Roberta Carrier Deb Wasper a lot of other local people who've stepped out to be Listers over the years the Lister's office needs people who are willing to learn a very difficult job who have a background that brings something to the table over the years we've had people who have real estate backgrounds, banking, insurance and construction any one of those brings something that really helps our office we do have three people to run for our three positions at this time but we do need to keep thinking forward we do have one staff person Ken Griffin who does one component of our job for us to help alleviate some of the time constraints so I thank you and wanted to reiterate that Judith Brigham is nominated for the three-year term Kay Louise, let me just formally go over the floor for nominations and I will take your nomination for Judith Brigham further nominations for that three-year term to succeed in the weeks in that particular position any further nominations in that motion then that nominations cease and that we construct a clerk to deposit one ballot in the name of Judith Brigham for the three-year term of Lister all those in favor say aye opposed we've elected Judith Brigham Article 7 to elect by a ballot of a Lister for the term of one year to succeed in the weeks in that particular position and I will take your nomination for the three-year term of Lister all those in favor say aye opposed we've elected Judith Brigham for the term of one year to succeed Jim Gray who resigned and whose term expires in 2021 floor is open for nominations Judith Brigham is nominating Louise Harris-Burt for the nominations for the one-year remaining of the term of Jim Gray's for the nominations seeing none I'd entertain a motion that nomination cease and the clerk be instructed to cast Louise-Burt Louise Harris-Burt for the one-year term do I see someone moving that thank you Carl is there a second do I see a second from that okay we've got we have a motion and a second to cease nominations and to elect Louise-Burt for the one-year term to see Jim Gray all those in favor say aye opposed we've elected Louise-Burt for the one-year term to elect by ballot a Lister for a term of two years to succeed Roberta Keria who resigned and whose term expires in 2022 floor is open for nominations I nominate Brad Moral Cornelius, he's hyphenated he brings to the table the fact that he had worked with the royalty of Listers and decided that he's willing to step forward the last name is Moral Moral and hyphenated okay got it thanks for the nominations for the two-year remaining term for Lister seeing none I entertain that motion and we cease nominations and the clerk be instructed to cast one ballot in the name of Brad Moral Cornelius for the two-year term all those in favor say aye opposed we've elected Brad Cornelius Moral Cornelius I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to you I'm going to leave it to for the position of grand juror. Stan says it was kind of ruling this year, but he'd be willing to take it again. Further nominations? Seeing none, all those in favor of Stan Capron serving as grand juror, say aye. Aye. Proposed? We've elected Stan Capron. Article 10, to elect a town agent. Jason Rogers served in this position the first time last year. Nominations, floors open for nominations for the town agent, Kelley Hill. Okay, Jason Rogers been nominated by Kelley Hill. Do we have further nominations? Further nominations for county agent. Seeing none, all those in favor of Jason Rogers being elected as town agent, say aye. Aye. Proposed? We've elected Jason Rogers. Article 11, to elect a trustee of public funds under section 24 BSA for a term of three years to succeed Carol Ketchum, whose term expires. Floors open for nominations. I nominate Carol Ketchum. Okay, Louise, thank you. Louise has nominated Carol Ketchum. Do we have further nominations for trustee of public funds? Seeing none, all in favor of electing Carol Ketchum to a three-year term as trustee of public funds, say aye. Opposed? We've elected Carol Ketchum. Article 12, I'll read the article and then we'll have a short presentation by the board on this one. Article 12, shall the voters authorize total fund expenditures for operating expenses of $2,494,432, of which $2,052 to $1,149 shall be raised by taxers and $426,283 non-tax revenues. I'm coming to measure what I just said here. Let's move the motion and have a second so it's in discussion stage and I'll recognize the board. So if anyone would move that motion so we can move to discussion. The board by me has moved it. Is there a second? Second, of course. Okay, so by me has moved motions for our post-stand check and seconded. All those in favor, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm giving it to myself. Establish, we're gonna stay here on motion one more time and we'll put it on the floor. Shall the voters authorize total fund expenditures for operating expenses of $2,494,432, of which $2,058,149 shall be raised by taxers and $426,283 non-tax revenues. So I will recognize Chris Jarvis now for slide four. And then Bob, if you wish to speak as we turn to the motion right after you can. First off, I just wanted to apologize. We had, for whatever reason this year, between the draft town meeting date proposals in budget versus what went to print, something that got lost in transit, translation between the two of them. So as you saw, there was an unsigned warning in our board as well as there was a couple of other mistakes that were affected when we did the final version that didn't get to the printer. So I just wanted to apologize for that. So just first before getting right into the numbers of the budget, as we've said the last couple of years, the goal for our administration and the select board is first and foremost to be transparent, build realistic budgets based on the services needed to the community, execute the budgets efficiently and just be responsive to the community and its needs. A couple of futuristic plannings that are going on currently is we're continuing to develop or revise policies. And by doing developments and provisions of policies, it does make the government more efficient. The Watermaster Plan and the positive bond mode that was in November, we'll be seeing the first stage of that this summer. The Working on the Future Public Works Facility that's greatly needed and well overdue. And then vast amounts of other infrastructure type. Quick little review of the past year, every year it has its own challenges. This year we did navigate Mother Nature while everything was thawing, decided that she was going to drop five or six such as rain on us, which made our roads in dire need of repair that ended up meeting FEMA or Federal Highway Assistance. So while that was going on, the current town energy that we had at the time had to step down. And for a brief period, we're in limbo with Town Manager, but Trees was able to fill that capacity very well. And I don't feel that we really missed any beat there. Throughout the year, there's been the Watermaster Plan that has been all the different revisions and then to the vote in November. The fire station was able to take advantage of the grant for self-contained breathing apparatuses, which ended up saving the town about a little over $100,000. We did end up having them constable this year. And then we've also proposed a draft garbage ordinance. So those are kind of some of the bigger ticket items in review for the