 I'm very talented. Wow. Wow. Progress on the H513, is that, are you reporting out on that? Yeah, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm planning on getting the insurance thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's a midnight permit. Yeah, what is a midnight permit? It's midnight. It's a few minutes after six and we've got a pretty full house tonight. So we have a number of new cases tonight's our organization. Jeremy is with us on Skype. It's a new night in Germany. So he's going to report on several of the items. We will do board reorganization, but I think first, why don't we start, names and introductions will go around the table. I'm Phil Hainth, I'm vice chair, sitting in for Jeremy tonight and I'm the delegate from Middlesex. I'm Tom Fisher, I'm the delegate from East Monterey. Hello, I'm Josh Jarvis, I'm the delegate from Berrytown. I'm John Russell, I'm the delegate from Westbrook. I'm Jared Thomas, the secondary delegate. I'm Susan Martin, alchemy of the Woodbury. I'm the delegate from St. John's, I'm the delegate from Monterey. I'm Greg Kelly, I'm the delegate from Berry City. Michael Burndale, delegate from Plainfields. Andrew Gilbert, delegate from Cabot. Bob Burley, Elmore. Shumot, Harroquin, Orange. Jonathan Williams, Marshfield. Becca Strait, Eric Lurkin, Treasurer. I'm Robert Schneider, I'm sitting in as a delegate from Moons, not right now. Okay, and in the back. Jeremy, did you, you thought we might take a few minutes and talk about vision or should we maybe leave that for later on? Yeah, maybe if we take that as the later agenda item, I just wanted to give everybody a chance towards the beginning to if they had any thoughts about where to go over the next year, especially for the new folks, the folks who've been on the board already for a year maybe take a chance and sort of do a brief personal catch everybody up from their perspective of where they're sitting and the new folks could then express what they're hoping to. Okay, so again, I think we'll go back around. Tom, I think starting with you. Any thoughts or comments about the work the board has been doing, where you see us going next year? I think it's been a lot of building our basics to get to the point where we can start doing some more interesting work of finding possible partners and all the fun plans we talked about. It sounds like we're still at a state where we need to start an initial lineage happening, so it'll be interesting to see how we manage to make that happen. Right, Josh? Yeah, I would agree with Tom that first off, I decided to say that unfortunately I've missed the past three meetings that I've been traveling around, but it's good to be back. But I do want to say that this is a great group of people here, very talented group of people, and from some of the board meetings that I've sat in on, especially with some of the partner meetings that I've sat in on, there's some really exciting stuff going on here, and they'll look forward to what is your role in this. Thanks. Your first meeting, John, I think so. My first meeting I'm replacing Mel Gilbert. I guess Ellen is still on the finance committee. He's going to continue on policy if we appoint him a little later on this evening. Okay, so he and I have been talking about this because he has his speed as twice what mine is even though we both missed her. So personally, I think it's almost a sacrilege of the slowness of speed here in Vermont and in another world. He's put a lot more into the local. So something needs to be done and doing it publicly rather than governmentally through some large corporation. Good. Well, you're in the right place. Good. Jared, you've been here for a few meetings now. I think the next year has been really big for us. A lot of the round work right now. We're going to see the actions in the next 12 months. Yeah, we hope so. Good. Thanks. Susan. I'm new to you all. I'm Susan Martin. I'm from Fort Berry, Vermont. And I used to work for the public service department in the telecommunications division. So I have a lot of background with fiber communications. Whatever flowed is what my job was including water. And I understand that I don't pronounce that right, but that's okay. You get used to it. There's water. So I'm happy to be here as an alternate. I don't have really much to say except for the cable companies that failed us in Vermont. I'm sure this is probably why we're here. Great. Well, you're certainly welcome to come anytime, even though you're an alternate. And we do have a number of alternates who've come fairly regularly. That's wonderful. Right. I'd like to find out what we've done the last 10 months that we've been together, because this is my first meeting. Have we had a brief from the EV fiber? Do you know what they've done? Whatever you have, that's great. I haven't, but I'd like to give you background on that. I'd like to make sure that we can move forward as quickly as we possibly can to get it done. Thanks. I think as the night goes on, possibly towards the end, when we spend a little bit more time reflecting, we can try to cover some of the work that we've done to help bring you up to speed. Dan. Okay, I've missed a couple. I have a new knee. You can almost walk. I can almost walk. We were moving forward on the whole Norman Borders thing before. So I'm curious where that is right now. There was a discussion on the best strategic move as to whether to try and move quickly to find a small town to get something going in, and I haven't seen where that's going. So I'm curious as to where we honor that. Jeremy's going to report on the Northern Borders piece a little later on, and we can probably pick up that other piece, too. David. The last year has been really educational in terms of people who are new. We've heard from a bunch of consultants. We've heard from some providers. It's been very educational. We have people on the board who are very informed on the topics. That's great for enlightening all of us. I'm on the business committee, and Mrs. Garmin's had ups and downs. The chair is often out of town, so it's been a very rough road there. I may want to consider something else there. We'll go forward tonight. I've been working on the broadband bill a little bit in the legislature piece that I think is going down, which was the GIS part soon. Anyway. Okay. Greg. I'm Greg Kelly, and I have 30 years of experience in telecommunications. Last 12, not recently, but 12 years here in Vermont. I started building fiber in 2002 here in Vermont. All together, we built about 1200 miles. I sold the company in 2013. It merged and became first-light fiber. Here locally, I built to the airport, to the AOT garages. Charter was a customer of ours, the state of Vermont. All together, I've probably hooked up close to 1,000 buildings. And now, I'm a farmer. Oh. That makes sense. Hi. Hi. Say, fiber to the cow. You know, you need it. I'm going to go outside. Who's next? Michael. Our first year was pretty well summed up. It was an educational stretch. But we were also reaching out to consultants and specific plans. I think we coalesced around the idea that we needed a dynamic and detailed business model to proceed. And that's part of why I think we didn't yet select a community to start in or an approach because we're sort of in a waiting period now because we've applied for some grants to build that business model. And that business model is going to be key to making strategic decisions as to how we'll proceed. So it's a little frustrating because we're in a little bit of a waiting mode. And it's always frustrating because we all want this now and we also, this is a remarkable board. Very talented board. With lots of disparate experience and I'm so thrilled to be part of it. And so most of us know how damn long it does take but we're all impatient at the same time. So that's sort of a summary. And we're just waiting for someone to come along and write that million-dollar check because I'm going to start it. Thirty million. Thanks, Mal. I'm not going to skip over, Rama, even though you're... No, Rama Schneider from Williamstown. The only thing I'd like to add, well, two things that I'll add. First, on the first year, I think from my perspective, one of the most important things that occurred, if not the most important, is we got ourselves structurally sound. And that is, we're still going to be working on that. And I can tell you, I know there's still a lot of discomfort in the eating laws and that sort of thing. And I understand, I'm used to it if you've been working on public boards, you get used to it. It gets to be secondhand. So I think we made great strides organizationally. We wouldn't be able to do any of the other work that we're going to be doing without the organization. The education stuff, too. Listen, as far as my view on this is let's start stringing wires and hooking somebody up. Because that's what it's about. And that's the only way that we're really going to get to measure ourselves is by how much wire we get out there and how many people we hook up. Great. Thanks. Andy. Yeah, so very educational. That would echo a really nice set of talent and the organizational aspect of it. I think we, I want to think back to some of the experiences we had. We've done great. Yeah. So that can't be emphasized enough. And Michael covered a lot of what my other thoughts were in terms of where are we thinking about strategy and patience and how do we do this making an informed decision. I'm pretty impatient right now, to be honest. And I would make an argument for thinking bolder. We had one presentation that was along those lines. I don't think otherwise this is going to take way too long. So that's my two cents. Great. Bob. Hi guys. Let's try to do it as quickly as possible. I retired U.S. Air Force pilot, officer and pilot combat experience. I began my civilian career in advanced engineering and product development for large systems, both hardware and software. And retired a number of years ago from Hewlett Packard as the chief operating executive for the large systems division. Currently an active commercial pilot and an active national level ski racer. And I'm here largely as a result of my 12 years tint as the chairman of the Elmore Select Board and I am now serving my