 really scheduled Berlin's like board meeting to order with us is well Smith Justin Lawrence I'm Brad Town also with us is Diane Isbell Town Treasurer Thomas Badausky town administrator and also we have our road foreman Kim Davis okay so before you got on Justin we were just talking about how much gravel and sand we had left over from last year and I was just I was just trying to get a feel for it as far as if we could trim that any but well with that being said to Brad they bought a thousand yards from Barry town toward the end of the winter too so standard gravel sand I think it was sometime beginning of March I believe they were close to being out and Barry town gave the town a good deal on a thousand yards of sand because they have their own pets so they they put up way more than they'll ever use so they they gave the town a good deal on a thousand yards so wouldn't run out so that's kind of where that pile started from okay well Diane want to take it back over the road okay do we do we want to review the revenues at all I mean I just I you know bump them up a little bit by five thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars there's really almost no change from year to year I'm not anticipating any grants we hope to get them but I don't know if we're going to so we do do we want to spend any time reviewing that again or do we want to just go the expenditures well let's review it it's always good to see where the money comes from okay so I was talking we were talking about the railroad levees highway summer winter the state hospital I'm thinking on the roads that the state this is for the roads are class two and three they've been giving us a little more a little bit more money so I have projected that we should probably get another like fifteen hundred dollars for FY 22 in that the other thing I projected upwards was a town clerk I do think that she'll have might be additional five thousand dollars because we do have things happening in town and I know there's been a lot of sales of houses people refinancing so they're getting a lot of information from the vaults even though they're not going to going into the vault this point in time she's giving information to people that they're asking for it up so I've increased that by five thousand I've brought down the interest earned on the checking and savings account because right now our checking account is paying us point zero one tenth of a percent and we were getting like one percent at the beginning of the year so I don't think that we're going to be making you know two thousand dollars or even fifteen hundred dollars well I'm hoping to get fifteen hundred dollars but I don't know I think I'm guessing kind of high on that so overall with those changes right there we're looking at an increase of five thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars otherwise in that I have left all the other revenues at this where they were in FY 21 does everybody have that page yep okay yes thank you Diane yeah okay and the expenditures do we want to go through the office part of it first or do you want to highlight that yeah okay well actually did I did present it the last time oh that's right let me say yeah but I mean what I've done is I've put everything together in one page I want to show you to show you the percentages so I've looked at FY 20 FY 21 and what a project for FY 22 so a lot of them I've tried to bring down how much we spent some of them I don't have control over for instance we got I did get the bill from leaks of cities and towns and overall our premiums are going to go up 10% and that's between liability and workers comp and obviously that's we don't we can't bring that down I mean if we can have fewer losses obviously in the future we'll be able to bring it down but that one is going to be higher also when we got the ambulance the ambulance service from Berrytown is almost it's over 7% higher than it was from the previous year so I've had to you know put that in there I haven't heard anything from the town of Northfield for their portion of it but I am assuming that you know they'll probably go up at least 7% as well so those are the ones that actually did go up like to say I brought down things for instance this is an off here on on election year it's only we're only gonna have the town meeting I don't we're never anticipating other meetings for right now unless unless the school vote did it's a school budget didn't pass so then we'd have to have other meetings but otherwise not I don't think there's any for obviously no presidential election and this is not midterm so that's why I brought that one down health insurance I brought up and the reason I brought that up well actually I should go back to the payrolls I'm saying a 2% increase and that's what I'd like to see I guess however for the town administrator because we're talking about paying that person 10% more than the previous town administrator and then adding 2% to that that was up 12% so that is really that probably the biggest portion of what is up in the office expenses is that the ambulance and the insurance as far as health and disability and not disability but liability and workers come so like I brought down I don't anticipate buying another computer this year so I've reduced that by 2300 I've reduced the office supplies by 3000 thinking that maybe we can try to just do more with less you know always keep a better eye on what we've got how much how much do we have in the light item for new computers we had 2300 dollars in the past two years right now I've got it at zero but we do have a reserve of 15,000 and right now what we're doing is we're putting more RAM on Tom's computer my computer Turin's and Rosemary's so that should give us a little more longevity the oldest computer I think we have right now is my is Tom's and then mine's the next but still I think if we up the RAM we should be able to go for another year I'd like to think because right now ours are working they're all working fine they're just a little bit slower because they're they don't have that much RAM capacity if like 500 dollars I can increase the RAM of all of those I'm gonna do that this year so we should be in good shape unless you know crashes which I'm not anticipating you never know I guess let's see as far as the assessors I'm bringing down some of the expenses that we have in there because we don't use much for legal fees the only time we have legal fees for the assessors is the errors and emissions and in the seven years I've been here we've used it once because one person they didn't you know they made you know they made errors before but usually it's nothing legal and there's one that this was a real tricky one something nobody run into before so it costs us a hundred dollars the last seven years I think that's all spent on legal fees so I did bring that down to a better to a more realistic value which I tried to do all through the office tax maps now I brought that down by 500 dollars although we've got $2,500 and they're for tax maps it used to be we've got tax maps every two years if like the last four or five years we get them every year you know that's one thing you know do we need to have them every year I don't know well you know but it's like that's a $2,500 expense well tax maps I mean the big thing there it depends on the