 minutes on this one, is that what I'm seeing? Okay. Thank you. The first order of business is to approve the minutes of January 22nd, February 4th, which was continued to February 9th and of February 7th. Any discussion about those? Somebody would like to move those? I'd make motion to accept. Okay. Is there a second? Second. All in favor of any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Alright. Great. Thank you. Is Kari on the slide board now? Is this going to appropriate to sit here? I do. I'm happy. Thank you, Mo. I just have all my wife. Kari can vote, I assume. Okay. Now I'll take a motion to, you've all had a chance to approve orders. I'll take a motion to approve and sign more moves. An additional one, they came in a 10th board today. It's a single invoice. Okay. For Santa's.. Oh, for Santa, does this pay her up to the end? No. No, she's still got another couple of weeks. I just, I just placed, I have it here but I just placed it. Okay. Are those ready to send around for us to sign? They are. OK. Can I have a motion to approve the board orders for deciding? So moved. Do you have a second? Second. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Aye. OK. Thanks. We've had a request. Apparently, it's up to the select board to determine whether or not an employee can take a bereavement leave. If it's not an immediate family member. Oh, right. That was defined by the contract. Is it appropriate for me to say who it is and why he's asking for a leave in public? I was going to leave his name out of it, but. OK. It's an uncle. It's a member of the road crew. And it's an uncle who he's very close to. And he's asked for a day, I present to call him. Yes. The day is not specified yet. He did take a half day on Friday to help his family. So I guess on his behalf, I would request that half day, a four-hour day, and then a nine-hour day to be determined when a funeral is scheduled. Nine hours or eight hours? It's a nine-hour day. It's a typical, if it falls, well, whatever the impulse on the schedule is. Oh, OK. I'd make a motion to approve the bereavement relative to Harry's description. Wait a second. I'll second. All in favor? Aye. I think we should look at that personal policy. I guess it seems to me this is a select board issue. Well, it's in the contract. It's in the contract. And at the time, I believe that was close to the language that we have in the personal policy at the time. So I know there's been some discussion about that as we've been trying to reconcile them. So I think any changes that we make in the personal policy would then, in due course, be represented in the union contract. OK. The order from the Western Star truck. Any questions about that? That was all in your board packet. This is to replace the 2019 truck. 2017. And the 2019 truck will let me fill the spare. So the green being is the one that we will be replacing in this truck. I don't know that. We have a spare truck. It's a 2014. We will be trading that one in, receiving a credit of $50,000. Then the 2017 will become the new spare. This truck, we will now be available a year from now. And you all approve the ordering of it on October 9th. So this is just to confirm now that we have a price. And then once we get closer, we can talk about financing. We will certainly have the option to pay interest only in the spring of 2025, which is important. Capital highway equipment. Right. Everybody understand the issue? Any questions? We've all looked it over. We all know what we're talking about. We'll take the option to approve. We've authorized this order. I'll second. Nobody moved it yet. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. And I think Ann just seconded. Sure, I'll second it. OK. You all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. OK. Curtis Pondam resolution. All right. We made the very difficult decision on Friday to move forward with the bond, to ask them to issue the bond. The closing will be tomorrow, I believe. Is that so? No, no. Closing will be March. Oh, March? Oh, for some reason I thought. Yeah, it won't be for a little while. All right. So what do you tell them about this? Yeah. So this is a whole packet of materials that Thomas Loney, who's with us, put together for us. The resolution is the key document. If you dot this resolution, then that encompasses all the other actions, the loan agreement, issuing of the bond, the tax tax compliance. So I think we need four different pages and signatures from you. Yeah, so the closing is scheduled for March 13. And then we still don't have interest rates once those will be established, I think, next week. So while we have Thomas here, and you've all, I assume, had a chance to look at this resolution. Are there any questions? I have one. Thomas, are you there? Yes. Hi. Yes, yes, I have my goody things. In 1.4 of the whereases, it says that interest on the bond that can't be included in gross income for federal income tax purposes, we are going to be putting it into a money market, or I guess it's the bond bank that puts it in the money market. So that's not our interest, is that right? That's an exception for temporary, there's a temporary period of which when you're not using your bond proceeds to actual pay for capital costs, it can be invested and you're allowed to earn interest on it with, to cover your carrying costs. So it's the bond itself, the interest on the bond that the town that will be issuing to the bond bank to evidence and secure the repayment of the loan that the bond bank will be making to the town for the project, that is the interest on that is excluded from gross income. So that's really what the whereas clauses is getting to. So. Any other questions for Thomas? So I'll take a motion to approve and do we all have to sign? To adopt and it looks like we all have to sign and sign the resolution as written. So moved. Do we have a second? Second. And seconded. All in favor? Aye. I can't go to abstaining. You, oh, JV's abstaining, yes. We'll get signatures after, or if you want to start, I put stickies on the pages. Does that mean I should not sign? That's a question for Tom. So Thomas, we have one board member who's abstaining, but should they still sign and testing that the board? I think I understand the reason for the abstention. The requirements of Vermont law is, you know, the bond itself needs to be signed by the select board and it doesn't indicate how the person voted, but it is, you know, it has now been approved by the select board by, you know, majority vote of all those present at, at, for which a quorum was, was met at a public meeting. So it should be signed by all select board members. So as well as a treasurer, the town treasurer will need to sign as, as, as well. So. Second signature cheese. He'll take the fifth one. Okay. All right, I'll drop off. Good. Thank you. Thank you all. We'll, we'll be in touch. You're right. Thanks. Bye. All right, and y'all know that we, that the last select board obligated $60,000 in ARPA funds to the East Palace Fire District. What we need to do tonight is actually move to transfer it to them. There's some danger that if we don't do that soon, the feds may take it back. But once we've actually transferred it to the recipient, then they will not. So does everybody understand what we'd be doing? So therefore, okay, I will take a motion to transfer, is that the right language? Transfer $60,000 in ARPA funds to the East Palace Fire District. Some of it. And it's moved. Is there a second? I'll second it. Got it seconded. All in favor? All right. Thanks. Now we have the bond grader resolution. The grader bond resolution. This was previously adopted back in January 22nd. We didn't get signatures for the records we liked. Did you fix the date? Because it said adopted January 22nd. That's the date you did that. Oh, okay. Verbally. We're just getting a document for that. Oh, so we've done it. We don't even need to vote. Correct. Thank you. No worries. We sign that as it comes around. Barbara, can you speak to this one? We designate the swim committee appointees from one to two years. Yes. In the past, our swim committee appointees were a one-year term. I'm not quite sure why was that set up that way. And the swim committee members are not quite sure. So I'm asking the select board if you would like to move that to a two-year term. So we're not needing to appoint them every single year. The two current members of the swim committee have agreed to this if the select board will approve it. So the motion would be then to redesign the swim committee terms for two years and to appoint each of the current members to two new terms. That may be too different. Yeah, I think it is because we're going to be not going to say right. Okay. I'm going to do it. Many discussion on this. Okay. I'll take a motion to re-design the swim committee appointees for one to two-year terms. So move. Donnie, move. Do we have a second? Second. Jordan, seconder. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Now we need to appoint. We have two members currently on the committee. Hopefully we'll have a third after-town meeting. We would appoint Daniel Keeney to a two-year term ending in 2026. And Adrian Wade Keeney to a one-year term ending in March 2025. Would somebody like to move that? So move. Okay. I'll take a Jordan move to Dan's second move. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thank you, Barbara. Sure. Dan. Yeah. Does anybody in the public want to, now's your time. Barbara, I always have something. For the purpose of the minutes, could we ask Elizabeth on Zoom to identify her last name? Elizabeth, are you there? We just need your last name for the minutes. Oh, hi. It's Alan, A-L-L-E-N. Thank you. Thanks. Scott. I sort of brought this on myself by not attending meetings in the last several years. As you were doing that great project process you were working on, I was in a meeting on something of the Friends of the Callis Town Hall. And Nick happened to walk in on the meeting. He's not a member of that group, but he had been meeting down here. And I think he told me that the decision to move the generator had been put off a year. Can somebody give me some background on this? Does anybody remember this? Barbara, do you remember this? So I think he just meant calendar year. It didn't happen in 2023, so it's going to happen in purchase spring or early summer of 2024. I think that's what he meant. I don't think he meant it's going to happen a year from now. But I think he meant, since it didn't happen in 2023, it's happening in 2024. That does sound right. Did any of the rest of you remember this? I don't remember us discussing it, but they told us that that's what it meant. Well, it got so hard in the fall that it was just too difficult to do it with the weather and the snow and ice, so we're looking to do it in late spring, early summer, unless Nick now knows something else that the rest of us don't know. No, I don't think so. Good, that's good with that. And let's just keep it on the top. A job like this delayed is a job that never happens. So we need to keep it in mind. Thank you, Scott. Thank you all. Okay, anybody else? All right, we have here two people from the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, Sam Lash. And Sam has brought, Sam, you are a senior planner. Nope, I'm a climate and energy planner. You're here. Doesn't that make you a planner? Yes, I'm not a senior planner, not quite. But Brian is a senior planner. And you brought Brian with you. Why don't you introduce Brian to us? And you're going to, I think, I'll say it over your job. Yeah, totally. Several folks. Yeah. I didn't know about that. John, when did you get it? Did you get it? Yes. It's not working. Will you do that? Okay, sure. I don't know if I could just send a link or... How would I do that? June? Do you mean send you a link? Okay, great. Brian, would you mind introducing me as well? I don't know. I'll let you talk about what I'm going to talk about. I don't know what I'm going to say. Perfect. I'm Brian Boyd. I'm a senior planner focused on natural resources. I've been with CVRPC almost two years now. And I work really heavily in the water quality program. And so I'm leading the Clean Water Service Provider Program for the Winnieski River Basin. So as part of that program, we get about a million dollars per year to invest in non-regulatory phosphorus reduction projects throughout the Winnieski River Basin. So that's one big component of my job. And then the other piece that I want to talk about tonight as well is that when I... Way back when I first started, there was an opportunity to apply for some funding for implementing stormwater projects. And two of those projects are in Calis. Calis is the Moscow Gully Asher. No, that's better. The East Calis Post Office in the Moscow Woods Gully. And so we were successful in our proposal. So I now have money to fund the implementation of those two projects. Sorry, you mentioned one. Oh, yeah. The East Calis Post Office in the Moscow Woods Gully. Oh, that's two different projects. I believe they're really close to that. The East Calis Post Office is that the filtration thing that I was supposed to apply for. I kept asking what that was. That's it. So we have funds at CDRPC to support the implementation but also to pay for staff time to help manage the project and basically be the go-between the engineering and construction contractor and the town. So at this point, I have a draft request for proposals that I would like to share with you or maybe there's a person on the select board that would like to be the point person for these projects. My goal would be to keep your involvement to as little as you want or as much as you want. But again, I have funding to support my staff time to essentially manage the projects. So that's the good news. Two projects we have money and if the town is still interested, we can move forward, get an engineer in to confirm the design still works for the site, hire a construction team and get those projects implemented this summer. I would say our point person would be the town administrator who is also our road commissioner. Great. And then moving beyond that, I'm not sure if any of you were involved in the stormwater master plan work that was done here in Calis. I believe