sentence on this committee. To the extent that I have any expertise whatsoever, it's the building and managing of successful business from an operational perspective. I.e. you better know what your cumulative cash flow curves look like from Incept to end of life. I'm Shabam Karakana from Orange. I have had an online presence since 1986. I was involved in computer bullet and board services. I was on Phytonat which was a connection of computer bullet and board services. I was in a company I was a subscriber to the company that became America Online. Quantum Link that connected Commodore 64 computers and it was dial up and it was 5 cents a minute and it was pretty exciting. So I've been online all the time. So I'm a user. I'm a very active user of the area. I'm very excited about the possibility of having a speed at my house. And I worked for Sobernat for 5 years on tech support back in the mid 90s. I just know the internet I think it's great. It's full of opportunities. It's a great way to help build up community and to develop stuff in the community and make it more comfortable for people to stay in their homes longer. So that's what I'm kind of looking for. This last year has been very exciting. I feel like like some others just said we co-lust into a good group of people that were working fairly well these days. And a lot of the presentations got me thinking about different possibilities of how we could execute this. And I'm very excited about what we come up with. But I'm also rotation. How well as soon as you can get it. And I also look at this as a social good. I'm very much interested in the social aspects of all of this and how this can help especially economically disadvantaged people out in the rural areas to get out of where they are financially through online employment or just being able to talk to their doctors without having to take a trip from town. So it seems a really important thing that we're doing beyond just getting internet to our houses. Thank you. I have nothing further to add except to say that I remain optimistic. Like I do. Sure. Mostly this being my first municipal board experience and being the clerk and treasurer. It's been drinking from the fire hose and that. I do think that we've come a long way in terms of setting up a structure and Shivana and I were just talking after, during our round table at the finance committee about how we're really looking forward to moving to be a true governance board and being able to really talk about some of those issues and getting somebody else working on the actual stringing of fiber and getting us hooked up and those kinds of things. So, yeah. Great. Ken, you want to, we're just doing introductions and talking a little bit about vision or... Sorry, sorry. Ken Jones on the alternate month but I'm also working for the state agency for economic development. And you folks I'm sure wouldn't be surprised the number of times I hear the importance of connectivity for economic development in the state of Monaco. It was at the Forest Summit at Burke last week and a couple of the niche woodworking folks say their primary need is past. Just all the time. And glad to be here. I guess the kind of sub-story is from the state perspective to what extent can the EC5 be replicated in other community systems. Right. Yeah. Good point. And I'm sorry if I forgot. Sure. So, Lucas Garing so I'm the mayor for the city of Berry but my day job I'm the IT director for the Department of Corrections so same thing we have prisons that have been in very rural location trying to get them up to a bandwidth that will support our different systems that we operate and you can't operate those systems if you don't have the bandwidth to operate on. That's kind of my background into this but just on a personal note what Sue had mentioned before is the price that is really associated with what is currently out there is so astronomical I actually just dropped my internet completely. I operate off from a hotspot on my phone because it's one-third of the cost and I don't even need what they're offering that they have. So the bandwidth is one piece that is the cost to you. Yeah. Interesting. Did I miss anyone? No. I guess I'll go briefly. My name is Phil Hayek. I'm delegate from Middlesex obviously also Vice-Chair sitting in tonight for Jeremy. I'm not going to be long-winded here because you all have said all the things that need to be said much better than I could have done that but it is interesting that every time I run into some folks in Middlesex and because I'm on the select board I see quite a few people rather frequently and they're always like, so when am I going to get hitched up? Have you run the wire yet? No. Can I tell you it's like to build an organization from absolutely nothing which was a new experience for me. I've never done this some of you probably have but looking back at the last year it took a lot I think for us to get here and Andy said some level of frustration because a number of us want to move faster and have it be like the person who's saying, can I sign up tomorrow? But it's going to be a while but I think the next year is going to be a year of some real progress for us because I think we have built a good foundation and if we can secure the funding then I think we're going to be in a good place to move fairly quickly. Jeremy do you want to try to add anything? I'm sure everybody will be able to hear you but I'll go as quickly as I can so we can get to the good stuff. I'm really encouraged by everything that we've done in the last year and I think you're all right. I think this next year is really going to be turn the corner and actually start doing stuff and as someone who's kind of allergic to paperwork and bureaucracy I think once we start looking at the various grant funds and loan funds and some of the forward movement by the state I think we have a pretty bright short term future and a brighter long term future so I'll just leave it at that. Thanks. We're significantly behind schedule already which is not unusual for us but with that I'm going to launch right into reorganization the board. At this point we need to elect the chair, the vice chair clerk and treasurer for the coming year. So with that I'm going to declare nominations open for chair of the board. Do I hear any nominations? Nominate Jeremy Hansen. Second. Jeremy is nominated and seconded. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none please declare that closed. Jeremy just a quick question. We need to vote by announcing our vote. As moderator you can instruct the clerk to cast one vote essentially for the board. Just like we do at town meeting. I think we'll do that. With no other nominations I'm going to ask the clerk to cast unanimous ballot for Jeremy Hansen as chair of the board. Congratulations Mr. Chairman. Would you like to take over now that you're chairing? If everybody can't hear me it would be better if you did. Vice chair we need a nomination for vice chair. Is there a second? Second. Thank you. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none I'll declare nominations closed and again ask the clerk to cast unanimous ballot for myself as vice chair. Thank you. So just sorry. Yes. Minor point of order. Jared you're actually the alternate. I apologize. Okay thank you. Anamomations for clerk are now open. I nominate Rebecca Schrader. I second. Rebecca has been nominated and seconded. Are there any other nominations? She's not refused it. We'll consider that no and the nominations closed and again ask the clerk to cast unanimous ballot for herself as clerk. And finally we need to elect a treasurer. Is there are there any nominations for treasurer? Is there a second? Second. Rebecca has been nominated and seconded. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none. Nominations closed and again ask the clerk to cast unanimous ballot for Rebecca Schrader as treasurer. Well I thought people would be jumping up wanting to be treasurer. I was ready to give up both spots because I was really thinking it was going to be heated but. Yeah. Okay. That was a tough election cycle. Now we'll call the meeting to order. Are there any additions or changes to the agenda? I need to record back on a meeting with the deputy commissioner of public service at the regional committee commission office in Pompiliers. Take that a little later on when we're doing other reports. Any other additions? Yes. Okay. Thank you. What do I know? You know about that. Okay. Any other additions or changes? I see. Okay. Any other changes? I think we have a full agenda now. Okay. Any members of the public? I do not see any members of the public. Therefore there won't be any comment. We've done introductions and division and next is the treasurer's report. Oh, yeah. Right, so we have $6,822.80 between our snowball and checking accounts and then $25 in savings. We're solving at least. We are. We're totally able to meet all expenses. Yeah. Any questions for the treasurer? Oh, I'm sorry. I was just going to add one thing just of note is that we do have a donor who gives monthly. Really? $10 a month. Thanks. Yeah, exactly. We haven't reached our match amount yet. No. Just to recap, our match amount is $25. Michael? So during the last month, other than that $10 recurring, have we received other donations? Since the last, so the last meeting was what, April 9th maybe? Yes, we've received two other donations besides the monthly ones. Or actually three, because we've also got a check. So we've got two on snowball and a check. I was wondering if you've reached out to the Chamber of Commerce for any funds or grants? Has anyone? No. Jeremy, do you know of any outreach to the Chamber? The business committee has not. No, that was something in a previous meeting that I sort of wanted to step away from and allow somebody else to go that route. So if anybody's willing to do so, I'm happy to hear about it. This would be a good time for me to do my little Cabot update. What it? Okay. Sure. I'm just interjecting. So Cabot has a community investment fund where they provide funds from if there's a long history to it, doesn't really matter. They essentially have a working fund that they provide grants for community development. We applied on behalf of CVI. We were awarded a $500 