year. Getting into the budget. I'll go through the revenues first, because those usually end up being the easier part of the budget. Overall, the revenue is around $39,000 versus last year. The majority of that is made up of the link with tax collecting, penalties and fees that are associated with taxes. A small little bit in regards to rent fees that are up. That's cool. The cost of the things, public works wise, which usually is the bigger ticket item because it's the largest part of our budget. We did have a retirement in public works this past year. It was decided that instead of rehiring full-time for that person, that we decided to do a seasonal hire for the winters. So instead of being on one person in place, being kind of with a half that will work in the wintertime. The savings energy in the town again is a half person from the year, as well as any of the very costly insurance and remittances. You will see because of during the spring summer and fall, being that we will be down one person, that we decided to hire out some of the services that we had been doing. We've also decided to start for increase as we found out this past spring with the flood events that there are a lot of our roads that need more attention that we're currently not giving them. So within this budget, we have some increased funding for adding gravel to roads, ditching policies and others to see in the budget that we're gonna be a little more efficient with our sand and salt usage in the wintertime. And I think everybody that's seen the roads this winter that they're just in condition as they were last year, just saving the taxpayers some money on making sure that things are calibrated and executed correctly. Even though it really doesn't have much to do public works, it's in the line item, the ERAF money, which is the percentage that the town is responsible for the FEMA reimbursement, which is about 12.5% of all FEMA work, is was a big ticket item, $118,000. So that is our portion of what we have to pay back in result of the spring floods. And also under the public works. Some upgrades to the Fairview, Fence and Cherry Hill Cemetery Wall. Over to municipal office. Municipal office is kind of about the same as look at the public works, where we are doing things more efficiently with basically one less person in the office. But the duties have been spread out to two other current employees. Again, the benefits to that is we don't have to pay for another full-time person as well as all the paying for insurance and benefits. Listers, you'll see that there's an increase this year in the listers percentage, which is hardly normal. The thinking at the budget time was at that time, it was a question mark in regards to who would be running for a list of services, which at that time currently, I think we had one person when we drafted the budget. And the challenge there is, the listers office needs to be not only full with all its members, but has to be working efficiently and have the knowledge space to make sure that our grant list is updated and constantly evolving. We did put some money into the budget in case we needed an outside service to provide some of the services. And even though that we do have three individuals that have been nominated today, remember it's just like any other office that takes time to get new people in and trained and have to speed, as well as, you know, someone taken on a new role, you never know if they're gonna last out their whole term. So there's some money in there today, just in case we need some outside services. Capital funding plan, we increased slightly on that $5,000, which basically is gonna start doing some exploratory engineering for possible public works building sites. So at this point, we're poking around in our own footprint up there, where we're at currently to see what can we build there. That would definitely be something that we'd be looking at, board bodies to share. Overall, the overall number, so the overall revenues are up $39,000. The cost overall are $94,544. The net increase is $55,544, which is 2.8 cents, once you figure it in the grand list. So at the same time, I'm only showing a net increase of $55,000 for this year, which is two and a half cents, we also have to take into consideration that we're retiring our e-wrap debt from all of the spring flooding, which that itself is six cents. So I guess if you looked at, if we didn't have the spring flood, budget in some ways comparing apples to apples is a minus three cent budget. The board decided that we wanted to be responsible or retiring our deficit or our debt to the e-wrap. There are a couple of different options that we could have done, could have obviously taken out a loan and paid interest on a loan, but we decided based upon how our budget was looking with some of the efficiencies that we're starting to see with the town, that it was the most responsible for us to just retire that money this year. We also have a little bit more FEMA projects that didn't get finished this year, that will be finished next year. So we will have some additional e-wrap financial responsibilities for next year. So that was kind of our reason for retiring that debt in this budget. So that's all I had for us in my answer to your questions. Thank you for that, Gene Cross. Thanks for that explanation and review of the budget. Can you tell me what if anything is in there that addresses from the town's expenditures perspective the climate emergency? I.e. savings in energy use in our public buildings, electric vehicles, any of those kinds of things that may be in the budget that is not the main and or what if any consideration is being given to those kinds of expenditures that in the long run we're going to have to make it. So that's my question. What's in there? Okay. Anyone to the board? Carido? Can I call that one? Pedeon, Chris, just what I was starting out to. So just to respond back to that, without having to look through every line item, overall wise, the two things that stick out right out of the gate is we do, oh, sorry, that we do participate with Green Lantern and a solar array facility. The second, probably the most money that's put in the budget in regards to some of the climate concerns is into our roads and our infrastructure that we've seen with the larger storm events that we've been seeing over the last, so we're not only we're trying to build, unfortunately build our roads back to where they were but to try to also improve upon those roads. I spoke to it just very briefly on upgrading things like eroding ground roads, ditch lines. As long as I've been here in the 14 years, I don't think we've ever had a line item for ditching. So just trying to improve storm water runoff would be probably the biggest things. We also do have the energy committee which brings ideas to the select board often and one that they had been working on was a electrical, chargeable vehicle station that they had spent actually quite a bit of time preparing and as a board we had moved forward with the funds to match it on a grant. But then to turn around the agency of transportation decided to put this new parking right that's going to be built down by the interstate and they're going to have 120 charging stations there so we ended up taking that out of ours just at this point, having one charging station in Beckel versus 22 down the road at that point it seemed to make a lot of sense. But I would say that any questions that are directed in