that was from 2019, so going on five years ago. That process is what led to the two projects that we have funding for being identified. There were several other projects that were identified as priorities, one at the elementary school and one at the town barrage. And moving forward, if the town is interested, we can certainly keep our eye out for additional monies that would make it possible to implement those projects as well. The nice thing about this current plot of money that I have for the two projects that I just mentioned is that there's not a little match. I can't promise that it's always going to be that good. We can certainly try. We can certainly look around for money that's a little less restricted but a lot of competition in that space. But if the town is interested in continuing to pursue stormwater mitigation work, then we're happy to partner with you and identify funding opportunities that we could jointly pursue. So when you say stormwater mitigation, could you say a little more about what just helps us understand what kinds of projects are you talking about? Yeah, so the two that are being that will be built this summer with the money involved catch basins, underground catch basins, there might be a sand filter for one. I don't have to look at the design again. I just finished a similar project in Moortown at their elementary school and town office complex where we installed three different sand filters and then multiple catch basins to essentially capture the water and direct it in a way that it's not just flowing into a stream untreated, which was the case there. All the runoff from the parking lot and around the school was going directly into what's known as Drs. Broke and Drs. Broke about 100 yards later then flows directly into the Moortown. So we're trying to manage the water to slow it down, to spread it out and make sure we can to the extent possible capture the nutrients so that they just get flushed right down into the river and eventually go into the lake. So there's not one specific practice. There's a range of potential practices that could be implemented depending on what we're all for at this point. So for the two that sounds like there's approval for and full funding, those are estimates that are still pretty accurate. Even though there aren't any matching requirements with this funding, would any project overage be covered or where would the town potentially have to be on the buffer? I don't have a definitive answer on that, but what would ideally be our course of action is to get the request for proposals out, identify an engineering firm to come take another look at the projects, do any last touch up on the final design. It's interesting because the final design is done with them, there's still work to do for the final design, which is a little bit confusing. And at that point they'll confirm the cost and from there, if the revised cost estimates exceeds what we have, I would go back to the funder and ask if they had additional money as my first course of action. These are two priority projects that were identified, as I mentioned, in the stormwater master plan. So the funder receives a big chunk of money. They do a call for proposals for all different projects throughout the state. Some of those projects get approved, but then they never happen. There's a change of heart from the landowner, for example. So it's possible there would be extra money available and I would certainly go after that. And if there is not and there is a cost difference, then at that point we come back and have a conversation about whether or not it's still a priority, whether there would be a time of contribution required and if we all see fit to proceed, then we would and if not, then at that point, unfortunately, we'd have to pull the call for a project. So... I'm just getting into the weeds a little bit, but I'm wondering if there's like a kind of a second tier of funders there, like given the area, like the funds of the news care, or something like that that would be approached in the past, like whether or not there's kind of a second tier of funders like that who are highly motivated to put resources that would kind of be considered and vetted before coming back to the town to try to make up the difference or if there's a history of that. Yeah, I'm certainly open to working with any partners. Frantz and Luniski, at least my understanding of the organization, they don't have money that they could just say. 20,000, let me just cut you a check real quick, but they have a lot of other connections as well, and we work with Frantz and Luniski on the Clean Water Service Provider Program, and I don't see any problem with looking for funding from a different source. Again, there's no match requirement here, which makes a lot of things a lot easier, so if we need to pursue a co-funded model, I'd be happy to help work that out. Who's participating by Zoom? Any questions there? Let's see, we can't see them, Cardi. How do we know? Yeah, I understand. Yeah. Is this all part of the... I'm cleaning out stuff for my office, and I ran into the 2017 Catalyst Road and Road to Preventory segment score summary from 2017 that Candy Andrea did, and a lot of the stuff you're talking about in the school and the other ones, I mean, Moscow Woods and the Port of Fudge. We're all part of this. Is this the background information for what you're talking about tonight? Yes and no. The work that you're referencing happened prior to the stormwater master planning effort, so they're directly related. There's certainly a lot of overlap, but through the stormwater master planning effort, they advanced the design of five of the projects to the 30% level, what's known as preliminary design, and the stormwater mapping is more like an inventory of what is there and what infrastructure currently exists and more sort of back in the envelope ideas about what could be done. So that stormwater mapping comes out of DEC as well, so again, there's definite overlap between the work you're referencing, the stormwater master plan, and then eventually the funding opportunity that we pursued to get the money to do the implementation for these projects. They all sort of build off of one another. I trust this. I mean, is there more information than what I'm holding in my hand tonight? Well, it's a pretty sad state of affairs if you want me to look at you throwing stuff out from your office, but yes, yes you can because that report is available online. Jen, don't you have like a box that you can just bring to the town office instead of a brand or something? I'm just planning some interesting stuff and I don't think you want it. And then I'll turn it over to Sam. I just want to say one other thing about the Clean Water Service Provider Program that I mentioned up at the top here. One of our colleagues that works with me on water resources has been sort of working his way through a really boring DEC database to look for other potential projects and particularly projects that have a significant phosphorus reduction component to them and we anticipate reaching out to the Planning Commission in the next two months probably to set up a time planning and conservation commissions to set up a time to talk about project ideas, find out if there's any new ideas out there in terms of projects that we could find a local champion for and then try to match those projects up with funding through the Clean Water Service Provider. So more on that to come as well. When you say phosphorus runoff, I think of farmers, is there other sources of phosphorus runoff that we would be thinking about? Yeah, I mean anytime you're seeing erosion along the roadside, any of the runoff that's coming across the landscape that's picking up nutrients as it's moving across the landscape so it's not just phosphorus from agricultural runoff although it's certainly a component of a failing septic system. It could be any number of things including even lawns for people that put down fertilizer. Most people at fertilizer lawns put way more fertilizer down than what's needed. All that would get captured in overland flow and what we're trying to do is make sure that that water doesn't go all the way through the system without trying to mitigate the phosphorus loading. So I think to address that Brian, the Planning Commission and their regulations that are going to be voted on in March, we have a new erosion control which is asking for that, for people even under one acre of disruption to follow what is one acre of disruption because the reality in Calis is we have so many roads that are so close to the lakes, everything is running off into the lakes and I think one of the problems that we understand is that some of those roads are not really correctly made to mitigate the water going into the lakes and so whatever's going to happen with that, I don't really know but I mean the problem is recognized. Great, well I look forward to further in the conversation now. Well thank you so much for having me. I'm Sam Wach for those that I have met which is a lot of you. She here is under Climate Energy Planner at Central Montrational Planning Commission. Thanks John for the invite and thank you so much for your conversations. So maybe I'll just start with a little bit of like how this came about. So there is a grant called the Climate Pollution Reduction Grant Program, it's a federal program. Vermont already got $3 million to do some planning so a lot of states had formula funds so that was like if you apply, you're eligible, this will be your chunk, right? That makes us eligible then to apply for the other phase. You'll see a pattern here with programs that I mentioned. That makes you eligible then for implementation funds. Now these are extremely competitive but there are $4.6 billion of funding for the implementation of things that reduce your greenhouse gas emissions. Now the reason I'm here is basically to say what does that mean? What is climate planning? What does that look like? Are we doing it or are we not doing it? So I have a few slides on that. Pardon if it's a total recap. We can whiz through it, we can ask questions, whatnot. I am going to be skimming the service today because after some conversations with folks in the room, there's a lot of topics that we're interested in covering and there's a lot going on here and it's awesome to also see our room full of folks participating in town leadership and governance. So I'm pretty excited. But just to say, I am very much skimming the service. Any one of these we can spend this entire time on. I have included a lot of links and I will continue to add them throughout and I'll reshare this with you all. I'm actually honestly, this will probably just go live on the website and I'll just try to keep it updated. I've done one of the things that I will suggest that you don't do and try to compile all the funding that's available because it is a full-time job and it changes constantly and the rules change constantly. But I gave my best go otherwise. So I'll, you know, throughout this I just have, oh I'm not controlling that. Thank you so much, yeah. Great, so this is a world-renowned tour, as I said. This is really a reference. Definitely don't need to, we can definitely still have a conversation about it. I have a lot of recommendations and tips and tricks and FAQs. Now, nothing in here is you are required to do. Nothing I am saying you have to do or even should do. These are just ideas of things that count. I don't, you know, I don't want any of them. I'm saying CVRBC said we should do, no, these is a brainstorm document is full of resources and references and all sorts of things. I absolutely welcome participation and productive interruptions, alright? So as long as it's productive, I welcome that. I do speak quickly, so also feel free to ask me to slow down. I know that about myself. Next slide, please. Okay, so what is kind of planning? So, you know, really simply as it says there, it's focusing both on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing community resilience to the impacts of climate change. That's super broad. You know, when we think about how we've seen this in our towns already, I think we really want to consider sort of two aspects of climate planning and that's that we need to plan for big acute, oh, I'm sorry. No worries. We need to sort of be increasingly thinking about big acute episodic events. So those are the headline events, like the one that we had this summer. These exacerbate hazards that already exist and equities as well. We're seeing more severe and more extreme disaster events like that, right? Then there also is this other aspect of climate planning, which is the new normal, right? So our baselines are shifting. So our timing of fall and spring has changed a lot. Winter is shrinking, right? I don't think I need to say anything more about that. But this has implications, obviously, for changing habitat ranges and crop zones, shifting zones for disease vectors, a whole big slew of things. We're also seeing our equipment running out or sort of being used up or sort of being a lot more, right? So my change are replacement schedules, right? So there's just a whole variety of ways. What I'm here to do today is really just help you shift and think about framing these things as climate mitigation. I think a big reason to do this is because over the next eight years or so, we're seeing like a ton of federal funding focused on mitigation and planning from the federal government. So just a few examples are up here. You know, I told you already, we already have the $3 million for climate planning. That's going to redo our climate action plan. And that also is going to support some of municipal planning as well. Is that $3 million for the region? The whole state. Oh, the whole state. No, the whole state. Yeah, so we're just doing right now a lot, like doing a lot of reconnaissance work in all of your town plans for A&R and the Climate Office with the Agency for Natural Resources. They're doing the application. We'll support them. And you will see outreach from me going forward around that as well. But, you know, for example, I'll talk a little bit later, you know, we're getting over $21.5 plus another $58 million for a variety of programs, a lot of