award. It's subject to it has to be invoicable and we do have a time limit on it. So I actually was just emailing the individual who's in charge of that. So it got awarded sometime in late March or early April. So assuming everything works out right we can kind of virtually count another $500 in our pot as long as we can have to expend it and put the invoice of the paperwork back forth back to them. So that's just a nice little tradition. So is that something we have to actually spend that amount on and give them an invoice to show that we so wait, a service or a good? I think we can use it for the match. There wasn't a constraint on it. It's for community development so economic development it's not. There wasn't any other streams on it but they do want us to be a legal entity with a piece of paperwork that shows we really didn't need to use the money for those. Sure. You can just buy a bunch of cheese. Right. Nice way to just slip that right in. Get your report done. Jeremy, insurance cost estimates. Sure. So I heard back from the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and I'll give you a short version and then a slightly longer version that I'm not going to settle you with. Short version as they said no. And the explanation was and I'm quoting, our coverage language is not suited for the type of exposures contemplated by communications union districts and then we do not parse out coverages on an individual line basis. That is they can't offer standalone DNO. They can't offer insurance coverage for just the thing that we're asking them for right now in order for us to get that grant. And then they went on and said if the insurance relationship was the same as EC fiber and valley net we could not provide coverage. If we had a similar operating structure we couldn't provide coverage. They said the district can obtain better quality coverage by using the approach and carrier that EC fiber does with valley net. And then he went on and indicated that they have a standalone or he indicated to me that EC fiber valley net would be a standalone DNO policy which is costing them about $2,300 per year through an agent in Bethel. So that's maybe the target that we're looking at unless we can go out and get some quotes from elsewhere but it looks like the league is just not going to be a good fit for us. That's all I got on that. Michael. Jeremy and everybody at the town of Craftsbury got grants and built a fiber network and approached the league for insurance and got the same negative response and the same referral to the EC fiber type insurance and we approached them and we're turned down also. And the explanation was that they wouldn't ensure a municipality. So I'm not EC fiber I think I don't really remember anymore how they got it but they joined some kind of association to be eligible for that insurance and we were told that we wouldn't be eligible to do that. So we had to go to the commercial market and look for insurance which was more costly but the town found some insurance that way. Do you remember how much that was Michael? I can come back next month or email in between and get the information for you but I don't recall. If you would do that I think sooner than later so that we can get that nailed down that would be helpful. Alright. Thank you. Is anybody talking EC fiber yet? Jeremy? I've not gotten that far I just got this estimate maybe two days ago. Okay. Is there somebody delegated Jeremy to talk to EC fiber in your absence while you're in Germany? No but if somebody wants to reach out to Irv Tome or Stan Williams down at EC fiber or Ballinette respectively I would certainly be happy to have them do so. Anybody owning that? I can own it. How do you spell Tome? I would just like to add that since the league and their insurance are passive turned us down their board directors is staffed by a number of representatives from the communities that are here tonight. Berrytown comes to mind. So I think moving into the future this is something that it seems like that they're going to hear a lot from a lot of these different types of entities more and more and this would be something that we could approach through that channel or redress through that channel rather. Especially one of the advantages of obtaining insurance from the league is that we would have access to their municipal assistance center so that any questions that we have pertaining to Vermont State statute or the open meeting on any sort of new wants query that we might have with regards to us being in municipality it's a shame to lose out on being able to tap into that resource in my opinion. Susan. Exactly what kind or what type of insurance are we looking for? Did you hear that German? I did hear it and it would be the I don't have that document in front of me it's whatever the state is asking us to to be able to accept the grant that's coming out of Pride II cash in yet. I've got it Jeremy. Thank you. The state of what the insurance requirements are so it's commercial general liability auto liability and workers comp and employer liability which we don't need although the auto even though we don't own any auto you still have to have the auto the workers compensation you wouldn't because we're not an employer. Commercial general liability for per occurrence and the auto liability for any auto and so it's a million for each occurrence for the commercial general and 500,000 for the auto Michael. So I was a recipient of a state grant same requirement and I went to the private market and found insurance that met those standards and I'll add that to the information I provide Jeremy and the group later we didn't have to get workers comp or any of that stuff because we didn't have employees we did have to get a pledge to the state that any contractors who worked for us we would ensure did get such insurance and we also in regards to the automobile you can limit the cost you do have to get something but it's for hired automobiles so it's not the ones that are our own so if we are caused to hire an automobile or cause a contractor to hire an automobile then the insurance covers that is the premium way down. I also got contact information for the company that we use at Visella for our non-profit insurance which some of them may not cover I don't know if they cover municipalities also but I do have our account. So just to add one more thing the insurance we got was with a company that specializes in ensuring telecom projects so they're familiar with the risks the problem with BLCT is they're terrified of the risks of anything attached to poles periods and they just don't want they consider passive fiber optic cables tantamount to being power lines and they just won't insure them because they're afraid that their liability will blow up the whole self-insurance thing that they do. I'm coming back to his point so I think you need to hear that there's already an organization that should be handling insurance like this but because of their fashion idea about if they could come around something is a little more useful but that's not going to happen overnight but it is something I agree with you that you have to put on them because this is just the beginning of public fiber. There's one organization another organization, your organization but it's going to continue to grow so it makes sense for one of the biggest cities in town to get rid of it. Go ahead Jeremy. I was just going to say part of the email that he sent to me he said it's ultimately it still is their board's decision and he said with everything that he's saying he did put a caveat in here saying that he's still willing to bring it to the board for their consideration should we still want them to it is our call. Did you say they're self-insured? Yeah. Well. A league of leagues. A technique that we use even though we were in the private market for insurance, the technique that we used was to educate to insure that the issue would be limited in scope because you can't have it cover 20 miles it's impossible. So it was limited to a quarter mile and then anything that would happen so they accepted that and we got our insurance. I would urge the folks here tonight to review they have a website with their pictures and names of the passive board directors and see if there are any who represent your community and perhaps reach out and speak to them and I'm sure that they could be persuaded if we clarify that there's very little relative risk. As well I would only add as a former league of cities and towns employee that their advocacy team is very well to deal with any things that are working their way through the legislature in terms of bills that might affect the work of this entity. They provide weekly legislative updates and that their policy is informed by feedback from their member municipalities as to what they're advocating for at the state house every day. So I think there again are advantages to the members. So who is it? What is the personal concept? I just based on a couple conversations with folks down at the VLCT I get those letters next up they at this point weren't that interested in like offering memberships to communications union districts they really weren't sure what they involved yet and I agree they do a lot of great work and they're a great organization they provide a lot of value but I think we need to think in terms of it's going to take a process of a year or two or three years for them to work through how they want to handle because they're the league of cities and towns not the league of municipalities they're a league of a subgroup of municipalities so I think as we think about this insurance and how to move forward with it that we should be thinking more in line of this is going to be something probably outside of the LCT's realm and that we move but I do agree that the long-term goal should be to see us join that fold of municipalities because I think there's a lot more commonalities between all the various forms of municipalities and there are differences Jeremy this is John from Rocksbury did you guys I just typed this in while we were talking here have we looked into any captive situations I just typed in captive telecom and telecom insurance group popped up and it's exactly what they do I guess is ensure telecom companies