regards to climate change, definitely we have a very positive, vibrant energy committee that meets here in town, they're always looking for new ideas and they come in, they haven't spoken to us in a few months but they usually check in about once a quarter to see what's on their plate. For the questions on article 12, now's the time to ask if you're curious about anything and maybe you're reading something that doesn't necessarily make sense to you. Please come forward and ask the question. I just want to comment that I think in the future we need to build something in the capital basis for the town offices, having worked in that building for 20 years, it's very out of date and going forward we need to address the fact that parking is an issue and the building is getting very old. Thank you, Louise. Any further comment or questions on article 12? Sure, if you'd like. Yeah, I can just quickly respond back to Louise's comment in regards to the town office. So right now we've kind of prioritized that the public works building is most in need at this point for our services, not to say that the town office isn't, but as a priority, the next one we'll be working on will be the public works office. We have established some funds to make our current town office more energy efficient and be able to repair some issues that we have there so that we can hopefully stay there for another half a dozen or so of years while we get through the first building and building a public works building and then look for a possible new municipal site. And I think we definitely all understand that the parking and location of the office is a very challenging one. I get deep that all the time when I wanna stop and back into a parking spot. So we are working on it is definitely out there for us and where we have been talking. Further questions? I don't know if this is the appropriate place or not so correct me if I'm wrong. First I'd like to compliment the road and the highway with people because the roads have been in better condition over a fiddly bridge that they've been in a long time. Doesn't mean they're good yet, but they've been so much better. My question is around the bridge at Story Hill Road in Factory Hill Road. And I know, I think it's a stake. I don't know who's responsible for it. That's the first question. And the second, is it in the vision for the future to have it replaced or the top surface replaced? It's in a horrible shape. You're talking East Bethel, correct? Yes. If there's no objection also, I forgot to mention this earlier, our town manager Theresa Kirby is a Brunfield resident. And if there's no objection, you will not be able to speak today. Go for it. That's making sure. So yes, there is money in the budget this year. You look, we put $35,000 into the highway capital expense, capital funds to deal with that. And your bridge is actually going to be, receive some work this summer. We do have gone over all of the bridge inspection reports. Unfortunately, there's several bridges in Bethel that need work. So my hope is to allocate the $35,000 to different bridges this summer. I'm well aware of yours needs to have cable rail upgrade. Also needs to have a new jacking port because I know what can see the rebar in it right now. And so yes, actually you are on the list and we will address it this summer. So thank you for bringing that up. Okay. Further questions? Just form a line here, that's good. Hi, I'm Tom Sears. Question for the mic up there, sorry. Yeah, better on ERAF. So I do know that we're at 12.5% town and you're probably aware that there isn't the option to boost that up to a 17.5 if we get involved with the FEMA community grade standard. And it was just a suggestion that we have the RBC to Rivers is fairly very competent and could help us take a look at that. It's another way to get 5% from the state if this were to happen again and it will happen again. So just a suggestion to take a look at that and maybe address it next year or whatever. Thanks, Tom. Carl. And I'll just follow up with, we had a great opportunity to implement development restrictions on our river corridors and we would have conformed to what Todd was just talking about, but so that would be something that the new town plan might have to be looking at again. I'm just gonna make a suggestion that as you're contemplating a new municipal garage, might be a great opportunity to include the design for municipal offices in that building. Thank you, Carl. Further discussion, further questions on Article 12. Got some good questions and comments so far. Is that it for questions? Are we ready to call the question? Very good. I see no hands, no one jumping up. I'll read the article one more time. Article 12, shall the voters authorize total fund expenditures for operating expenses of $2,494,432, of which $2,050,149 shall be raised by taxes and $426,283 non-tax revenues. All those in favor of Article 12 respond by saying aye. Opposed, say no. The ayes appear to have it and you do have it. Article 12 passes. Okay, Article 13, one of those gremlins in a printing was leaving out most of Article 13. As I mentioned, there are replacement articles in the back of those slip of paper. And again, both of this article was printed in the paper and posted with everything in there. I'm going to read the article and we'll have some work to do on it. So, Article 13 states, shall the voters appropriate a total of $27,115 to the following social service agencies pursuant to 24 BSA, 2691 and the agencies are Claire Mayerton Center, $3,000, One Planet, $2,500, Quintown Senior Center, $1,200, South Royalton Senior Center, $3,000, Vermont Association for the Blind, $800, Vermont Center for Independent Living, $300, Health Care and Rehab Services, $250 that bled over into the report. Vermont Adult Learning, $200, Health Hub, $1,000, Orange County Parents Center, Grand Child Center, $1,000, Safe Line, $1,000, Stagecoach, $4,000, Visiting Nurses Association, $6,000, Windsor County Partners, $600, Central Vermont Council on Aging, $650, American Red Cross, $250. So to start, let's entertain a motion to approve this and we'll need a second and then we'll go into discussion in further action. So, okay, Carl, let's move. Do we have a second? Okay, let me just briefly take this again, Article 13, shall the orders appropriate a total of $27,115 to the following social service agencies pursuant to 24 BSA 2691 and I'll read those amounts that I just read again before we move. And before going any further, I'll turn this over to Paul to, of course, some explanations. So, the Human Services Advisory Board meets in the first week at the Sunburn and we've been pretty steady committee, Sandy Farrell is on the committee, Stan Capron and myself and Paul Theney has not been as active but is on the committee and our fearless leader, Carol Ketchum. And each year we get together and we look at the requested amounts from the area non-profits. It's been customary over the years that the town of Bethel helped contribute to these non-profits, especially the ones that help directly impact Bethel residents. So, we asked them to submit to us a letter of the outlining what their request is, some financial statements and also how their organization impacts the Bethel residents directly. So, this year we got together and you can, if you look on page 63 of your town report, you'll see a breakdown of the names of the groups, what they requested and what we're proposing be the allocations