it geared towards residents. And those are going to come out in state programs by agencies that we, you know, we work with. And we'll, you know, obviously when I contribute the perspective of what our municipalities need, what do they need? And so part of this is just to help you frame or think about our, or even just collect if you're already there the types of projects that you're interested in doing. Next slide, please. Yeah, so the good news, we're already definitely doing this. You're already definitely doing this. You might not say greenhouse gas reduction, emissions reductions, but you are already doing, oh, I'm sorry, this is quite small, but you're already doing a ton of these different things. And I think the big thing here is to think about there are obvious things that reduce, you know, greenhouse gas emissions like, you know, switching to EVs where appropriate or where you can or lower diesel emissions vehicles, right? So that's like directly related to emissions. That could be reducing vehicle miles travel through smart growth, like walking, you know, increasing your walkability or something like that, right? And then there's ones like, you know, what kind of conservation where we can start to look at, you know, carbon speak restoration is really playing a very gray area right now in this that has thus far been included in the way that the federal government is talking about this. But, you know, it could be a really wide variety of things. And I think that the key thing to remember is whenever you're doing anything as much as you can, just pause if you don't mind and think, are there any emissions reduction benefits to the action I'm thinking about? That would be my goal. If I get anything out of this evening, would be the goal is just to add that lens, just like we do with economics, right? Just to add the lens of like, is there a way that I can argue that this is reducing our emissions in any way? That could be an action that has to do with, like, public health, it could be climate justice, it could be transportation, it could be, yeah, something new with land use. There's a wide variety of things and we'll go through quite a few of them this evening, but that's, like, you know, we could, you know, basically be done there. That was the key takeaway. All right, next one, please. Thank you. So you have a lot of existing planned processes as a town. I don't need to tell you this, you already know. I really just show this because I kind of have been having a mantra lately of, like, let's dig once, phase up and maximize co-benefits. So when we're doing something like, you know, you're all preparing to enter your next town plan, planning, you know, update, and so really taking the time to, okay, if we're gonna do, if we're, you know, these are our hybrid priority projects, what do we not wanna, you know, have to come back and redo in five to 10 years, right? That dig once, like, if we're gonna open the walls, do we need to do something else? If we're gonna get a new roof, maybe now's the time to think about solar or if we're gonna have to do something electrical, maybe now is the time to upgrade the electrical panel, right? So you don't have to do the whole big project now, but are the things that we could do while we're in there, that's gonna make it easier, right? And I think everyone's really used to thinking about this in terms of transportation, right? Like if you're gonna master the right away, what are all the things we gotta get done, right? So pretty straightforward. But in all of these planning processes, you can think about how you prioritize projects and I think thinking, you know, in the short term with how we have this much, you know, federal funding and investment, how do we maximize, optimize that drawdown in the short term and the near term to then get some of our projects done that we really need to. And so again, I'm just gonna sort of belabor the point of while you're doing each of these things, your annual budget, your replacement schedules, your, maybe, you know, it's literally your boiler fails. What can we do, take a slightly longer pause and say, you know, can we draw, is there any funding available, can we draw down, might there be some, you know, very soon on the horizon. Let's just quick call Sam real fast. Or someone else. Doesn't have to be me. As we're being good stewards and coming up with those questions during those planning, are we reaching out to you about how to find those funds or incentives or et cetera to offset some of those investments? So yeah, actually if you would mind going back one slide. So one of the things is, you can absolutely reach out to me. I will say, I will be totally up front. I'm a little spread thin at the moment. That does not mean I'm up high. At least I guess knowing here's a website. I'm usually on it fast. But yeah, and I actually have, I will just tell you this all now. In my email signature, I'm not in the office. There's a little link. You can sign up for 15 minute phone, like a video call or phone call with me. That's the best way. But yes, absolutely. But I also do suggest here, you do have an energy coordinator, Bill Powell. He's great. An energy committee, however, could be more focused on either municipal operations, although you have Scott, who's a phenomenal with a municipal energy resilience grant program on your behalf. So an energy committee you might want to consider could be focused on, hey, do we want to help our residents draw down some of this funding? And we'll get to that a little bit. Energy committees function differently across our region and across the state. We have 13 out of 23, so we're over halfway. And then we have various champions and other talents as well. They do tend to either focus very specifically on the municipality itself or on resident programs. And so they're a great resource because they really already exist. And I also included a lot here. But yeah, I'm totally fine to be in defaults as well. That's a great question. I have a question that's like three steps back. But I think it's an easy one for you. The $3 million that is kind of near-marked for the planning process is that, does that part include funding for like formal planning, like funding formal planning processes for the towns? So if the towns want to, I mean in any of the rural communities you're going to have expertise that's limited, right? And volunteers that are also going to spread then. And so one of the many challenges, I guess, is getting resources that are informed and professional and plugging them into those long-term planning processes like the one that we're facing next year. It sounds like maybe there's some funding for pulling those professional resources into that process. Is that accurate? Yeah. So we don't have the final contract yet. So I can't. I won't say guaranteed. But the idea when this originally, when Vermont put together their plan for the $3 million did include some funds to support municipal enhanced energy planning. So it's a specific plan. You are not obligated to do that. I do have a bunch of slides on that later on. But I do suggest throughout that there are various, there are plenty of other folks and I do have a whole list of like who are the first people to go to and you can obviously do whatever you want. But if you want to do visioning and project prioritization, VCRD is great if Vermont Council on Rural Development. If you want to, here's my project. I want 15 minutes on a super detailed funding, like tell me where to start with funding. You know, Sam gave me some, but I want something else. And or I have a very specific, funny question. You know, here are the 15 minute work, you know, appointments you can make with Vermont, Easton, cities and towns. So like, it really depends. But I have also pointed out in the federal programs, they are much more so in this sphere providing technical assistance to communities that need it through the whole process. Now I will say, at that federal level, the admin burden is extremely high. So they will hold your hand, but someone still has to be there. And so I think the thing is, it can be worth that process or even worth, you know, maybe hiring a grant writer or a manager or project manager for something. They can easily pay for themselves in one of those funding opportunities, right? And you know, you can learn enough about it through the technical assistance that they provide. This goes for USDA, this goes for the EPA, this goes for quite a few of the Department of Energy funds and I will always say technical assistance and technical assistance where it's there. So a lot of the community grants are like that. And, you know, one of the suggestions that I have is understand your baseline. Like what are you, what is the federal government think you are? Rural is one of them. And then we have other indices that I'm happy to help you explore that might point out to, that you can point out to them to say we should be eligible for this extra technical assistance. Absolutely. A big part of this energy work and sort of resilience and climate work has been this equity and justice piece and so I think that's why we're seeing more of that in this sphere. I will however say that they still are designing them for municipalities that have like 15 departments, right? That's just like their perspective. It does not mean that I want to discourage you whatsoever. And, you know, we can support, support to a certain degree also, some of that work. No, I guess that, you know, some of the context behind my role, probably questions there is that like, even in how this information is being presented, you look at like some of the projects and thought starters that you have in there for the high-agent process. But like those are largely driven impact projects or priorities relative to denser populated areas and that sort of thing. And I think the challenges for a rural community are two-fold and Vermont is a whole state-full home, right? And so the cities are probably pretty rural by most standards. Yeah. And so, you know, you, I think sometimes see things that are good idea starters but then when it comes to generating the ideas or the implementation at the rural level, the priorities are sometimes misaligned and it really helps to have somebody who comes in and has, you know, data-driven information on like, this is what is going to impact your particular, your particular type of community and the types of projects to look out for. Because if you get it right on the rural scale, like that is then applicable to the entire state. Well, not anymore. Not anymore, but. Anyway, that's my sub-box, I guess. Absolutely. I will say though that there are particularly in energy infrastructure there are many programs that are specifically only for rural communities to address rural infrastructure gaps specifically. They just still have a high-agent rate. But I will say, happy to point in the direction of those projects that are much more geared towards that. I will also say that, you know, we've been doing a fair amount of work at the RPC, working with different agencies of the state and with other RPCs across the region across the state, excuse me, to identify project types that are useful for our towns so that the state is applying specifically for the types of programs that you want to see, they're going to develop the programs and then expand the funds at least through this if they get the implementation funds for this. The other case is if you want to apply on your own to some of these programs. And so I think that's an important thing to also keep in mind is that a lot of these have state funds and then they have municipalities are also eligible to apply. So there's a very big difference between, you know, just making sure every once in a while you read CBRPC newsletter and you read an email for me every once in a while and when I say, hey, the state's doing the program, you know, finally two years that we, I talked about tonight, you know, let's have a chat and see if you want to participate, right? There are also some things that, you know, like on-site generation storage that you might want to consider for municipal building that you might want to support a community-embedded place to do. I mean, I think some of these ideas that are developed in urban settings we can adapt for our rural settings quite well and they're actually more important here because we don't have that, like, when you think about it, there's not that many places so sometimes when our severe outage is to actually get what you need to, especially for, you know, electrically dependent residents or the like, so. I guess if I can, like, kind of recharacterize what I was kind of getting at and I think you're, I agree with you, but I think sometimes what ends up happening at, like, the state kind of, the macro level is that you have the identification of the types of projects and you say, okay, there's going to be funding for all of this bump down for the planning down at the community level and then there's, like, a misalignment over priorities because there might be a misunderstanding on what kinds of things actually have a good, like, a good impact. You know, storm water, I think, is a good one. It's easy to just kind of overlook it, but, like, there's some pretty measurable benefits to making sure that that's worked into and then how you work into it and so, anyway. I'm extremely passionate about storm water, so I'm tough to hear you say that. So, Sam, you and I spoke just briefly, setting this up about what might be eligible and I'd asked about carbon sequestration online. You're going to go into that in a greater depth, and I won't try to forget you, but the other question that comes to my mind is, Calis has been working to mitigate invasives and they're investing in a new 130,000 hour tractor to do manage road sites on a more frequent basis because we have a real invasive problem, durable, and some other things, I believe I guess, but are any of those things eligible as far as you know at this moment? It really, it really depends. For any existing programs to write the second, no, but we know that specifically in this space the state is going to develop or expand some of the existing programs. So the key thing is to let me know now, but that's