just in case this doesn't work out actually my background is in captive insurance so I have a lot of people that can reach out to in regards to this like to start that hunt good Jeremy do you hear the question from John crazy boy whoever it was that was just speaking if they want to take that on that sounds like a good plan and if I'm up here and say that membership in the league is still on the table that's still something that we can do what we're talking about their insurance program we could still be these in towns but for insurance and from I'm looking at his email right now and he says he's going to leave it on the meeting agenda for the passive board so and the last line of his email for a sign off was if I don't hear from you before next Wednesday I'll keep your request on the agenda for the meeting and outline your request and my recommendation to the board so if you're going to contact somebody I think it's going to be you should do it tomorrow ok I think she might have passed the rule who is this guy what is his position Jeremy who is it this is a friend setting he's the deputy director underwriting and lost control for VLCT so they're really going to listen to what he has to say and if he's talking against this probably did you get that I have a little bit of insurance knowledge and I don't understand why each municipality can't reach out to the Vermont legal cities and towns and ask for a rider to their overall town insurance to cover communications that's nuts that they can't do that I'm sorry well we're we're our own entity although membership is elected if you will or appointed from the town I think we're still our own entity and each of the towns probably can't provide that kind of coverage so I can it's more fun yeah that may be really you have to define it specifically so you don't get consolidated communications comcast to latch on to municipal coverage well I believe each town a large budget item for the Vermont legal cities and towns they do a lot for us we do a lot for them I don't see any reason why they can't look at the opportunity of having a rider on our overall town's insurance to cover communications issues whatever they would be needs to go to them and sit down with whoever another aspect is insurance policies are written for a year at a time and what is the likelihood that any construction would be done in this coming year it's impossible but so if you feel that construction wouldn't be happening then that being explained you're just an entity you do nothing there's no risk I think there may be short term considerations in the long term so that if we get the money and we do actually have a project that starts we may have to go to the commercial market and find something that will let us fulfill I need to waste any more of our valuable time dealing with the league if it's going to be a pan-ass but in the long run that in fact may be an organization as more communications union districts are organized around the state people have a better understanding of what they are I think this is something that's probably pretty new to the league and nothing they were prepared for to think about how do we incorporate this new kind of entity so was there another comment over yeah I just have a question did Jeremy say that he spoke to Fred Saking he was actually having conversations with and Fred said that he was opposed to it he would propose it to the board did I understand that Jeremy isn't it what he said yes basically I mean he may have not used those exact words but yes he was going to recommend that this was not a good fit I can give you the actual quote based on these elements which I read to you previously it will be my recommendation to the board to not approve your request to add communications union districts as a municipal entity type thank you I'm going to take one more comment or question from Bob and then put a bow on this discussion item and I think move on I was going to move in two directions I'll do one very quickly one of which is to ask a question to the general experience of the board in dealing with VLCT they're generally equipped to deal only with singular municipalities is there now or is there anything to suggest that they will ultimately to what I will call a super municipality i.e. a collaboration between municipalities and would that be a venue that's just an open question to the board but that would be worth exploring long term the one other issue that I would surface at this point in time since this discussion is centered around physical liability which is an absolute necessity for any operating organization and the back burner we need to begin to consider fiduciary liability it's not uncommon in the private sector for the boards of directors to have liability insurance for fiduciary responsibility to cover any malfeasance on the part of one or more members sooner or later we will also have to confront that issue thanks I put that down as a back burner item so I'm going to move on I think we've got a couple of action items research that are going to occur that will get some information back at the next meeting so good discussion so Jeremy well you're with us moving on to age 513 so it was in as I understand it was in senate finance today I got a fabulous a fabulous summary and I'm not going to read it's going to move and it will be and it's not clear that all of these finance committee are going to get that far but I will share with you the highlights they kept the high cost fund speed requirement at 25.3 so cable speeds that was by recommendation of me and E.C. Fiber and some other folks much to the chagrin of consolidated communications they kept the connectivity grant speed requirement also at 25.3 they they kept the 50 from 2 or that and 25% of this or that and now just requires Vita to consult with the public service department to ensure the projects are going towards areas that need service and then there's a smattering of other stuff to that I won't bother getting it to well Michael's been smiling the whole time you were reporting that back so I'm taking this as all good news that's all good news but I have a question Jeremy on increasing the loans limit maximum limit of to four million did they change the total Vita budget for loans does that cut in half the number of recipients or did they double the total amount of money available it sounds like it I don't see any report back here that suggests that they increased the size of the overall bucket any other questions or comments about H513 has the governor in as to what these feelings are I haven't heard anything Jeremy have you heard any noise from the governor's office I haven't heard anything specifically I mean generally the things that I've heard from there have been favorable the words that they've been saying are not specifically about this but that they support the what we're doing in principle so we will see okay anyone else the the Welch meeting you had another another note here on this agenda item is that so Michael and I were both at this meeting with Peter Welch and he basically just wanted to know what what we needed to drive community which was real sort of the folks who are you know involved in this missing something Michael but some of the takeaways from that were that most of policy items that he could put into a put into a bill or some sort of package and try to drum up support on a bipartisan manner down to Washington DC so one of the things that everybody there sort of had consensus was getting better data from the incumbent providers so mapping that sort of thing nothing that would compromise issues or security issues or anything like that the second thing was discussion about the way the USDA grant process works with the tainted census blocks and the fact that there's a lot of census blocks that are already covered by USDA alone and therefore ineligible for that sort of funding did I miss anything Michael did you know that he introduced a bill he did it was a bipartisan introduction with the Republican member of the was it the senate or the congress and there was a house and the bill addressed the USDA issue but through the FCC so he and the mapping issues so he kind of combined both things so the bill directs the FCC to determine whether speed claims and coverage claims are accurate or not it's a detailed bill but that's so that seems to have come from our meeting and maybe other feedback he received so we'll see if the FCC has any impact on USDA's willingness to lend to its recipients but that was reported and who knows if it'll pass but it'll stop at least yep anyone else comments questions the northern borders branch Jeremy sure and so as a side note here still waiting to hear from the USDA grant so that's still in the pipeline I believe we missed the deadline for submitting our own northern border grant however we'll talk about going in conjunction with some folks up in the kingdom and the folks at NVDA which I believe is the northern Vermont Development Association yep is that right Michael? yep yep okay so they put in a grant that went and we wrote a letter of support for them as CBFiber so the idea from what he wrote here is it was called advancing broadband in northern Vermont and it said the project would cover work in the northeast kingdom region additionally Washington and Orange counties so that would include us NVDA and the partners would utilize these funds to develop small and emerging businesses in rural areas in the following ways by providing direct technical assistance to the communities and businesses that participate in this initiative by working with local committees and businesses focused on improving their local economies through the improvement of broadband infrastructure we have the opportunity to assist existing small businesses and track economic development number two by working to establish or expand regional communications union districts as allowed under Vermont statute we'll be creating business like entities that will be charged with building that broadband infrastructure in northern Vermont and their bi-assisting businesses and communities in that area so they're applying for the house and I'm sorry no he's still working on the budget I didn't see his application but this essentially would be a resource for