for this year. I understand that the total down in the bottom column, bottom right end column, should read $25,750 instead of $700. So, overall it's about an increase of $1,100. I also have a need to mention that we have a situation this year that I wanna bring out. If you look at 2019, the Central Vermont Council of the Agent for not getting into all the details, their appropriation was not passed through to the committee so it did not get put forward to last year's request. They, about six weeks ago or so, they contacted the town and brought this to our attention and so we informed them, they came to the select board and we talked about select board meeting, we asked them to send somebody to the town meeting here to possibly get up and talk about this appropriation because they were in need of appropriation. Had the material got to us, they wouldn't have been approved for the appropriation. They've had a regular contributor. I'm sorry, a regular, part of the organization, not proper organizations that we don't need to. I just wanna bring that to everybody's attention. Any questions, do we have any questions about? Yep, go ahead. Just in clarification because page 63 has a different proposed amount from what we just opened up, 27-1-15 versus 25-700 so which is the amount we'll actually be voting for? You'll actually be meeting a motion to amend to the 27-750. 27-750. 25-750, excuse me, sorry, 25-750 so you'll need to move forward with a motion to amend the article. So to amend down from the 27-150. Yes, yes, ma'am. Okay, I make that motion to amend to 25-700. The Human Services Advisory Committee. 25-750. 75. Yes, it was wrong, both places. Okay, well, okay, 25-750 as a past member of this committee. It's a lot of work, a lot of reading and I commend the committee for their hard work. Okay, we have an amendment on the floor to amend the total from 27-1-1-5 and actually it's a correction to 25-750. Do we have a second for that amendment? Yep, okay. Do we have any further? Yep. Is there a discussion on the amendment? We'll go back to the main article after. Any discussion on changing that amount? Okay, the motion has been made and seconded to amend article 13 to read, shall voters appropriate a total of 25,750 dollars to the following social service agencies? All those in favor of the amendment say aye. Aye. Oppose? Very good, we go back to the main article and Carl, would you like to speak with our event? Yeah, Carl Russell. I'd like to speak to the issues of the Central Vermont Council on Aging. In fact, they've been a substantially valuable organization to the town for many years and they contacted me and asked me if I would consider bringing the issue to the floor of their misappropriations for last year. So at this point in time, I'd like to offer an additional amendment to increase the current allocation to incorporate an additional 650 dollars, which is what their 2019 allocation or proposed allocation would have been to get them back up to their normal contribution because they haven't been actually providing their normal services to residents throughout the year without that additional part of it. So that would be make an amendment to change the funding to 26,350 dollars or $400,000, 26,400,000, okay. All right, Carl has made the motion to amend Article 13 to change the amount from 25,750 now to 26,400. Do I have a second for that proposed amendment? What was that? I second it. And you made it. Karen, next one. Very good. Further discussion on the amendment to increase the Central Vermont Council on the Aging to an additional 650 dollars, which would bring us to 26,400 dollars. Any further discussion on that amendment? All those in favor say aye. Opposed for the amendment this passed. Now we're back again to Article 13. Is there any further discussion on and is there anyone here from these agencies who would like to speak regarding their requests? I do open the floor up to that if there's anyone around here. I'm Claire Martin Center and I just want to say And your name? Rachel Yeager. Thank you Rachel. And I just want to say how much we greatly appreciate the contribution that you give to us. We dualize it really well and Come a little closer to Mike. And we just offer mental health and substance abuse to everyone who meets it. And this makes a big impact down the last two years. And I just want to say I really appreciate the contribution the town makes to Claire Martin Center. I'm Al Tiro from the agencies. Yep. And you're a visitor, right? Yes. Yes, my name is Rachel Yeager, I'm a stage coach. I'd also like to express our thanks for your long-term support for our organization. And I'd just like to know that in the last fiscal year I've won in three stage work provide over 112,000 rides across Orange and Northern Windsor County, including 5,993 rides to residents in the town of Beffle for people that have boarded our buses at Beffle stops. This includes 12 bus rooms that serve communities to the West Weblin area as well as local services to Gifford House School, Giffordville Daycare, and a number of services around including senior meal programs and Hancock World and Woodstock. We also do a dial ride program for seniors and people with disabilities that need access to medical appointments and food shopping that will provide your regular service to eligible people there. And although we always need volunteer cars for that program. So if anyone's interested in volunteering sometime, we do provide reimbursement for a mild screening. We'll watch how your help out there, please. Thank you very much. Anyone else for many of the agencies listed? Okay, seeing none, I'll read through the article with one final time. Article 13, shall voters appropriate a total of 26,400 dollars to the following social service agencies pursuant to 24 BSA 2691. And again, those agencies are clear of mine and center, 3,000, one-planned, 2,500, Queen Town Senior Center, 1,200, South Royal Insignior Center, 3,000, Vermont Association for the Alliance, 800, Vermont Center for Independent Living, 300, Health Care and Rehabilitative Services, 250 dollars, Vermont Adult Learnings, 200 dollars, Health Hub, 1,000 dollars, Orange County Preparing Child Center, 1,000 dollars, Safe Line, 1,000 dollars, State Coach, 4,000 dollars, Visiting Nurses Association, 6,000 dollars, Windsor County Partner, 600 dollars, and now Central Vermont Aging, Vermont Council on Aging is 1,300 dollars this year, and American Red Cross, 250 dollars. All those in favor of article 13 respond by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The ayes appear to have it, and we do have it. Article 13 passes as amended. Article 14, shall voters appropriate up to the sum of $123,900 to the Weigler Valley Ambulance Incorporated for continued service to Bethel residents. We need a motion and a second to move the article. So I hear we can move in the article. Thank you. Again, Article 14 shall voters appropriate up to the sum of $123,900 to the Weigler Valley Ambulance Incorporated for continued services to Bethel residents. Do we have someone from the Ambulance Service here today? I think there is in the town report a report from them. So if there's no further comment, then I'll call the question. We'll throw it one more time. Article 14 shall voters appropriate up to the sum of $123,900 to the Weigler Valley Ambulance Incorporated for continued service to Bethel residents. All those in favor of Article 14 respond