what you're interested in. So every time they ask me to a stakeholder meaning to say, what are your talents I say that immediately, very clearly, very statistically, and that's also advocacy that we will welcome you to do when I'm sure we'll pull you all together and look over others lists or what not, or propose our own projects as well. Not currently, but also a lot of it is about framing. So like, yeah, you could brand. And you might also have another source. Yeah, the Waitsfield, Warren, and Basin Conservation Commission just got some funding to support a Japanese knotweed management effort. I don't remember the funding source of it, but yes, I will loop that up and I can circle back with you on that, John. And Kurt Lemberg, who I don't know if you know him or maybe you weren't at the big water advisory committee meeting where he talked a little bit more about that program, but he's a great resource, so I can, I'll check it out with him and also be able to connect with him. Yeah, with him, and a couple other folks, I think really spearheading that effort down the tunnel. Yeah, I think that the thing is that some of it might fall under the influence, but always bring it up at the same breath, right? And also if we can think about, you know, maybe it's a, you know, if there's a vehicle replacement component to it and it has a higher efficiency, it is possible that we could do that through the diesel. Right, well maybe, no, but that's the thing, it's like really, let's think through that. You know, I have some wrong here about the different programs, but for me, even having to do vehicles, but we have a company that operate basically, I mean, give that a call. So, you know, my thing is make a incentive, you know, in one sense, we want, we're doing this, you know, do this and the added benefits are X, Y, and Z, right? If we don't have not in our culverts, then you know, things won't flood as much, there won't be as much erosion on the roads, we don't have to use as much material in the roads to keep the, you know what I mean, that's vehicle miles traveled for the road, I mean, not, we can make that, I think it's, you know, it's, within reason, I mean, it's, as long as it's genuinely for, you know, it's kind of like a community, I'd say it's always worth a try. All right, next slide, please, thank you. I'm gonna go through, yeah, we might have to, you know, we'll see some, okay, so here, land use, yeah. So some on the left are for more developed areas, right, so promoting the development of compact, walkable, mixed use neighborhoods, that sort of smart growth vibe is gonna be for sort of your, you know, population centers, but then on the same breath on the right, I have those carbon sequestration, conservation sort of resilience programs as well. This is by no means, by no means comprehensive, right, so these are just some ideas that you guys are well familiar with your villages centers, with the growth center designation programs by the state, that makes you eligible for a whole host of, you know, tax incentives and a whole host of projects and programs like Better Places, you know, there are small grants for smart growth. I don't need to list them here. You can look at them at your leisure and go through as you want, but my point by showing you this is that there are a ton. And so pairing something like placemaking with something else that might have some greenhouse gas emissions reductions might help you get that project done combining the sources of funding. So what we're talking about here is really just getting used to the idea of funding stacking. I'm pretty sure you're all very familiar with the BRIC program, the building, resilient infrastructure, community's programs, the wetland programs are coming soon. There's a whole list of them there at A&R, but none of them are specifically about carbon sequestration and I'm very curious to see what the Climate Office has in mind for how they're going to frame our existing programs in that sense or if they're going to add them. So that is yet to happen and all I've done with whatever we mean to them is to say we're really interested in that any idea where you're going, what would be useful for some of our towns. And here's the whole host of mitigating disasters basically and benefits that that would give them. So there's a current use program and we are surely likely going to see some movement in that program or in something that would complement it. There's urban and community forest programs. They're obviously in the flood with communities funds. So here, what I'm asking is when you're already looking at these other funds for other projects, just think to yourself are there co-benefits to these things we need to get done that are going to have gas emissions? Let me just write that down because we could pool those together. I am also here at the bottom Chittenden County did a climate change and land use sort of guide it's just a whole bunch of sort of ideas of things you could do everything from your town plan and your land use regulations if you want to eliminate minimum lot sizes or remove maximum residential density standards. Not things that you necessarily, I mean you care about but this is geared towards Chittenden County but it's a good tool to sort of see the types of things that you can do and you still have clauses on most of these things in your land use regulations, right? So just keeping in mind that some of those changes count as climate planning as far as the state and the federal government is concerned. There are things here that just in terms of what you are planning for infrastructure, I know wastewater is something that we wanted to talk about maybe later on and I have a few resources on that but you know when you're putting in that system and you know go for that super high efficient pumps if you want to go for a siting potentially you know solar rooftop on your facility and or with backup storage that will make you your electricity bill much smaller which can be quite big for our towns that are smaller towns that have wastewater facilities those do tend to be quite a big monthly bill. I'll just put it that way. That's also something that you'd like to have critically operating at all times. So it is the perfect place to site storage right and so then when you're thinking about where you might be putting that facility, are there other places or other critical operations that you might also want to have backup storage for. So these are the types of things that like is this going to pay for the whole wastewater thing? This particular part no but it might give you part of that funding stacking so you can site it where you want to do that combo on-site generation storage right. So I'm asking basically to like yeah a little bit blow off the project of the ideal to see if we can wonder as a puzzle. Which is tough but I think this is a great way to bring to draw that funding right now. You know we'll see maybe in a few years you might be cursing me I hope not. And I just want to sort of go through at least some of the you know on the right side here for our carbon sequestration, our conservation our resilience and just to mention that I think that keeping working in natural landscapes intact for climate change resilience is really important for a whole bunch of other reasons as well obviously. I hope that's obvious. I also don't think that this may be the most controversial thing I say this evening I don't think that has to be inherently at odds with renewable energy generation and I think that we do tend to sometimes talk about them as sort of competing but there are plenty of ways to you know if you have you know to do dual land use basically in a way that works really well for a landowner. We see some mostly with aggregate so it's having solar in your fields they provide shade for grazing animals now that we're experiencing more hot days and more sun like there are plenty of ways that you might think about it so all I'm saying is just there's some pretty creative folks across our state and some in our region that are doing pretty cool things with dual land use and so I just want to sort of flag that out as I think they really can work hand in hand and be balanced and I think that's really important for their you know for our social infrastructure as well you know we need we need those lands and we need we need those lifestyles but we also we need a little energy to make sure that we can function and so I just want to say that I think you know energy does underpin our social infrastructure so I just want to throw that out there you know I've also seen some really interesting we've been having some interesting conversations at the office too about balancing some of these things so for example you were talking about a dam this evening you know balancing dam removal with flood dams that can help with flood control with hydropower those can have really competitive competing sort of interest and so kind of coming together and saying like okay what would our ideal be situation I think is another sort of example of where you might be surprised how both energy and climate resilience can come into some of these sort of like gray infrastructure conversations so I just offer that there's a whole bunch of other stuff we could talk about here both the left and the right side on the left side we can talk about you know creating maximum driveway lengths and if you go over then you contribute to a community benefit agreement and that will help citizens cover the upfront costs of weatherization I mean you can get creative as you want right and I just offer that as sort of there's room here to dream a little bit and see how we can meet everybody's needs alright next slide thank you I also have time housing so a few slides on housing so obviously not comprehensive and I know that you're meeting with some of our colleagues is it next week two weeks maybe some of the planning commission is yeah planning question and so you know I think housing will be something that we talk about and move on will be something that we're talking about for years here at our state I just sort of in terms of planning considerations when you're thinking about your plan and also thinking about some of your regulations and also dreaming again in different ways that energy and climate and resilience can come up in housing so I'm just highlighting a few one I'm a big fan of sorry Brian is waste heat recovery right so when we're citing our when you're thinking about citing some houses is there you know indoor ice ring that's we don't have that many in our region but I'm just giving you all the examples anywhere with refrigeration any sort of industrial processes that might be giving off some waste heat that instead you can capture and funnel right back into a neighboring multi-unit housing dwelling for example and basically that means that whatever your heating system is whether it be electric or not you have to heat from just much more moderate temperature to get back to that condition that you want same goes for geothermal so if you want to take it from the ground you can do closed loop systems in the state and basically you're then heating from about that 50 degrees underground back either up usually up to that 65 to 70 in your house those systems are more expensive up front but do have you know they're very long lasting and they have a lot of cost benefits to the users and right now is when we have those federal programs that can offset those upfront capital costs so I'm always going to mention waste heat also waste heat recovery from your waste water just to confuse things waste water obviously comes out of our homes that are approximately body temperature so yeah a lot of heat that you can take off that either onsite or at the facility and use that heat again putting it into a proximate building as a heating source so there are really clever quite simple pretty old ways of doing things that we can totally use as we vision sort of envision how we're moving forward and so I just sort of wanted to whether you add heat pumps on to that or not you can have that as a separate conversation right they're just some of these basic things so let's also make sure we're using less let's not you know there are ways to curb our demand and to capture what we're already sort of just what's already out there so just want to bring that up again the flood resilience I think is on everyone's mind so obviously where we're putting them and what it's going to take to put them there community resilience hubs is one you're going to see over and over and over again but as we know that we're experiencing sort of increasingly more extreme conditions making sure that we have somewhere where people can go right there are funding a lot of different funding programs that are considering how would we fund community resilience hubs what does that look like there's a national group that is very much focused on urban centers there's a whole bunch of us that are working and asking the question how do we do this in a rural place what is a rural community resilience hub look like and myself and colleagues at the Vermont Council on Rural Development have actually held a few webinars on this just imagine like imagining sessions about like what does that mean for us here and the cool thing about this is you know you're looking to stack funding both for that resilient affordable energy also for staff training so you want to help those people who need it the most that usually does require some expertise and experience and so you know just keep in mind that some of these programs that are going to ask both for sort of that greenhouse gas emissions reductions component and also well being which like frankly I'm quite happy to see as you know a main thing you need to sort of justify or explain improving your community I will try not to blather on too much here but you know there's the fill in the blank ready you know so you know you can either whether you're putting some sort of standard in or whether you're doing some community outreach and engagement work whether you're working directly with developers you know the town can decide what role they want to play if at all but you don't have any conversations about you know please don't put it in electrical