us to go to as administrative costs or other things potentially but questions comments okay it's probably one o'clock in the morning where you are Jeremy so I suspect you probably want to sign off at this point or I would love to go to sleep now but you have a great rest of your night in that Berlin yes thanks for the laugh thanks okay let me just look at my notes here Siobhan you had I went to a meeting at the regional planning commission office in Montpelier with public service deputy commissioner Riley him and two of his staff members and there was a very angry man from Plankfield there and two very nice people from Waterbury no no he does like that does he do transportation I don't know I don't know who it was yeah he has curly hair really tall he was very upset about internet he was very upset about internet and so that kind of he jumped in right at the beginning of the meeting and kind of set a tone and I was trying to deflect the way he did what was his name Bram I can't remember his name it was Bram one of the points he was making was he was asking well can you leverage right away because the town is on the right way because apparently there was a big fiber tube right down through Plankfield that has tons and tons of fiber internet on it but they can't tap into it because the company won't release not dark fibers and so he was really upset about that and he was trying to get the state to find a way for the company to give lines and he said well can you leverage the right way and the state guy who does the telecommunications stuff is saying well not really because there's federal guidelines on how much we're allowed to use right away and who has access to it and how much we're allowed to deny and the bottom line is we don't really have a lot of right to deny access through the right ways and he wasn't happy about that so he was going on that again and I said well central format fiber where your town has a representative and we're trying to get around that and we're trying to go around these companies and try to work with these companies and find a way to extend the size of oh they talked to somebody there and they said it's going to be 8 to 10 years oh he was so mad I just it was just but eventually we got off that and started talking about electric cars with that and apparently there was a huge controversy of people about putting in an electric car charger but the cool thing about this was on the walls they had maps and they had in pink they showed the coverage that the companies were claiming that they had for internet and a whole bunch of people in the public service office actually went out in cars driving around to see what the actual coverage was and so they had in pink what the claimed coverage was and they've read these little and a few places in green here and there but for the most part it was really obvious and apparently they were doing this at the request of the federal government I think the USDA asked for this no no they did they did it not at their request they did it to push the federal government then awesome but they spent months on the road driving and checking and so now they have maps that show the disparity between what is claimed and the reality of the coverage which I thought was really awesome and I didn't think to take any pictures on that one well it all was online I think I've sent it out to everybody but I don't know if or not I'll send it out the government doesn't believe we need this and we're trying the states trying to prove we do need it and that's something that if Welch wants to do that make internet declare it public good that would be just that would be the start I mean that's about the format that people were to be declared public good and so that surprises me how come it isn't? didn't they just declare it last like six, eight months ago not public good? wasn't like an official designation by the FCC I can't remember but I thought somebody said no it's not public good you don't need it and that's my English parliament what what what did you get that from? I'll stop that for you but all in all it was a really good meeting the commissions were very the people at this office from the commission were very interested in helping the communities and acting as a resource and helping encourage the towns to take advantage of all of the services that are available to them for this kind of stuff in general I felt like I didn't have a lot to offer except to say hey we're going to do this and we're really excited about this and we're going to make it happen I sent them all my data the CD fiber all the GIS coverage I have and all that stuff they now have and now the Washington like yeah I know they have Washington I didn't have it so it was a good meeting and I thought it was good that we had somebody there I don't know that I was the best representative because I didn't really like roughly man that much but I think I upset him by being so upbeat I'm like no it's not going to be eight to ten years I wouldn't be able to stand it if it was eight to ten years so I don't know I like the people the guys working for the state seemed really involved, really knowledgeable and like they were willing to be a good resource so what do we want? that's that questions, comments did you cover what you need? so in my hazard day job I work for Vermont Energy Investment Corporation BEIC who runs the efficiency Vermont contract for the state the founders were Beth Sacks and Blair Hamilton I can't hear you I'll try see you to the back of the room okay so I work for BEIC who runs the efficiency Vermont contract for the state and the two founders were Beth Sacks and Blair Hamilton who were passed almost eight years ago but they have started a fund to provide grants for innovative ideas related to energy justice and social justice and so turns out you can only really apply if you have somebody who works for BEIC and can get into the application thing and it closes tomorrow but I did let Jeremy know and I submitted an application for us and there are only two other applicants because I can see all of them and what they wrote but we're looking good the two other applicants are the top three is one of them the Vermont Food Bank because I wrote that application the two that are in there are for Habitat for Humanity Project he submitted our application he may just not be up there we might drop you're not on the review committee though no I'm not on the review committee but it's only $10,000 right now they're hoping to get more by the end of the year so right now I put us down for $7,500 trying to hit our match number but I just wanted to point out I hadn't really been thinking much about it and it just kind of dawned on me like oh somebody's talking about this and I'm moving in some ways I feel like we're really at the very basic level trying to pull ourselves together and get this going on another level we are at the forefront of something really cool and people like that and are really interested if we can find other places like this before trying to move and they don't even know necessarily that this is going to help but I made the argument of hey how is this going to affect energy efficiency and how is it going to affect energy justice and social justice and we have a number of points we can make on that how Tesla batteries talk to each other and possible load management and all of that relies on communications so I just want to put that plug in there the decision making I don't know when it starts but I think they put two different places they put June 1st and June 15th so I may or may not have a response by our next meeting but I just wanted to put another plug out there that we should keep our ears open to those kind of opportunities David did you have a I was going to say the other area the town planning commission can apply for community development planning money and I mean most towns have already decided they need to do wetland studies or whatever but there may be an odd chance one of our towns is looking to do some broadband kind of studies they can get up to I think it's 15 to 20,000 I've forgotten yeah 15 to 20,000 and who do they apply to for that department of development agency development community that's the end does that have to go through the regional planning commissions to get them? you have to have the planning commission you just submit it to the select board and the select board submits it to the state the town planning commission I'm worried about the reporting hierarchy for the regional planning commission usually these you don't have to but they often help write these grant applications to our towns I don't mind assistance I do mind hurdles and that's money for accomplishing planning planning what you're doing I just wanted to weigh in on the VDIC thing I commend applying for on behalf of this on behalf of such Vermont fiber I would caution this organization in applying for grants without the approval of the full glory simply because often there are reporting requirements that are extremely onerous I doubt VIC is one such I hope they like a paragraph but also in terms of as municipal fiscal due diligence it would I would urge us to I know that timing that doesn't work out often the VIC is a new opportunity and the deadline was tomorrow or whatever but it pays to get the input of everyone here I think that's something that I go to the policy committee is that a motion because I think I agree that the board should okay this so is that a motion um we don't have a grants policy do we? we want to maybe assign that to the consider of signing talk about that during committee of signing I think that makes sense I'm trying to develop the policy now what's that? okay okay okay you want to be here all night? yeah so we're out budget budget there so this is actually going to collapse into that I mean you might as well this is the finance committee report back to and for folks that don't know I'm an alternate on the board but I'm chair of the finance committee so that's why I'm doing this I had a finance committee meeting just a bit ago over the before the meeting and um so with the budget I've got two things that I want to start off with on that one is my suggestion is going to be that the executive committee start actually become active and