by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, Article 14 passes. Article 15, shall voters renew the exemption of the middle branch range number 46 for its property located at 78 Story Hill Road in East Bethel from the real estate taxes for a period of five years pursuant to 32 BSA 3840. We'll need a motion and a second to move the article to discussion. We'll hear a motion to approve. Gene, Gene, do we have a second? Okay, thank you. We'll read the article one more time, we'll move and second it, Article 15 shall voters renew the exemption of the middle branch range number 46 for its property located at 78 Story Hill Road in East Bethel from the real estate taxes for a period of five years pursuant to 32 BSA 3840. I believe we have someone's key in bearing that. Yes, Derek, are you? This article has been written for the townspeople every five years for the past 20 years or more. The article asks for a five year extension of the tax exempt status granted by the townspeople five years ago. The Grainge Hall is used by agricultural organizations for their meetings, individuals for wedding receptions, birthday and anniversary parties. The local 4-H group uses a hall for their meetings. It makes a good place for community meetings on that side of the town. The Grainge really appreciates the support of the town he has given it in the past and hopes for a continuation of that support. And just for everyone's information, if at last year's tax rate, the taxes on the building would have been $28, $2900. Okay, great, thank you for that. Thank you. Further discussion on article 15. Are we ready to call the question? Very good, I'll read again once more. Shall the voters, Article 15 shall the voters renew the exemption of the middle branch range number 46 for its property located at 78 Story Hill Road in East Beville from the real estate taxes for a period of five years, pursuant to 32 PSA 3840. All those in favor of article 15, respond by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? Article 15 passes. Article 16, shall the voters authorize payment of real personal property taxes in four equal installments with due dates being August 15th, 2020, November 15th, 2020, February 15th, 2021 and May 15th, 2021, by delivery to the town office postmarked honor before that date. We'll hear a motion to lead a motion and a second. Anyone willing to move this forward, we can discuss it. Okay, Karl, can we have a second, Jean? All right. Motion's been made and seconded. For article 16, shall the voters authorize payment of real personal property taxes in four equal installments with due dates being August 15th, 2020, November 15th, 2020, February 15th, 2021 and May 15th, 2021, by delivery to the town office postmarked honor before that date. Questions, discussion? Anybody on this issue? A little bit of housekeeping, I guess. Seeing none, all those in favor of article 16, which is shall the voters authorize payment of real and personal property taxes in four equal installments with due dates being August 15th, 2020, November 15th, 2020, February 15th, 2021 and May 15th, 2021, by delivery to the town office postmarked honor before that date. All in favor of 16, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Ayes appear to have it, we'll do it. Article 16 is passed. Article 17. Before we get into this, I think I'll turn this over to Chris, because we really want a little housekeeping in this room too, or Theresa? First, I just wanted to make a clarification that it was printed that this would be a binding resolution, which it won't be a binding resolution. The voters don't have the power of an active ordinance, like this, that only the select court does. So just clearing up that formality of the things. I've been asked a lot of questions over the last, probably about six months we've been working on on this ordinance, and the biggest question always is, where did this come from? So just kind of go back a little story on it. So this past spring, we had the floods and everything else, but we had a large amount of complaints this spring. It wasn't just in regards to one property or two, but there was 10 or 12 or more properties that there were legitimate complaints about trash and litter excessive. So what happens when these complaints come into the town office is that initially the town manager looks at those or the town health officer gets flooded with these complaints. So what we quickly found out is one, the town of Bethel doesn't have any authority to regularly trash on somebody's property. And we also found out an extremely elected deputy health director that the health officer doesn't have any authority to do anything when it comes to trash on somebody's property. And kind of going into it, I thought, as a health officer, why can't there be noise under the health issue if there's trash pile up on somebody's house or if there's a potential of some environment to spread from one place to the other? You think that in common sense, I'm telling you that that would be a case that health officers have power, but unfortunately, looking through the responsibility given by the state of Mon is not. So we were flooded with a lot of these instances that we had to go out and spend some time, see what was going on. A lot of cases, no reports are filed because there was nothing that we could do. So the select board ourselves, we were not prepared, we talked about this transparency thing in my speech earlier. And one thing that we pride ourselves on is being transparent, not pushing our own agenda. So what we started to do is we kind of looked around of what are the towns or villages and municipalities doing in regards to similar instances. And then the way some of these are affecting us currently is spraying is always the perfect time of the year. There's a lot of trash pile up over the wintertime, it all on thaws and it smells and it attracts all of the wildlife that had been hydrating or once full building. It also affected the town that we have two tax sale properties. We had a tax sale last year that was, you know, Theresa's done a good job of getting back taxes. We did have two properties that we weren't able to sell at tax sale time and mainly because of the trash that was piled up at the homes. And then like I said, the town currently doesn't have any legal authority to regulate any of those nuisance calls that we get nor does the health officer. So a slight word and I'm excited to tell it from Theresa and others in the town office was to let's look out there to see what other areas are doing. Do they have ordinances? What does it look like? So we were the last six months and kind of been looking at that and we started to put together a draft ordinance on what we felt the language should be in there to address the large complaints we were having in the springtime. We did decide as a board that we did not want to enact any an ordinance just based upon the five of us and meeting with, you know, usually we get, you know, other than Lisa there, we usually have probably, you know, two or three other townspeople. So, you know, it's not really getting a whole wide range of opinions on the matter. So we decided that we would go with a non-binding resolution during town meeting day and then based upon the results of that, then we would enact as a board on, you know, putting it in as an ordinance or not. We did have a couple of different draft ordinances that we did deal with. You know, initially it was, you know, rubbish, trash, litter, solid