panels that can't be connected to you know EV chargers or to solar panels or to you know a variety of things microgrid storage you know battery walls etc those are things that the town can do or you can leave yourself the space to do that after you know you take the time to think about it and the same thing goes for the for the waste heat recovery I was talking about earlier there's a lot here obviously I have that thing about resilient efficient and healthy housing we do have residential building energy standards at the state municipalities have the authority to hire officers if they want obviously that burden is really high we have some towns in our region that are thinking about you know banning together what would that look like and some towns that have folks that are very involved in updating the standards you can adopt stretch code if you want you don't have to do that either you can also you know in some of your planning just mention that we have them and make sure that they're available you know in your town office I mean this goes for all of those things down there again I am not you know not telling you you should or shouldn't do anything but these are just all ways forward in this regard next yeah we got an email request oh sorry thank you sorry about that thank you friendzone zoom Paul for coming I apologize I have to go take her so business myself thank you absolutely thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you first of all you are just energy burden yes and that's because for the work program the implementation grant I believe that energy burden is a huge calculation of how the grants are going to be distributed I had a conversation with Ann about energy burden and I was really able to explain to her what it is could you maybe tell us about it and just in context Woodbury is listed as having a very high energy burden at 12.9% and Calis is listed as having very extremely low energy at 8.4% do you expand on that a little bit absolutely I will start by saying energy burden is defined very differently a little bit differently at the level that it is in the state of Milwaukee but we have a report yes we do let me start by saying that they redid it and towns are different now I don't know how to tell my head but towns did shift and I can absolutely pull it up so towns have shifted because no way they've done it is different but energy burden is basically you take up for residents it's based on a little bit on area medium income it's basically how much is your residents spending on in the electricity sector in the thermal sector and in the transportation sector and then you're looking at that basically across the town so we have some instances where the amount of second homes is going to really impact the way that that works the availability of public transportation or not where people work or not they have a commute or not so folks that live in a more rural setting that might not have a commute in the same way that might adjust so we bring Calis both in your region yes basically that was explicitly based on efficiency of a month's data on what residents spend as a portion of their income from October 2018 yes but the newest one is an updated so I don't know where you stand in relationship to Woodbury or if you moved up or down but the thing that I really want to mention is that the BIRP program the municipal energy resilience grant program did take that into consideration for prioritization of towns but there has been no indication yet that that will necessarily play into those really for future programs it will for the municipal energy resilience grant program but I will say that there are very different indices that the federal government uses so for the Justice 40 a lot of the climate energy programs that the state is going to get a funding from have have different metrics that they use and that really focuses on places like very city, on a new ski on some places like that in our state and so what I always say and this is what I did and I always just do is if you have a reason why you think that indices does not reflect your town and or there's a piece of the indices where you say okay overall we don't qualify or we're not eligible for extra prioritization but if you look for a really big multiplier in these three areas of the indices out of 36 or something then let's talk about that in the little space that they give you for justification so it's not, I don't think it's meant to leave anybody out but it is meant to shine light on folks that may not have been prioritized in the past but yes I have yes but I'm very vocal about that yeah and the other things that we'll be taking into account for that are like geography despite it out we're off across the street is like types of communities smaller or larger those that need a lot of admin support from us those who may not like they really want to do a mix I have advocated repeatedly that communities that are hit by the flood that should be considered I also advocated that if they don't get their report in enough time before the grant then that needs to be considered in terms of for the application so and I'm always happy to hear additional things and I will say that I mean I don't have that much precedent I have two years but here but I've been really impressed with the folks that are creating a lot of these programs they are very willing to hear our ideas of prioritization and of what what kind of questions to ask you can really represent yourself well and I will say though that Vermont is interesting that federally even without they don't consider transportation and energy burden at the federal level they only consider the electric and the thermal sectors that even with that Vermont is still highly energy burdened compared to a lot of other places that I do think comparatively even despite the challenges we face I think we are still a little bit of a wealthier state compared to some of our some other rural states I think that is changing and we also do have a lot of folks that are unhoused at a higher rate than many other states so that might change things but it is interesting to see that that burden still persists despite that and so I think really seriously thinking about a lot of these things like okay we're using a lot and it's difficult for our residents to pay for it is that quantified by volume or cost for this energy burden it's by cost the components are medium household income electricity spending thermal spending transportation energy spending total energy spending total energy burden it's broken down into six categories catalyst is at the highest the most disadvantage when that becomes a criteria for a grant and our neighbor Woodbury is at the lowest it just bugs my mind yeah so we're going to have to grab some food would you and we'd like to have a few minutes of discussion yeah so here I'm just going to say here's a bunch of wastewater resources I just want you to know that these programs exist we don't need to talk about it but you should know that several of these will be clothing within the next few months to a year so please do reach out to us for support on them if you'd like it that's all I really need to say on this one are we going to get copies of these? yes absolutely 100% you already have the slides I just want to say that there's so much in energy efficiency and conservation again this is where I was going to talk about the municipal energy resilience grant program you are leading by example through that program definitely I would really really recommend that this is where to my emails to come together once we get those reports and say okay what do you want to do with your assets and what kind of projects are you looking at what do you want to piggyback on this so that we can do some funding stacking and what needs might you be able to meet with some of your community members so it makes it a better application to say hey we're going to do a cooling or warming shelter do you actually want to do that is that a need that you have there's a whole bunch of different things like that that we can talk about I think those are things that are increasingly needed and so the point here is just to say you know again crosstalk is really important about different people's needs both who are working for that municipality or volunteering for them but also in your broader community so definitely looking for those opportunities to sort of pair up needs you know because at the end of the day you are the picture of your community in a lot of ways so there's a whole bunch of stuff here and I will put what I was going to talk about in the notes on the slides but basically most of the federal funding like that $70 over $70 million is going to be distributed basically a lot of that at the individual level so making sure that you clear up or thinking about how you might clear up and play a role in community education is really important you have that $4,000 for the Minutes of Energy it's a grant program you can do a community build you can do, you can partner with some champions whatever you want to do you can do but just some ideas about that and also how to perpetuate some of that with additional funding I'm clicking through the questions and I know we're rushed for time and it's a reason for my question I'm going to bring up maybe some Saturday you could avail yourself if we could put together like a community wide brainstorming session you could educate us we could kind of figure out what needs are maybe residents come here when our houses are leaky like sieves we individually need help but the community might have some ideas too that will bring there we could kind of put together lists and then we know where to focus our attention absolutely I'd be willing to do that also our colleagues at Vermont house on world development do really specialize in those community visioning sessions and then you can invite me as a participant but I'm happy to facilitate happy to participate absolutely and I will I just want to highlight that we just have really impressive folks like you across our region that are also doing this around towns all of our energy committees and stuff you're all a resource for each other so one of the things I'm trying to do is get you all to meet each other more regularly but there are so many meetings so I understand but that's the dream of mine is to provide you some stuff and then give you the space to talk to one another what works what doesn't do you want to do it together even better so I'm supporting for example the window dresser so we're going to do some community wide they help me acute heating needs in your residence little wooden frames double wrapped specifically measured like going back to seal the lake you end up right super easy next slide we're going to take too long we're going to end there's so much on renewable energy generation so much so much it's more than sighting sighting is important but it's more than that the way the town can participate you can do a whole variety of things I did three municipal solar workshops about different ways that municipalities can participate I'll add those links don't need to go into it now I do want to highlight, if you don't mind the next slide just the one at the top, sustainable energy for schools and municipal programs is due March 1st this is 25 to 250 thousand dollars for the installation of either new advanced wood heat new solar PV cold climate heat pumps or repairs of existing such systems I just really don't I just couldn't leave without you seeing this I worked for the public service department on making sure that this was accessible to you all they're thinking about ways to make sure the upfront costs aren't too heavy the application is pretty light and I'm happy to look over a narrative so please think about this especially in combination with the new energy resilience it's just likely to be available next year I don't think we're going to make it this year yes I can say for sure but likely yes this is the first time after quite a lot of advocacy that it does include wood heat and PVs and solar so we're seeing an expansion of some of our state programs which I think is excellent because you really want to diversify diversify what you're using that's best for the place that you're in next slide there's too much here this is fear fleet efficiency I'm happy to meet with anybody who's interested in fleets happy to be with your garage folks here road crew and road foremen both about making the garage more comfortable for them also talking about equipment also there's other stuff in transportation that besides fleet efficiency and electrification you know bike walk roll infrastructure road materials and treatments walk to shop campaigns there's a huge variety of stuff here you've got these ideas you've got these resources I even put the key emails on there so don't hesitate I can come back and talk about any of these things next slide please all right we're going to have to cruise through the next slides actually enhanced energy planning is something that you can do I'm actually pretty straight forward actually if you don't mind next slide we're redoing our regional enhanced energy plan right now next slide that's a great slide but next slide here you go I actually already am going to be providing your drafts of your analysis and your targets and your mapping whether you want them or not because they're proud of our regional enhanced energy plan you do not have to adopt them you don't have to look at them however I'm going to sell them to you anyways and say here they are do you want to talk about enhanced energy planning I can come back and chat with you where you're planning commission we have a cohort of five to seven towns who are currently working on them so you'd be in a very good company and in fact I'd like to get towns that are doing it together so I don't have to go I mean I love spending time in each of the towns but we'll do some of it together as a group also because that's a great way to get ideas right very very very simply you get analysis and targets from me those come down from the state's goals you have mapping that has you know that is that builds on the state that adds some regional constraints and you are able to also look at some adding some are even better