start doing something so we passed a motion at the finance committee that read recommend to the full board that budget development be handled by the executive committee and so here's the rationale behind it and we have really sat down and explored this question of how to develop a budget for CV Fiber and the finance committee now for probably four months on or off at different levels a couple months ago we had Jerry from the business development committee and the folks that don't know he's also an alternative but he's chair in the business business committee or business development so and he was there talking about possible business models that would be coming down the road um regardless of how we approach them the finance committee just doesn't have the connection between the revenues and the expenses necessary to build a budget I mean this is something that's higher farther up the hierarchy you know in my mind I'm from school board background so I'm going to frame it in the sense of a school board with an administration that's going to build the budget and bring the budget to the board for development now we don't have an administration obviously but we do have an executive committee and the reason why I say the executive committee is that seems like a logical focal point to be able to bring whatever committees are dealing with revenues and whatever committees are dealing with expenses together to create the budget and whether or not the finance committee has a role in that as either a sounding board or maybe we're directed to do specific work or something I don't know but I think overall the budget development I the finance committee does not seem as much as we look over and go over and discuss it it's just we don't have the access to what's required to build the budget I do want to say doing the budget now because we're talking about doing the budget for FY 2020 it's not going to be that daunting of a task again I mean obviously it's going to be pretty much you know the budget that Jeremy put together for us for this year we kind of like take a guess at how much money we think we want to have come in and then figure out how we want to tell them we're going to spend it and that's essentially the budget that we worked out I'll be interested to see a comparison at the end of this year but I think though the difference for the 2020 is we're going to have a better idea of what monies are coming in the general areas where we're trying to send it out to depending on what comes up in the near future I mean it's we may be already working you know within a matter of a couple of few months or maybe you know before the end of the year we may already be working with with a company to start running a system for us I'm not saying that don't you know I don't know anything anybody else doesn't know okay so I'm just pulling that out I say things like that but yeah so that was it on the budget first I'm just asking take the budget development out of the finance committee okay you're looking for a motion on that sure I think it'd be a lot easier because right now the way that we wrote the charge up is it's implied that the budget development is part of it yeah let's we're going to there's some committee reports here although I don't I think we've heard probably what we need to hear from the committees but we can cycle around to that again so as far as starting to deal with committees yeah let's entertain that motion I'll make a motion that the development of the budget fall onto the executive committee rather than finance second discussion discussion I think there's a bigger issue and that is I'm not sure the executive committee can also can develop a budget because to me and I may not know all the workings of all the committees but to me it isn't clear the specific activities that will be undertaken in the coming fiscal year and without understanding the activities I don't know how you build a budget so you can throw it to the executive committee if you want but they're going to be at a loss for coming up with the budget until I think we have all these little grants in that describe specific activities to me it's not clear that those specific activities add up to a hold and so whether it's in a future meeting to really lay out and I recognize it's hard to plan too far in the future but to lay out a sequence of events and some of the critical activities that need to take place so we can really focus some of the budget line items but then recognize the extent to which we're successful at getting larger sums of money we may lead to a build out at some point but just to say oh have the executive committee do it to me that's it I think part of our thinking there was that we weren't super comfortable with it being if we were looking at sort of the business development committee being the kind of activities committee we weren't really comfortable with that being trying to negotiate a cross committee sort of communication and so with having executive committee members on both the finance committee and the business development committee I think we were thinking that then the executive committee would be able to gather that knowledge in a more efficient way than trying to have the two committees communicate with each other if that makes sense and I just want to throw in and yes Rebecca thank you very much for putting it that way because it's a much more eloquent way but as we move along just trying to prepare this because we do have statutory deadlines on the budget so we have to have our first statutory deadline was actually October the honor before October 21st which would be whatever the second Tuesday is in October so we would keep the same meeting schedule that we have to have a budget prepared it's actually you could call it a draft budget but it's a budget proposal prepared that can be approved by the board given preliminary approval by the board and distributed to the towns and the select boards to see and then we have to have a budget for approval that has to be approved by the the summer meeting at some point we have to say this is the path we're going to follow to develop the budget just to make sure we stay in those timelines so that's one reason why I'm saying I agree with Ben that I think it's going to be a much more efficient job but they can sit down and say well this is what the various committees are bringing in they'll have the access to the revenues and the expenses whatever they are and however exact and precise those numbers are believe me this 2019 budget we're working under is not exactly precise by any measure but it gave us something to work with John was there any recommendation as to what the finance committee would do if this was pushed off to the executive committee basically your function is it you know is it reviewing components of it is it developing minutia or was it just you guys do it I guess I'm just wondering if there was a proposal it could work better there was we did talk about that there was one suggestion about that maybe the budget can put together then run through the finance committee to make a recommendation to the board that seems somewhat redundant because you're going to have the board going to the finance committee to give a recommendation to the board so instead just let the board go to the board on that one where I'm ending the budget but then after the budget is approved you want to have somebody looking at the numbers you want to have somebody looking at the budget and saying okay are we getting the revenues we expected are the expenses what we treasure the treasure and she would get the assistance of the finance committee because actually although I'm the chair the treasurer is an authority in her own right you know so actually when we sit down she's probably the greater equal among equals Greg so Mike I have a question as to which committee has developed the build out budget and how was that budget developed Jeremy we don't have a build out budget Michael I sat down with Jeremy and showed him my build out budget and he adapted in very broad strokes little bits of it and presented a fiction that we all voted for because it's too soon and that was really what happened right well you referred to a build out may happen that was for this past year's budget what we're now talking about is one that actually may have been built out just to clarify too if I could real quick I'm sorry fiscal years for this communications union district January 1st through December 31st so just it's clear on what we're talking about so I just wanted to say that this also is for now because as we go forward and we're actually getting into doing business the finance committee is going to have a lot there's going to be reviewing expenditures and checking making sure our balances are right and that we're spending too much in this line item ultimately the finance committee will have more to do just right now this little piece is we don't have all pieces so this was a not a permanent measure attempt somewhat kind of a template that we're going to add to and subtract from as we go along just a little time so is it even possible to build out a budget at this point without just having it be something you're pulling out of your head again or are we still to wait for the feasibility study and the business plan before we can write real numbers to apply to something that's the right thing yes there are many budgeting cycles one of the things that I'm a little concerned about right now is that we're simultaneously getting caught in the kelp bed of minutia while we're trying to boil the ocean a good work out from that particular dilemma is to establish some reasonable goals in chronological order which we expect to meet you can then partition each of the goals into its underlying financial elements and create the budget but unless and until you partition the global problem into goals that are arranged chronologically in order that you think you can achieve them you can't build a budget go ahead I feel a little lost on the trees here my first meeting and so do we know what the solution is do we know what the solution is is it fiver to the home do we know what the solution is and do we know how we're going to get there is it going to be that we're going to issue an RFP and somebody's