waste, it's kind of pretty much all the same material. Once we started looking at some of the other municipalities there's other things that come into it like construction waste and, you know, wood, cars, small homes, you know, things that, you know, haven't moved in a period of time that either are not registered or otherwise. Our first draft that we had, I remember right, our first draft, it was based off of the village of Essex for the most part, the draft that they have for ordinance that did encompass things like automobiles and campers and other, you know, construction waste and things like that. We did have our opening hearing. Our hearing was in November. Yeah, but we had some open hearings and based upon the opinions of some of the individuals that had attended the hearings that we had and slept with, we made some adjustments with it and took out everything and just went right back down to the initial complaint which was garbage, trash, litter and that's kind of where we are finding it for now. I am not going to go through word for word on the ordinance, however, I just wanted to highlight the top part. Just kind of read that aloud. For the most part it, you know, encompasses what the ordinance is about. So what this was done, it says, whereas the town of Bethel has by authority granted in 24 BSA, the powers to adopt, amend, repeal and enforce ordinances and to manage and regulate outdoor storage of garbage, trash, litter and solid waste within its boundaries. Now, therefore, to protect the public health, safety and well-being and to promote the responsibility of the responsible use of resources and protection of the environment, select board, town of Bethel, nearby adopts this ordinance to regulate outdoor storage of garbage, trash, litter and solid waste, but excluding duly authorized junkyards by the state of Vermont and the state of Vermont has its own ordinance on that. Going through the ordinance here, if you grab the handout or if you have one ahead of time, it does, the first section just states the definitions of what is garbage, what is litter, solid waste. For the most part, those materials are all very commonly similar. The section two is basically putting on to the the duly orders and arguments of the responsibilities that you would have on your property for those materials. And then section three, if you have to have some sort of enforcement of, if there was a complaint that was then gone and inspected and cleared as a legitimate complaint that there would be an enforcement piece, which is, we always think of enforcement as when you're gonna get a note on your door or the constable's gonna show up, but it'd be more of a formality process of a letter that would be sent to the property owner explaining the issue at any time to clear it up or to identify the issues with the town, with some sort of schedule on cleaning it up. And then with enforcement, there would be counties, the penalties section here is pretty common language with other municipalities of the same size. And then just like anything, the owners would have the right to appeal any said violations or penalties. And I know what ordinances like this are very tough. Everybody's got their own opinion on what you should or shouldn't have at your house. I have a very strong opinion of, my opinion anyways, is I don't want people to tell me what I have to do on my property, which is tough on an ordinance like this. But if you look at history, a lot of ordinances are drafted off of the very, very, very small minority of instances, rather than the majority of people that are actually doing what they should be doing responsibly. One challenge with these ordinances as well is, even though the finalist board members and Therese and the health from the community are putting this together, our definition today, could be different than futuristic, it could be a completely different select board down the road and administration. I know our opinion on these ordinances, these would just be the gross, negligent, very large scale issues. This is not a two-neighbors fighting over small stuff. This would be that all complaints would come into Therese at the town manager's office, and then at that point there would be a determination of is this a nuisance that needs to be moved forward or is this something that we would just squash locally? I didn't have anything else on the ordinance itself. It's pretty self-explanatory, but the handout, and I'm sure Rick will hold that up. Okay, technically, because what is in the report here, and also what was warned in the morning is not correct. I'm stating an act that we will enact this today. So what we'll need to do, I'll read the article as stated. We're going to need to amend the article to make it just an advisory, and the last part of it about it being enacted within 10 days would be eliminated. So the article is written. Article 17, shall the voters enact new ordinance regulating the control of government, restrace litter in solid ways to protect public health, safety, and well-being of the people and to promote the responsible use of resources along with protection of the environment. Said ordinance once approved with the effect of 10 days from today, March 3rd, 2020, and the full text of the ordinance may be found on the town website. First, let's have a motion. And the second to move the article will correct it next. So we'll make a motion. Carly, you're making a motion. We have a second. Davis, thank you. So, a motion, sir? Yes, sir. Now, when we amend it, it should move to other business. We could do suspend the rules and do that. I get it, it's no longer applying it. We technically would fall under other business. Technically, you're right. It's just being in the price. So you're still gonna move it there? Yeah, no, great. Okay, Davis has a second there. Let me just, I know it's a little funding here, but let me just make sure we're doing everything correct. Article 17 shall voters enact the ordinance regulating control of garbage trash litter in solid ways to protect public health, safety, and well-being, and to promote the responsibility responsible use of resources along with the protection of the environment. Set the ordinance once approved would be effective 10 days from today, March 3rd, 2020. So that's on the floor. To read, shall the voters tell about favor? Yeah. Or was it for the voters? I mean, I don't know if we have to have a shall, but basically, we have to get rid of enact. Right. So it would be favor, and then you'd have to strike out, set the ordinance on. Okay, so I'll bring, so we'll replace it with shall the voters favor the ordinance regulating control of garbage trash litter in solid ways to protect public health, safety, and well-being, and to promote the responsibility of resources or responsible use of resources along with the protection of the environment. Here, here. All right, Carl has made that motion to amend, as we just stated, is there a second on that? Davis, a second. They have discussion on that amendment. All those in favor of amending the article to read and shall the voters favor the ordinance regulating control of garbage trash litter in solid ways to protect public health, safety, and well-being, while being able to promote the responsible use of resources along with protection of the environment. Respond by saying aye. Oppose. Okay, now we can discuss the ordinance, proposed ordinance, if you so wish. Chris with all the gene