highlighting some preferred setting on your own and then the key part of this is pathways what are you actually going to do and the pathways part I think is the least prescribed and that's because it's probably the most important and it's like what's actually going to work for you in these fields next next, thank you recommendations about how to move forward from this conversation again I just want to repeat this one phrase identifying existing goals and projects that have co-benefits of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building community resilience is a great way forward so what do you already need to get done that you've been having on the back burner and it doesn't have greenhouse gas emissions reductions let's find a way to get some funding stacking and make it happen right now is the time to draw down that capital investment and make sure that we have resilient infrastructure physical and social moving forward alright I think I made it we'll just end it up there those are some key websites that you can look at where they keep track as much funding as possible and then again there's one last pitch for CBRPC newsletter, digest and our staff reports I know that they're dry but there's a lot of good info there so please single alright sorry thank you I told you this would be a relevant we obviously didn't schedule enough time but I think you got us thinking but I want to give people time to ask questions or anybody I wish you could get excited about this Sam oh boy your energy you're totally invested in this I love that I feel like we're going to at least die we'll go back and read those slides and I'll come up with all sorts of things that I want to talk about once I've had a chance to do that I had a fair amount of discussion amongst the board about planning initiatives that we've got coming up quite literally this next year and wanting to engage resources like this during the planning process so to John's point we had already been kind of talking about scheduling a kind of community event sort of to kind of get input at least in the early stages so we have one see it's on your deck I'll be there 100% it'll be there so we're looking forward to continuing to engage the conversation thanks and I think in addition to the municipal I think finding ways to help residents and nonprofits and small businesses in town take advantage of some of those things I know I'm involved with a couple that are looking at massive projects in the next few years that are directly energy efficiency projects that are currently unaffordable so there's a lot of people who would be interested in taking advantage of some of those opportunities I'd also take the opportunity to make a public call to our community I think it would be great if our planning commission and our conservation commissions were more actively looking to find funding for projects and identifying particular projects I think we get a little hyper focused on what kind of policy and regulation changes we can make and lose sight of maybe what are the programs that we can be getting involved in what are the action items and projects that we can get going on that can get funded that's that's really important for rural communities you know where's the money coming from what's the money being prioritized towards and that would be huge to kind of feed the conversation you know back up to the select boards that are more actionable that's the kind of information that we can really benefit from at CVRPC as well just because then we'll have our ears to the ground we know that X is a priority in Gallus let's make sure that we keep that tacked up there and if there's funding opportunity that comes by or we know of one that already exists then I was saying the exact opposite though I was saying that you guys are breathing it out I'm going to tell us what it's a two-way conversation you're absolutely right you know it's just hard to stay on top of all the conversations and all of the opportunities but I took a note I think it would be great as a municipality if we were managing a list of the projects that we knew were on immediate horizon and then if we do have that set list of things and it's public enough that each of the commissions can keep it on top of mind for their for their meetings so that we can look at it from a couple of different lenses well let's meet in the middle then we'll tell you if we think it's fundable or not I don't think any envision our role is telling you what your priority should be that's how we're asking that's how we're asking that's how your priority should be based on where the money is how's that that was absolutely one of my recommendations is really that those shared resources we do tend to institutionalize within one person's memory of this one person knows all these things which that's awesome however how do we get that a little bit more visible and also just expertise share there might be some of the time that's like oh I can do that that's really important too it's really engaging folks to say we need your skills thanks for listening I'm not gonna sit that long alright thank you so much thank you so much we are really fortunate obviously that's a great start every year it's better it's better you are the next viewer when do we have to make a decision about the two projects no Brad when do we have to make a decision about the two projects these mantas these callous and in terms of moving forward yeah if you are still interested we can move forward as soon as you would like okay I'll read you out sounds like we're interested sounds like we're interested I mean it's more recent action now I know you're delicate to be a conduit alright thank you we'll move forward I'll read you out it's been years back too it seems like I've been asking about it that filtration I'll connect you with Chris he's like he'll do this I didn't know about it I just remembered they kept asking and no one had any information on it but it was a while back it's like some tiny funny thing yeah you were almost there hi before you shift gears I recognize John for all the years he has been I'm delicate missioner missioner that's right I didn't even say that this all came about because John called me and said he's the rep our representative to the Central Vermont Regional Planning Mission I'm trying to get us more engaged more time to do the stuff I saw money we need to get some objective here yeah thanks for having us we're going to talk about town meeting so Carly you have been working hard you've prepared a couple of documents for us so there's two documents in the folder one is called the article plan so it basically goes through the articles that you assigned to is going to be the lead for each maybe proactively maybe if questions come up and then there's some talking points associated with almost all of them so very drafty but something to work from so he's talking about the document where he's pilot our aims who's going to move which article and speak to those articles I thought it was very comprehensive you don't have to write a whole narration it's okay he's already done it cool well that was just one perspective there might be additional points but something to get started with yeah and then the idea was to practice tonight just to make sure we all understood our rules and were comfortable with the app and the questions they enjoyed especially the one at the end where they were like nothing answers like every member which question it was so that's the other document is the anticipated questions that one let's spend a little time there's room for more questions there's room for more answers better answers some of them I haven't drafted a response to it all yet I thought that was because it wasn't a response that's what made me talk about well I think we're very let's turn to that document it says anticipated town meeting questions starts off with overarching questions and I think it would be good if we talked particularly about that first one because I think it's highly likely we will get that one if we were going to cut and $17,000 cuts 1% what could we cut and Kari's given us a proposed list here there are other things well we have already in that did we already start that mapping program we have not committed anything we've already paid the $3,000 no we have not we haven't signed a contract and I put it off till after town meeting to see if we wind up cutting it so that would be one of the ideas some first meeting after town meeting is either signing it or not we might need to work around the Ken Hell Grant that's a pretty huge thing to be set in this side it's been a lot of work we've recommended and I think it's important too I think it's a very wanted I'm like our filtration system which pair we've only gotten I remember yeah I don't know how do you take it off this list it's just it's hard to come up with chunks of money as you know we went through this line by line and already sculpted a couple months I know that East Montpellier I don't perceive us doing that but I know like with their road budget they got to a place and they're like sorry we can't afford that guy anymore you know or you can't do any work at the time you don't have money for it so keep it to your 40 hours you know Jamie do you want to say something oh I was just confirming with Ann that I feel like Ken Hell has been a project a lot of time and energy has gone into thus far but yeah I mean I think it's fine to be on the list yeah well we can talk about we will express that and that's not the sculpting this is the French mattress the French mattress although that's going to be a challenge to get someone to talk about yes that's the French mattress that was in the budget so that's 5K and how much does that add to let's just suppose we took everything off the theater 26.5 26.5 1.6% it's like a French drain but it's a mattress and then you see that we just have one conversation so in this scenario we were to reduce all of that 26.5 it would be approximately based on my calculations $13 per $100,000 property value tax so if we reduce all of these items $26.5,000 it would translate to tax savings of $13 per $100,000 that's the way people will have to think about it in one of my savings right so this is supposing somebody at town meeting says hey we got to cut this back further we can say here's one idea this is what we would have cut next but we didn't want to cut I think the conservation commission might be a little oh everyone's going to be prickly sorry I didn't hear I think taking all $5,000 for the conservation fund might get some responses I would think so yes everything else it seems like we took a portion of a lot of the things but that was a full removal and I will say for the technology reserve fund we are going to have to replace the servers in a couple of years we will need that money if we want to put them in another year we can it doesn't need to be in there next year but it will need to be in there to buy the new servers so you see that reserve funds are at the top of the list because the thinking is oh we can put it in a deferred maintenance kind of thing you know the technology I figure just for the reason you're saying it's sort of mission critical we're going to have to pay if not next year we're going to have to come up with a year of follow-up but it's up to you if you want to do it whichever year now Kari you didn't put in don't do the greater this year correct so if that were removed and that might fail as it's own item that would be no interest payment at that point so that's actually $7,000 so that's the first one oh that's what you're saying I didn't put it in there just because it's already on about it's more complicated but that's certainly something to talk about we feel I suspect people are going to be more fired up about that education cause probably then we work really hard to be fired I don't know no one can help well no but a lot of towns have gone I think we worked really hard to get it down to this much as we could so Kari did we put the invasions up there so that people sure are there still a lot of people with us I don't know but John's he can't look at this at the moment oh I don't have an extra one to give me well we've got this handy handy screen chair looks like everybody most people have left him yeah so what they were just discussing John was if somebody had told me he'd said you guys have a budget by 1% what items that could bring that down by 1% is what they were just discussing you guys have a list in them a possible list a start at the point fine savings so you have a goal it's like we have a goal to reduce the budget by no we've already done that we've already done that there's a lot of contingency on the floor someone says hey what can we do to reduce it by 1% to 2% maybe they ask for 5% or 10% so 1% is 17,000 and then here's a list that's just one man's perspective ideas you know I'm moving on now the next question is how much did the flood cost us it occurs to me that it would be good to be getting FEMA updates I had a conversation with Toby yesterday in which he told me we've actually received some FEMA funding we haven't seen a check yet the first reimbursement request was approved and that was from Moscow no that was for the Kurdish Pond day out because that was an emergency wow I see and that's like 20 something so that's you know as Sabra said it's the first drop of rain in the storm so hopefully it's an indicator of more to come so what percentage of that work effort by the government just what we did last summer the entirety of it well that was 30,000 75% plus the state that's the idea so it's gone to the state now correct the state will actually write the check and then we are not to the point yet of applying for the additional 12% from the state so Moscow was the second thing submitted there's just layers of review but it was very encouraging to hear that we've finally gotten one project through so next we should hear in Moscow it's for almost 500 shhh that's the same thing oh it's only half of it that's a third of our total requests right think of it as a big deal not like that the big one if you keep us in the loop on that sure thank you so I think that one's pretty easy to answer I want to talk about that one if anybody asks about the flood we don't get