going to get you to the build out or we have a bunch of people in backhoes which happens around the world those community networks are being built around the world and there are people with backhoes farmers doing their stuff all over the world what are we going to do it seems to me that at the end of the day you'd like to issue a contract and somebody's going to build it out you need a design study first an engineering design study is done find out what all the barriers are what possible solutions are every edge solution could be different it's not going to be fiver it's going to be point to point and this, that TV white space it could be a bunch of different things for different parts of what's going on yet and so the design study seems to be like the first thing that ought to be done that's on the edge good how much is that going to cost next the design study was predicated upon the size of the target area that you want to serve so the first thing from my standpoint is to pick your targets of opportunity based upon the complexity of the build out and the size of the market and the other thing that's critical is TTP, time to profitability you have to have a market that has sufficient density to build profit before you can go out to the very remote areas and these should be part of the criteria in picking your milestone chart nanny just a minute, this is a loose summarization and some other folks can correct but we did have a number of vendors present and I mean the places we did get to through the last year was realizing we needed bandwidth outside of this group because none of us are really operational I think there's a lot of expertise here we need a proper plan and I think we're calling it now an initial business plan business model so we set that as a goal and then we went after these grants so we got the think Vermont one which is 12.5 with the 12.5 match requirement and then we also applied both of those being directed towards planning activities that would then provide the board with a lot more context to address some of these questions it seems like some of this stuff can be going in parallel we don't have any money the business, the operation and the design study right but we have no money there is one thing that maybe the new people missed remember this was constituted with zero money and no ability to tap into tax money from the town so we were sort of stuck in this position saying we know that there is a demand in the market out there until we had some budget a lot of the issues we were trying to bring up were out there so there's a sort of circularity to the whole thing before you can do the design study you have to develop a statement of work we've got a statement of work is there a statement of work do we know what the statement of work is for a design study we haven't decided that hasn't been done we haven't decided even what our strategy is we have a loose idea a goal of fiber to the home to serve the communities in the best ways possible we don't know we were presented with one opportunity for somebody to build it out and take all the risk and we then subsumed the responsibility over the long term which was one end of the spectrum we had the other one where we just expanded an existing local carrier to start to build out and expand the network we have a lot of operational expertise I shouldn't say expertise we have a lot of expertise we don't have bandwidth there's probably a more appropriate way of saying it we're not an operational organization we're an administrative board so it's been very difficult to get out of the circular aspect how do you get the concrete aspects and marry that up with money or an operating partner to get a proper planning process going forward so that's really the you're volunteering you know there would be a large number of takers for that yes there were I just want to say that yes we are a little car before the horse but we have a statutory responsibility to provide a budget by a certain date and so that's why Rama keeps bringing this up it's because we have to have this done by October because of the way we're constantly doing so I will say when I started my company we had no money and we developed a business model that worked and we didn't do a feasibility study we couldn't afford it we did it in increments so we established our business model and those that there was potential customers that fit that and we went out and so it was like this route we're going to develop for that route only figure out what that's going to cost and then the next one and if it didn't fit you didn't do it that's my goal point about pick your target market and make sure your first foray has a high probability of success build a business model subsequently qualify a budget that allows you to achieve that focused target market you have a feasibility study done for a whole area the success will be for those consultants and that's it first part of the feasibility study is the design the design is easy and I'm speaking from experience of having built over a thousand models what's the solution for connecting everybody in this area in central Vermont it's going to be different for everybody right no fiber to the home you want to have any institution or government to anybody who will pay so by not limiting it to residential there's more money revenue to be had but the technology is the same that's deployed everybody right so I'd like to bring this back around to the motion which is turn it over to the executive committee and I would like to point out I'm not trying to shut the conversation down it's because if you listen to the conversation of what's being talked about this is why we need to kind of bring it to a more central point that the finance committee cannot offer because when those questions come up the executive committee has direct access to things like the agenda and to other organizational information and other ways to access it that they can act much more effectively and efficiently in getting the answers we need in order to do this development for the budget itself so I think what everybody says is right and smart and really good believe me you're talking over my head I don't know how to read so I would just say that's a the whole discussion has been a really good argument of life in my opinion I'm why to turn this over to the executive committee and a discussion that we're going to have a lot more as we move forward are there other people on the board who you feel might even be more if they have the experience and the expertise they know how to do a bill budget they know how to do some of the planning in terms of feasibility dollars and what you have to do they are more appropriate than the executive committee if you're asking me I would say no they may be more appropriate to work with the executive committee on it because I do think the organizational part of that and being able to direct the resources one way or another is really important in getting this done to your point Robert in the province of the executive committee to appoint a smaller committee to frame a problem of a size that's manageable by the anticipated revenues and to pick the fastest return to profitability for that particular target and again I'm going to call the question please hold that for a minute as I think we're ready to move on this but I just wanted to make the final comment that if H513 comes to fruition anything like we expected to there are going to be several pools of money available for us to access and I think it's that legislation is aimed at the kind of work that we're trying to do and I mean honestly we as you all know we spent a fair amount of time lobbying in the legislature this year to get that kind of language through so I expect we'll be kind of first in line to try and get any of that so with that that makes the picture second in line second in line so with that in mind that will have a dramatic impact upon the kind of budget that we frame because the availability I think as Bob is saying really speaks directly to what the goals might be if we have a reasonable assumption we might be able to get access to a fairly good amount of money it at least gives us some parameters around which we could set goals that might be achievable because we know we have funding sources for there potentially from the venture capital standpoint the best model in the world is what we call the bamboo model which is find something that will grow fast because once you prove that your model works you can scale it very quickly or you have a model that doesn't grow fast the question of scalability never gets into a discussion about additional investors to help you succeed I think we beat this horse pretty much to death so with that with that I'm going to call the the vote on we have a motion and a second to assign the development of the budget to the executive committee and allow the committee to call on whatever resources it needs either from this board or outside of this board as we move forward all those in favor please say hi any opposed I just have it thank you very much can I make a comment now that you we're done with that item I think that ken's point was well taken he didn't vote against it but I think that the executive committee or board whatever you call it the executive committee should take note of the fact that there was a lot of discussion about collaboration with all the committees and not there when making that budget good point okay so there was no further report from the finance committee other than I could repeat with the treasurer no please no David is there business development committee did not meet this last time okay that's that's a good report policy committee did not meet either so there's nothing am I missing any other committee that might have a report doesn't look like it okay could I ask for something to be added to the policy agenda we're getting to that right now yes we we need to reconstitute the policy committee as it stands I think Andy and I are the only people left on the committee Alan Gilbert who has stepped away are you off the board or an alternate alternate has agreed that if appointed he would continue to serve as would Jim Barlow and although he is not on the board I had a conversation with him I think his expertise as