crowds, Chris with all due respect, your capacity and ability to manage your own property stops when it impacts my health and welfare. And so when there are issues that fall before the common good, I respectfully submit that we have ensured an act of appropriate legislation to protect the common good and the welfare of all citizens. Good, any other opinions on this? I want to just add to Gene's comment and the future of current generations to come that we need to think about the next group of children who are going to grow up and we want them to have a healthy environment. Okay. Any further comments? I have some questions about this. Name, sorry, Rebecca Bess. Thank you. But please, never call me Rebecca, cause they'd leave that to me. So I have some questions for you guys about this. First of all, it costs money to get rid of garbage, so this seems like it could as much like, I hate having neighbors with 3000 garbage too, and obviously no one likes that. However, devil's advocate, it costs money to get rid of garbage. How can you pass an ordinance that is going to unfairly burden low income people? Second question, we have 400 feet of rural frontage on our property. A good section of that is very, very vertical. And unfortunately, it's not visible from the house. Lots of people throw boxes of garbage right from the road. Am I not responsible for walking that section of road if it's never going to litter? I recognize maybe this board is not going to come out for me for that, but you can't guarantee what the board is going to be in the future. And whenever you pass an ordinance, you have to think about how might this be abused in the future? Not just how can it be used for good now? Thank you. Thank you Becky, very good points. Further comments? I'm serious. In general, I agree with this ordinance and I don't think it goes far enough. So I would like to see it extended in the future to other things such as on the fields and trailers that haven't been used in 20, 30 years. But I do have a question on number 10, the definition of solid waste, what that means. In the middle of it, it says, definition does not include solid or dissolved materials in domestic sewage, yada, yada, yada, until you get to tires. What does that mean? Is there an ordinance elsewhere for that? Is that affecting water sources? Someone explain whether that's totally exempt or whether it is applicable elsewhere? So domestic sewage is dealt with in our sewer ordinance. So if you were in the village and you already had sewer at your home, then the sewer ordinance would cover that. As far as if you are implying that maybe someone was getting rid of other solid waste materials in sewer, then that definitely would be a state matter. Just like junk cars, there was a state ordinance and state laws for junk cars as well. I'm serious. So I understand that what we're gonna be voting on today is really it's a sense of the community. That's what you're looking for, right? I'm gonna vote on that and that's gonna go back with whatever result that is to the board. And I guess my concern, number one, I am in favor of the ordinance, but my concern is how this is gonna be operationalized and whether the board has criteria set that are higher fidelity criteria than what we're reading there so that if you go out to a property and you take a look, that it's a very subjective thing. Are these things going to be defined? Because similar to Becky, I mean I do have concerns about how this could be interpreted with art that's in the yard with farms that might have a special circumstance. So I understand the tone and tenor of the ordinance and again, I do support it, but I think it's really incredibly important to have some well-defined and established criteria that are transparently offered to the community so that we have a sense of what is actually being enforced. Okay, thank you, Tom. So, Tom, I think that part of it is definitely us, you're right, trying to define trash, which is the way we were trying to do it within the ordinance so that it's hard because you're right, some of it is subjective, a lot of the ordinance is in the town, any town is subjective. So the goal was basically just to clean up bags and piles of garbage that were on properties that have rats that are going to other properties, that sort of thing. So I think that if you have suggestions on ways that we could adjust, maybe the language, that's certainly why we had it out for a while and we did read several ordinances to try to control that. My feeling is that or which is trying to just enforce the really big issues, not everyday things like Becky has a great point. We do have places where unfortunately people are doing illegal dumping and get a hold of me, Becky, we've been trying to clean those areas up and also give signage to what they're, so people aren't doing that. I certainly agree with Becky, I'm not going to be looking at her being responsible for illegal dumping. There's state laws that cover illegal dumping and that's where that belongs. So it's hard, right? There's the tenor of it, but for us I think it was trying to wait into it and being judicious and I'm certainly not going to go out and clean up, have someone clean up every little thing by something that affects neighbors and that they can approve that to us and that will be what we're focused on. But any suggestions for a specific wording for the board formally adopts would be great. Thank you. Gene Krasch, a suggested operational language might be something like that would reasonably be construed as affecting the health or welfare of a person's fossils of ground. Thanks for that suggestion. We have further comments. Some good discussion here. No, come on, Bob. Bob Tamer, I don't need you to open up. Some people can't hear that well. I'm just looking at, I have antique fire equipment out in my field. I think it looks really nice, but it's the board in the future to don't think that that's not the only people that want me to give her that. That's just another idea here. Everybody hear that? It's her new farm equipment. Yeah, Bob Tamer was concerned because he has some older farm equipment in his fields that he kind of likes to look of, but will that be maybe in the future considered as junk that needs to be removed? Yeah, well, hold on just a sec. We'll have one response to this question then. Yeah, just to respond back to that. So the initial ordinance that we had, the first draft of a draft that we were going through would have some limitabilities of things that you were talking about. I don't know if you had to throw, say a bathtub of flowers or something like that. But this one here where we're just dealing with just trash litter only. So if you had a metal object in your field it wouldn't be part of this. This is wire-givable trash litter that would be in a trash bag. Anything steel object or, yeah. Nancy Pageley, I wanted to go back to Becky's first point about the cost that for some people perhaps this is the real problem is they don't have the means to get rid of it. Maybe they don't have a pickup truck, whatever. So it might be an opportunity for a great community service project to get kids involved too, that if you do find a home where this is totally out of control perhaps it's somebody that just isn't capable of doing it. And maybe we could have some kind of a sign up where people that do have pickup trucks or do have kids that would like to be involved in a community service project. Okay, thank