it to Kari and you got rep funding hopefully coming through Lisbon that would be one of the ones we did not fall in yet I think so the smaller ones are still going the smaller ones are still working on so maybe if you had a list of all the big projects you did and then status there were a lot of them there's about 30 I thought it was 50 well it depends there could be what they call two projects on one road to like Moscow had it in store in a lower okay thank you so I don't know I think there's more like eight projects separate requests that will all be treated as separate projects these are been great questions for Scott I assume Scott and Toby will be there I don't think he was just here moments ago well that's alright I will have a lot of thought with this that comes down to those kinds of details it's the next one I think the next one's pretty obvious could we use the FEMA funding oh no I'm sorry will we get reimbursed and why can't we reduce our budget in anticipation of FEMA funding so we're not getting 100% reimbursed at best 87% 88% which is really going to help replenish you know we have a fund balance and it's basically gone now and we need to build back up those funds and that's another important point we're getting to the point where we're going to have to draw it alone yeah I was going to provide a report when you talk about that financial report alright everybody comfortable so far let me tell you let's move past FEMA why do we need town administrator I think that was pretty easy I would add to the list that you gave us Kari handling day to day operations you say the TA has a few key functions I mean a big one is just handling what goes on day to day which we were doing up until the time you came on and also you gather a lot of information for us that helps us with the decisions we make that formerly you had to rely on us to get all the information with help from the staff but it's just been huge or emphasize the informed decisions right we're a community relying I believe like any rural community on volunteer labor and people who have day jobs and part of making informed decisions is making sure that we're brought the information and that has been huge that you've been official even in the brief period of time we've had Kari dedicated to that work I don't think there's anything wrong saying this is a long overdue feeling of a position we've been struggling for more than a decade yeah Kari you've been having a problem with isn't it too much to be all the things you're gonna question did you like my response we're working on it yeah I think that's right I mean the answer is Sandra can help you with the treasurer's position she's backing off and Toby's been helping you with road commissioner and Wilkie you're ready to do a lot of support Kari just want to emphasize if there are things that Barbara and I can help with like it doesn't have to be you or the treasurer you do all the finances we are happy to help with whatever way we can because we all know that it's seasonal and sometimes she and I are very busy like right now might not be the time to put things on our heads but other times of the year you may have more and we may not have as much so feel free to reach out work is a ten rise what happened to the public works director well I think that's straight forward um now why you know in general somebody is likely to ask why is the budget going up is that a question further on that's right the next question that's why is the general government budget going up while the highway budgets going down there was somewhere that originally the public works director and have money was pulled out which cost that yeah but in general why is the budget going up did we is that a question put it in there that's where I have thought what's the percentage of the municipal budget seven and a half it started at like 11 or something I'm actually happy to hear seven I know that's what I think of people I've been here not the legislature would stock 40% increase in their school budget oh school 40% Senate finance chair and comings receive over 100 emails from the time of stuff and there's a lot of blame in there of course what is stores going what is stores well they're freaked out I'm sure they're still going back to the Bremen decision you know the education fund and the reallocation of the wealthy town's money but it's just 20% increase senator and comings chair and comings said that her own property taxes on her own house would increase by $2,000 she's freaked she's mind-tied three wouldn't live so good John you'll be at the meeting and you can talk about this if it winds up being a discussion well I think it's going to be good the school I already did I still own the house if people want to talk about schools could you tell me the place to do it but we have no control over schools we don't know if they're going to do the school budget they're talking about postponing that now that's what the Australian government is but they're talking about doing it they can go back and do it over now they don't have their 5% cap so it's like you really want to take 25% increase because you're going to have to pay the whole thing then am I correct in understanding like they're looking at this year being very unique year and that there's going to be additional elections and so moving the Australian ballots later in the year not that late but the point is with the removal of that cap if that's what actually happens it changes the assumptions so they're giving schools are affected in that way a chance to redo but if that's not on town meeting day warning isn't that too late it might be inappropriate to talk about it at town meeting because it's not a forum for everybody to hear about that topic I don't think we're allowed to talk about it the school board is having their own elections and their own hearings and their own everything I will have to be in charge of communicating to people how the ballot thing will work if they decide to not do their election but I don't think the school stuff is an appropriate thing to talk about at this meeting well as I say I'm pretty sure we can't if it's on Australian ballot we cannot talk about it but it's not our election that's another reason too but that's hard to understand that when the ballots are right there they're voting right there on the ballots so I hear what you're saying I know what you're saying but people are saying the ballot is right here at the check-in table and we'll say the hearing was warned plus if they ask us about the road grave we can't talk about that either it's on Australian ballot because everybody doesn't have the equal chance to hear what we're saying they may not have come to town well I guess that's good context like if that comes up relative to the budget and trying to find other savings and we can't go into a dialogue around the road grave that's right we can only say if you decide not to do it why are we spending so much on attorneys it's going to be a hard one to talk about yup the first bullet point there open the iron get the hell out I didn't know I got a car here I'm not qualified I mean it does seem like a good question for the attorneys which is terrible Kari is it entirely driven by that one case or is there more I don't actually know I think there's more well and it was a union negotiation as well thank you but we've also increased the budget item relative to previous budget so you know I think there is an argument to be made that the matters that the town is having to manage and oversee are getting more complicated and they're not going to get less complicated you know so the regulations whether it's ordinance changes or adjustments or you know standing up for those adjustments we are living in a more litigious world and it is not fiscally responsible for us to under fund like funding for any of those types of things and we need to be careful when we think about changing regulations and we need to make a plan for defending them and that's part of it I would say so I guess that's my responsibility to speak to at the meeting or Kari's Kari's yeah oh because you're doing the budget that's right these things are yours all of them I don't remember that no I'm running the town office in any case we'll do it together okay salaries and benefits I think Kari's answer shouldn't we pay the road crew more shouldn't we, could we pay the road crew less that might be a question yeah I think when people are generally speaking they're getting paid well they don't want to negotiate I think to God the question a few times is we're paying them more we're paying them more yeah the answer kind of works both ways it's gone up to us it's amazing for sure instead of it it's a happy story actually I would say we're working out there they seem happy and we're more we're more in the market we're beyond it we're a attractive employer and that is that's part of it yeah arguably that's why roads look so good they do they do, drive around yeah well that's the need we need we need road crew members to be happy with where they are so that we have roads that we can drive on and we're not going to be able to retain them or we're going to be constantly stuck in trying to find the ones which is near impossible so imagine being all like good work done, feeling bad, it's done and then two days later mother nature destroys you frustrating but it's fun driving an excavator like I don't care how many holes you have to dig it's the nature of the job take the holes of it okay so what's happening with our treasurer that's obvious what's going on with the assessors I think we all understand that any other thoughts about questions we might get on salaries and benefits particularly on benefits no questions on benefits but I mean costs are going up it's beyond that control and that's like so publicly discussed all aspects around this a lot of people will come in so but if we looked over the years medical insurance is the number one driver of this budget because it's now we budget $30,000 for employee on the family that's our portion now our coverage is I mean it's like way better than my federal insurance actually have to pay probably 20 something thousand a year for my insurance but every insurance is going up unemployment is going up I mean I don't know how much we get into the weeds on there but I any opportunity that I have the chance to get on a soapbox and say this is our budgeted cost for these benefits I don't think many people realize how expensive their health policies are even when they are employee funded or employer funded and talking about those numbers are good but there's a way to do that without getting into a debate whether we should or shouldn't be than I before trying to make that point okay, volunteers and committees, Jamie that's you right yeah, you looked at all those you're comfortable with those can I talk about any of them how about why didn't no one you run for select board this year I mean I mean that's not a question we're likely to but I think that's common when all incumbents are running for their seat again it's not uncommon I think what happened in July is the answer who would do this it could be yours it could be the school board but blanks on our right so the only thing I agree with what you said Jamie, the only thing is that people weren't calling the town office and asking are there current select board members who are up for election are they running people weren't calling and asking are you getting candidates people were or were not we heard of one person who was thinking about it then we never saw a petition we also didn't ask last year there were committees there was a lot of buzz about we need new people and this year none of us went out there and said come on five times at the store a lot of people asked me are there people running for these positions and I could say yes there are people who have filled out you know we weren't getting those calls to the town office looks at this question why is there no longer a grace period on tax payments I'm not sure what that was about we had two weeks if your taxes were due on the 15th of November you had I believe it was two weeks until the 30th to get it in without penalty it was both payments both payments it was two weeks for the last couple of years it was one week and this past year it was zero why was that because it was not included on the last year's town warning as an article to be approved it wasn't included this year's town so we don't know what he asks but somebody probably will and why didn't we put it on I mean that never occurred to me to put it on I didn't even know but if it was an issue did it kind of a pain in the butt the town office doesn't wonder to be a grace period and no one noticed that it wasn't on the ballot last year yeah so John will remember that the town office petition to petition to the last select board to please not have that article on the warning they finally agree because Joe McLean got involved and recommended to the select board not to have a grace period and postmarks accepted he said no you're the only town in Vermont that has both of those so the select board asked which do you recommend accept postmarks and drop the grace period so the former select board finally agreed to that nobody at town meeting brought it up and so it didn't come up and this year we again didn't ask for it to be on the warning it's a big resource commitment tracking it's huge it can add so much more work at the town office when there's a grace period but now we have Carl so so don't bring it up and nobody else brings it up you know the next questions are I think things that Donnie's going to be dealing with yeah he's not here you know we can finish this next time if you'd like we have um there's another hearing yeah the next meeting you have one more meeting before yeah I really should um what about others are there any on this that somebody else am you're gonna do thing yeah that's fine yeah they look fine okay anybody have any other thoughts about other questions we should be considering is this like word from here on forward are you meeting at six I mean you'd probably want to make that announcement at town meeting I don't know but the town website says seven that's what we should fix um to be fair we did just recently adopt