far as first of all his legal background and having served as chair of the committee he agreed that he would certainly continue to serve as long as he didn't have to chair have responsibility for calling the meetings and taking up the minutes so I'm going to make a motion that both Alan Gilbert and Jim Barlow be reappointed to the policy committee for this year do I have a second I'll second it move and second it all those in favor please say aye any opposed do we have any other committees that need that's a four member now we want to I'm going to move we add a fifth add a fifth okay I don't even think we need to take that as a motion I think we can probably do that yes do we have do we have anyone who's it okay Shamans volunteering anyone else is interested in serving of policy committee so Shavon has volunteered to be on the policy committee and I will make the motion that the board appoints her to such do we have a second second all those in favor aye any opposed okay I was asking do we have do we have any other committees that are short on the finance committee of unless Allen and you I know or John right yeah John I told you I I was 45 minutes I wrote it down it's okay well Allen's already been doing it so yeah but you know about finance and stuff he's not he doesn't seem convinced well I don't know Alan if you're stuffing away then we have an opening if Alan's still saying on the committee then we don't do we know do we know about Bob Bob that's right what about Bob so Bob Klein is no longer a delegate or an alternate and I don't know if he's interested in being continuing on the finance committee so we could have both John and Alan people said we could write you yeah but you know that gives Woodbury kind of a heavy we're in Worcester Worcester gets a power block yeah they wish they had a power block too bad we're not one of the rich towns so then it seems that we're most likely if we're down it's Bob Klein that we're down that's the seat so we would still be the fifth member but we don't know whether I can reach out to him I I guess since he's not either a delegate or an alternate anymore I'm guessing he won't but I will ask well I'm still the chair and I'll call may I suggest Skip from Woodbury he's an he's an auditor with the town as I am but I'm just an alternate but you might want to ask him if he'd like to join your finance committee Skip from Woodbury so do we want to defer this item until next so that we can do a little homework as far as finding out who's continuing to serve and wants to serve and listen it may be that the finance committee may be especially right now because the major tasks right now are just going to be getting reports from the treasurer trying to get something going on the audit as long as it's not two from Worcester you know we used to have two from East Montpelier I just wasn't an alternative we're going to consider that we're going to consider that we can table that though and report back so Jonathan you were about to make a suggestion to assign something I think to the policy I have to come from Waterbury to Stowe to Elmore Stowe's not on the list so but you Woodbury and you but Worcester I'd work with so your comment about the 8 miles is on the 12 12 but it's there are other ways Woodbury is over there Woodbury is over there on Route 15 and Route 14 so Route 14 and 15 so it's not it's not really so you really are sort of out there that's been said before yesterday and what was that again why doesn't it come from Montpelier through Worcester well that's because there's an 8 mile gap where there is no power, no utility poles almost true and it's the most beautiful it's a gorgeous drive there's no cell phone coverage there's nothing there but the moose they're doing well against Stowe's wheels this year so can I remind everybody that in order to serve a town it does not have to be contiguous to our network period there are ways to get there without going from one town to another you can go through the Belco network and pop up in Elmore you can get there from Kingdom Fiber you can get there other ways so we're not dependent on Waterbury and Stowe to solve that problem it was just one of the easiest solutions maybe so and the other thing I should get in today is that it's nearly unanimous that everyone wants Fiber to the premise but I have consistently said that we should always consider fixed wireless as part of the solution and we'll look at that on a case by case basis there are going to be situations where we get to 80% of the places with Fiber and 20% with wireless or maybe we won't but we haven't ruled it out and so that's in the cards as well and well it should be I mean Elmore is a poster child for that given the terrain can I ask one more sure who's hooked up to this school this is probably a little cyber sort of on that site it might be yeah I don't know I think it's the first site I stopped on that first site so do you hear what this is could be yeah it is oh some schools yeah because of the requirement with the certificate of public good cable companies we'll save theirs too yeah first let's get a bunch of Fiber up here they ran up the hill it says well they ran up the hill and left okay we did well we're 20 minutes ahead of time and I think we'll I have a request that we have a new list of all the members representing towns a new list I've been trying to keep one it's now way out of way let's do a quick round table just to finish off the evening which is kind of the way we started but anyway I'll start with you and let's move around I think that we are making progress I would encourage all the new members to read the minutes of the previous meetings they are very well kept and they are made publicly available do you have a website? they're on our Facebook page right now and then if you want to watch the meetings you can find them on orca media and they're on the google drive or not no so the contractor presentations I wanted to go those are on the google drive and I will send that link to the new folks excuse me I have a question for you did you say you work from Montfube? I do John Sayles yes he's my boss he was the public service department's director of the telecommunications division U.S. he might want to scratch his plate well the bank submitted a letter of support for the USDA grant application I'm just looking forward to the next year to see what we can do it's been a fun ride so far okay a lot of specific expertise in here having to do with this whole telecommunications but what I think is also really neat there's a lot of outside connections because with the food bank here with me it's with the local food shelf as part of it among other places so we also bring in a lot of other avenues other areas that we bring to the table here so I think it's pretty exciting I think we're getting ready to do something dramatic here let's jump back over there yeah the rumor is the legislature is going to end this weekend which means the telecom bill will be in its final form by Monday John Alan I'm sorry I was late Michael so this was a productive meeting but I'd like to say that the new folks that most of our meetings are sexier than this one was but they're also a lot longer Michael this one was all about process and it's necessary but we have some we have some fun meetings too I'm happy to join and I will say that around the country greater than 50% of municipal broadband projects have failed so what are we going to do on the winning side that's possible I'm just saying wise to be excellent damn it I'm happy to see some new blood added to the void I guess I'm searching for something that seems to be getting attenuated here which is some narrative because we have are we talking about what business plan where we have it a lot of general ideas on what might happen but I keep hearing different pieces coming in well why aren't we doing this, why aren't we doing that and there doesn't seem to be some connective tissue that is making this happen and I'm not quite sure how to suggest that to be but it's almost like we all know kind of what we want but it hasn't geled like I see that we're working forward yeah I think you're right we had a number of presentations we had discussion about those and then we jumped into some other items that we've been dealing with and much of that having to do with funding so that's something we've got to come back and begin to firm up what's the build-out guesstimate is it 10 million or 130 30 million is it guesstimate I'm Susan Martin from Woodbury I don't know where to check where can I wire the phone oh great next to some I'm Susan Martin from Woodbury I'm with the alternate for Tom's Skip Lindsay and he has quite reputation in Woodbury for being one of our auditors and on the planning commission he's also busy here so I'll be his alternate from now until September so you have to get used to me and my crazy questions thank you Jared? I'm really impressed with this group I think they're here Alan under underestimated all your guesstimate ohhhhhhh some of you guys to him that's why he's here I know but still you guys are more than what he said so I'm glad to be here so in other words even better yeah Josh so the only thing that I'd like to say and what you were saying you know I've been gone like you know I've had this three meetings and there's two things that I've noticed that I've already come out of one I'm desperately searching for an adequate alternate for me so that there's someone here representing the very town when I'm not the other thing is that I'm a little disappointed I haven't had any other firm decisions in three months so that we're still in the same spot that you were where I left so I know like I expected when I came back here a whole bunch of things changed and all I can see are some phases that have changed which is great and I welcome that I'd just like to see us moving forward when making some sort of firm decisions we need money still yeah CDFiber.net and the Facebook page a lot of us have donated a little bit it doesn't get us that far down the grand scheme of things but a little bit at this point helped us launch so excellent Rebecca, anything you want to add? okay I think with that we're ten minutes ahead of time I'm going to I'm just going to declare the new culture better