you. That's a good question. Yes, sir. Nancy, I think that's a great idea and I also think that Becky's original point that she brought up is worth responding to that we did actually discuss this in the original and included in the enforcement portion, we included some language specifically to address that that if somebody were to have an issue paying for the removal themselves that there's a line in here right at the end, the owner has the right to meet with the town manager to establish a plan. So not even a payment plan, but just a plan to have all items removed. So we were considering that in dealing with this. Can you reference where that is? Where the link? It's section three, under enforcement, the last line of item A. I was also just going to point that out. In under definitions, they have a vapor of cost talking about the vapor of the labor equipment or supplies of contract price of any charge to the town in respect to remove the disposal of garbage trash from the property. So in the case of an appeal, it seems like there's an opportunity in this ordinance for people to say it's here, I can't deal with it and let's make a plan and attend the town of A things cost. So it seems like there's a possibility for a solution there. All right, thanks for bringing that up. Anyone else? Again, remember this is just an advisory vote that we will take here. So maybe there'll be. Yeah, I just wanted one last comment. I wanted to follow back up to the first comment that was made, which was in reference to my comment. My comment was solely based upon showing the taxpayers of the town that our board is transparent, we're not here with an agenda item ourselves. Even though I have my own feelings on this particular piece that we're not here to just push the will of our own agendas. So I think that's one good thing about our board here is we have the authority and the power to do that. What we've chosen to do, which I feel is a more responsible way of doing it is to get the buy-in from the community of, you know, is this favorable or not, or if it's not, what can we do? And then enact something. So I guess my, I didn't want my comments to be as true, but it was really more just a, hey, this is my opinion. However, you know, I'm not here as a select board member to just enact my opinions in the community. It's the whole big body. So I just wanted to. Lizards, thanks. Yep. Procedurally, seeing how we're just doing an advisory vote today, I'm assuming that you will probably make another draft of this and have more hearings. Is that correct? So there'll be more input available or no? I think if there's not a lot of changes to this, as ordinance will go as is on a future select board agenda and then select board will pass it, they could split the newspaper in this very specific policy or policy process laid out in state statute on how an ordinance is passed. But it is on the website currently and has been for a while that we've been looking for input, so it will come out and then once it's published and that goes, there is time for appeals and for people to go through it and that process is clearly laid out. Great. Thanks, Tracy. So what our advisory vote will be on is as this is printed. So if you are in favor of this as it's printed, then you would want to vote for it. If you have some problems with any parts then you would vote no. Okay, so we'll clear on that. Again, it's advisory but it sounds like they're pretty well taken what comes out of this meeting today and go forward. Point of order. I just want to clarify what you just said. We're voting on the article as amended which refers to the ordinance as printed. Right, correct. Right, so that's why I was wanting to make that clear. Most likely it'll be pretty much what you see here. Unless there's future petitions against it. So further comments or questions? If not, I will read it one more time and we'll attempt to do this with a voice vote. Article 17, shall the voters favor the ordinance regarding control of garbage, trash litter and solid waste to protect public health, safety and well-being and to promote the responsible use of resources along with the protection of the environment. All those in favor of the advisory article 17, say aye. Those opposed say no. No. The ayes appear to have it and the ayes do yes. You want to do a hand vote? Okay, we have a request to do a hand vote. All those in favor, raise your hand. Okay, all those opposed. So I will say again in the ayes of the moderator, the ayes have it, appear to have it, unless we want to go to a valid vote. This will be pretty well one way. So article 17 has passed as an advisory to the solar board. Lastly, article 18, and before we get to the end of this, I do want to say, if there's still a ayes out there, okay, month in, so don't leave on an empty stomach. You can ruin your lunch, it's okay. Don't go ahead and take some stuff home. So article 18, to transact any of your non-mining business that may have really come before the meeting, person to 17, yes, eight, two, six, six, zero. Is there any further business? I will just say that from the studies that have been done, I'm even going to Australia in the ballot, participation really doesn't change that much. I don't want to affect anybody's opinion, but just from what I've seen away from the town meeting committee has done some research on that. It really doesn't change a lot, but I understand it's people's right to move the meeting whenever they'd like. I think it's important to know that in understate statute, employees have the right to petition their employers to get the town meeting day off. If we move the meeting to another point in time, that may not be the case for many other people. Good point. So, I don't know if you are aware of that, and we do, the town meeting committee does try to make that, and I'm sure David can hear this here. I think it did, though. You are allowed to petition to request from your employer that the day off, or any of you have to do it in advance. Can't just show it Tuesday morning, the same day off, but you have a state law that allows you to do that. Can you come to the microphone? They'll give you the day off. It's just you don't get paid to not be there. You're losing time, and it's a local business. I'd hate to have them shut down so that everybody can go to their town meeting. I'm just saying that you may be able to get the day off, but you may not be paid for it. And also, businesses in town are not allowed to do that. And also, businesses in town do shut down for a few hours, and they don't have to do that in the evening. So something to consider, there's a process that could be done if you wanted to do that, and Theresa can guide you through that if that's something that you wanted to do in the future. Any further points to be brought up? Jean Kraus, I would encourage people to pay attention to climate change. It is a existential crisis. We need to pay attention to it in the way we run and operate in our local communities, as well as our personal lives. There is an organization called the Red-Golf Area Climate Alliance that is working in an inclusive level in its covered area, and it is working on that subject. I would encourage people to be aware and supportive of any and all efforts to address that issue. Thank you, Jean. We're good. All right. This is a weird turn. It's a motion to adjourn with your second. All those in favor, to adjourn the meeting, is the aye. Opposed? Thank you very much.