the new rules procedures yeah on this like word page simple fix thank you John under the new regulator the new rules that were adopted on that page the new rules are there they're not I don't know if they're on that page they're on the ordinance and I'll make sure they get to that page thanks okay I think not when you were done with this snakes car this was enormously helpful that's fantastic and we'll have to try to remember to make sure Donny feels like he got whatever he needs at the next meeting I think there will be like the road questions you know what's on here that I could anticipate why didn't you see them to carry yes just based on questions I get regular you're going to come around again yeah so I'll be sure to put some time on the next agenda I need to put the rules of procedure on this like okay thanks alright now we have our um we're calling it the end of the year financial report just because it's the last period calendar year why does it say on the agenda in july through january that's the fiscal year yeah fiscal year started in july and just completed the january period of course so a little over half way through the year so um yeah I was actually taught how to run these reports and did the analysis so taking baby steps here so one thing I want to alert you to is that if you look at the um the budget status report for general government there's two one for highway department one for general government we are approximately $164,000 short on revenue for general government compared to budget sanders estimating we'll have about $70,000 in delinquent tax come in before the end of the year and then there's about $10,000 in clerk revenue for the various licenses and fees um so then beyond that we have some tax sales plan I'm not sure what will be the outcome of those and then um there's another important thing that's discussed in this report about that in april there's a true up um the tax the amount of money that we owe to the schools um for the tax collection that we do for them and so that will likely reduce how much we owe them but the way things are standing it looks like we're not going to raise the tax collection that was budgeted for this year I mean I think we're still below that and I would have to dig into what the assumptions were in the budget as to why that is obvious to me but we may have a shortfall on the expenditure side I think we're in good shape we're at 77% of budget for general government a number of those things are front loaded or come in the first half of the year like the social service appropriations the fire department and the payments so I think we're good there we're 58% of the highway department I was actually believed to see that number because january is very expensive between all the overtime and the growl and we're not out of the woods they were running growl today and they will continue what season's coming it's year but 58% of feel pretty good about that and then I mentioned the if you look at the balance sheet and the due to from report both of those show that $272,000 that is owed to the school district but that is going to be different it's likely going to be less than that the state will produce the final bill in April and that's when we're expected to make that payment and then there's also the fee more report is in here and that also shows up on a due to from $1,336,316 that's the current total but it does not include employee straight time it only includes overtime and that we will submit a reimbursement for the straight time as well so that's why we're estimating somewhere around 1.5 million in total reimbursement yeah I didn't understand that sentence have you said that there were five outstanding invoices paid from the fund in january, yeah so late bills that came in from this theme oh it's just an accounting thing and that's just a call out we had some late invoices come in it's been a while since any work was done or materials purchased anything like that but you know these things happen so hopefully we're done there but yeah that's that and then so the bottom line our cash position we're still we're still for the numbers in here 405,900 is what we have in our fund balance we're still waiting to hear the final determination on the municipal climate relief funds the bond banks cash flow loan program we don't expect to get the full amount we apply for 500,000 they received requests for 35 million from towns 15 million in that fund so maybe we'll get half they're still trying to figure out what their methodology will be but we should hear any data we may have to supplement that with a line of credit that we have who are banked but there's also three large unknowns in terms of cash flow one is if we sign the contract construction contract with Larry Hebert what is the down payment or the first payment that he's expecting I don't know that I asked him that recently and he didn't he wouldn't he didn't really say anything about down payment but he said he builds bi-weekly for the duration of construction okay so when does that start not until July June 1 so we might be in good shape actually with that one there may be two weeks of time before construction starts so it may be June 1 but he's not looking for some but haven't we already have we transferred the $220,000 into a fund so we should have an earmark fund of $220,000 which is a big chunk of that even if we do have some I just didn't know it's not a big issue I asked him because I got concerned that he might be looking up for 50% up front or something the second one is the reappraisal and I need to track down that contract and understand what that is because there probably will be somebody do up front for that one and another thing is the timing of that it's going to be an interesting period of time but we're protected with that line of credit because we have access to $1.7 million way more than what we need thanks questions? maybe he's got answered and I missed it can we use the line of credit money to help pay for the dam until we get paid back is that maybe we use it for anything we want okay I just I didn't even think about that thank you so Tegan do you want to report anything we got our 10 ballots today at the office so if they're all supposed to be mail out with these school ballots on Wednesday that happens automatically but we have some in case people lose them we've had a couple people maybe six or eight new registered voters since the printing company got our mailing list so all the mailing goes out to the people that haven't gotten yet we're supposed to get the school ballots also in the town office this week so I'll be able to start sending out the career center ballots Barbara has secured security life security for election day just so folks including and who have volunteered to come and just if anyone comes and starts to maybe cause a disturbance people who are willing to talk to them and maybe walk them outside and help them cool off we're not talking muscle bouncers we're just talking people who have other election officials well the other election officials are busy doing the checklist and keeping an eye on the tabulator and doing election things it's nice to have one person set aside to engage with anyone who needs to talk or has questions so Barbara has gotten that all set up we are starting to make plans we talked to Chris Teller on the phone today about town meeting and when we're going to do setup the day before we had a chart the voting area and the town meeting we're all getting there why am I shocked Barbara made a chart she was in a computer program she didn't drive and then we've also been working on dogs Barbara taught me how to do things in the dog module to get people's licenses so she and I have been working together so that's kind of a fun thing to do on the side to distract from all the election things going on Barbara is there anything else you can make of this? yes the town report got printed last week it got bound today being addressed tomorrow in the mail on Wednesday so you can expect your town report in the mail at the end of the week Saturday it's going to show up on Saturday thanks I'm getting much sooner so she's a little she's happy we're just getting the tomorrow to look at the election volunteer schedule so we can start scheduling get the email out and start scheduling election volunteers there was something else I was thinking of but the moment it escapes me but it's just awesome to know the town report's going in the mail congratulations Barbara oh an awe over it tell us if you find a mistake don't tell us tell us how wonderful it is the graphic designer we got through the community college has just been excellent he's been so professional and so punctual and so detail oriented finding things that you normally don't even have to do as a graphic designer he has just been hiring him was a really good move that Barbara did and I am very happy that that was a smooth process I don't want anything we were worried about or grumbling about under our breath oh great questions from Tayden Tayden did I understand you to say you're doing separate mailings for different ballots or are we going to get one package with all the ballots so you will get a package with the school ballot, the Washington Central ballot and the town ballot everyone will get that that's going out automatically it doesn't even come through our office it goes straight from the printer to you all the presidential primary if you want to get it ahead of town meeting you have to call and request it from the town office and you will mail it to you or pick it up any technical center too so you have to do that for the presidential you have to ask democrat or republican for the presidential and for the career center as well those are not automatically mailed out for them to all get mailed out every town involved in the district has to agree and all 18 towns in the career center need to pay the postage to mail it to everyone so we don't have them yet I was told we would have them today or tomorrow once I have those if someone requests presidential career center I will certainly send them in the same envelope but we've been sending out presidential as requests have been coming in just to make sure that everyone is getting their ballots and when can people start voting wait are people going to vote? yeah we have weeks we've already got a box full of ballots because we've had the presidential ballots for two weeks and we've hosted a front porch forum if you want a presidential ballot you need to request it people started requesting them three weeks ago so we've already gotten lots of votes already Barbara was the first person to vote in time Jamie how much money you got these weeks? not a lot more than I had on Friday which I think wasn't it just last Friday? yes it was yeah I mean pledges kept trickling in over the weekend but I intended for the big push to get for Friday I switched gears a little bit this weekend and started sort of targeted conversations with potential large donors and have a couple of just a lot of ideas and some promising leads which hopefully I should know more great job Jamie I don't think a lot else has happened over the weekend but I did talk to Larry again I let Larry and Michael know that the bond is moving forward Larry is you know as of now holding it in his schedule and looking to work things around and assuming we're going ahead this year but knows that there's still a funding gap on the topic have you started since Friday? sorry this is a dumb question researching tax assessment yes of course as I was asking it was a weekend between some of the potential larger donors that I've been speaking to don't love the idea of a tax assessment district because they could see it in the long run which I agree with as down the road causing challenges of you know there's limited spots in the swim program 10 years from now is there pressure for people in the district to get priority over people not in the district or other potential future use conflict for the bond and so I'm feeling some energy to find ways to come up with money without going that way this is good I'm debating back if you could please find some more looking to X but a tax assessment district conversation but definitely interested in learning more about that process but hopeful to not that's sort of like our fall back last worst case scenario Plain Plain it would be or an HOS talking to someone lives on Pijama Pond and every year they have to pay for the lady who manually inspects every bullet that goes in just some of the yearly cost the maintenance insurance insurance you're going to have to cover for the day you know because it's a lifetime we're going to be on a so it would be nice if there was some sort of means to shift up earn a little bit and I don't know what we could call it age away but it's Monday you've got it tomorrow plenty of time okay anything else on Pijama Pond I don't know do you got anything on IT no not really okay you and have anything on the share kind of I think it would be appropriate to go into executive session and have that conversation for sure okay and we're also going to have our three months back in with also so I guess we're going to have two executive sessions so let's see how to do this we're going to we have to have separate votes for each one and then we have to come out and do it again I don't anticipate taking any action for the first one so I think it would probably be fair to make a motion for those and kind of dismiss everybody and take notes about when to go out and come back and then we'll just provide the notes to Tegan you're putting these together for us is there something wrong with Rose? she and Greg are in South Carolina or someplace warm I'm getting my best but I'll also look back at old minutes to make sure I'm wording everything correctly so I'll take a motion and go into executive session under section 313 8.1 of Pending was probably civil litigation to which the public body that's us is pending so we're going into executive session there's someone need to yes it was in the minutes but he pleased with that so moved second we're going to invite Kari to come in with us please add that we're inviting Kari to come in with us sorry did we get a second Jenny seconded all in favor we'll take a little break