amount of sales yeah I agree yeah I agree today yeah but I've done it at $2,500 which is a realistic amount okay when we change it so if we're not going to do anything else I think that $2,500 would would be would be okay and of course the fees that we have for the assessors that have to do with the state what they call cap cap fees which is with the camera program they have we have no control over that so I've got that $1,500 which is what the state you know bills us every year so the next one I'm looking at the insurances obviously I'm saying the health insurance is going to be higher and not knowing if the new town administrators can be on a single two person or family plan I put that person on family plan so I did bring up what we have for expenses in the health insurance just because right now I'm on single Dana it was on two person and the family plan is quite a lot more than the two person so I've got myself and then potentially the next person might be on family so that's why I put that one up let's see employee benefits you know I've I've brought that one up that not about the pension I did bring the pension up a little bit and the pension is number one for payrolls a little higher that's going to be higher but also the pension is going from 6% to 6.25% in FY 22 so the match is going to be a little bit higher for the town and also it's going to increase what we are as the employee are going to pay also that that level is also going to increase so and let's say the general insurance I've got that one going up by 5% the liability and that's part of that 10% that that we've been charged I think that the police department and the highway departments are ones that are that was the increase was greater for them as far as the liability and the workers come and then training I brought that down I think that's in the zoning because we don't use a whole lot of that yeah so about that down legal fees I brought down in the zoning and the DRB I brought that down way down as far as the minutes the person that we had doing the minutes before was charging us like $5000 a year the person we have now is less than $1500 a year so I brought it down to $1500 a year which is like a 70% savings so I brought that down worth you know better and yeah keep in mind that that's that's really a function of two things the first is that with our new zoning regulations some of the stuff that DRB used to have to hear now the zoning administrator does and but it's also a general slowdown in in major site permitting so if that if that goes up you're gonna see a higher tick up in her cost it could go up but but also on the other hand there's revenue that goes along with that so this is almost a point because you do if you're going to have more zoning you're gonna make more money but it was but I did bring it down to a level that's been more consistent the last two years okay and then let's see the janitorial services I'm keeping that up at $8500 I know we're spending a lot less on that right now but I'm just hoping that maybe we do an RFP next year and try to get a different service that would just do more cleaning or just do a better job in my opinion and then supplies as far as the PPE supplies I think that we're doing a good job on that I brought that down by $1,000 the software support I brought that down to $10,000 it is my intention you know when the new year starts and once we're done with the budget and done with the audit completely then I'm gonna start looking at getting a new computer we really need to upgrade our computer so the operator computer then we should not have all the fees that we have right now because the computer we have right now it's just not functioning correctly it's too old it was a new computer we should have you know we're gonna have probably a monthly service but I don't think it's gonna be equal to what we're paying out right now because of all the issues we're having because it's it's all the time we've got issues right now so that's the server yep that's the server and yep and then maintenance I brought that down by a couple thousand because I think though you know I don't know what we plan on doing for maintenance but it always seems like we always have too much or we don't spend all the money we have in there also I'm saying to retire the vehicle that Dana was driving let's not spending more money on that because that vehicle is old and it's starting to really cost us money I think I think it's a 2013 I think it might be even older than that but all I'm thinking is if you retire that we could save a few thousand dollars right there well just put it out to bid to sell it yeah yep that's my thoughts I mean that's not my decision but I'm just suggesting that might be a good option okay and then let's see I did bring the equipment corrupt contracts up by $2,200 because we do have Doxter which is a program that we save all of our like minutes on and invoices and a lot of other a lot of information and this way we're eliminating some of the space that we need to have in the vault because the vault is full there's just not putting much more in there so whatever I take out I'm trying to put onto this Doxter but we had we had to get the Doxter server a couple years ago we have to pay a monthly fee for that we pay a monthly fee for the software we pay an annual fee to have the Doxter so I brought up the equipment contracts to the level of what we're actually spending and also in that equipment contracts we have our our copiers and we get two copiers and now and the police copier and then legal services I've left at 15,000 I think that's probably appropriate the CPA services are brought up by a thousand dollars and part of that is the fact that we have a three-year contract with them that contract is going to go up and FY 22 I know FY 21 I'm gonna have a single audit there's no doubt about it FY 22 I might not but if I do there's going to be like an extra thousand dollars when is that contract with them up I think we have one we I think it ends in FY 22 because the three-year contract and I think we're the second year of it right now as we speak right now okay so then I've we've got select board minutes I brought that down now your daughter is doing an excellent job of those that she doesn't charge us a whole lot so bring it down to where it's realistic and actually it's still I don't think she charges us $1,200 a year and that's it so when I look at that a lot of the others that we didn't change at all but I'm looking at an overall increase of 2% and like I was telling you before part of that increase is that we're going to be paying our town administrator at least 10% more than the previous one and our insurance has gone up by 10% and our health insurance I'm anticipating going up by 7% so like I say overall I've gotten it to 2% increase based on the information I've given to you now in this also I'm when I look at the wages I'm basing the wages with exception of town administrator on 2% increase now Brad I've found out just today that apparently the town clerk and had sent you an email I didn't get that email so I just barely I got it like an hour or two actually a couple hours ago now that she'd asked for an increase I didn't include that in the budget because I didn't know about it she said about about 215 to the select board right I was just barely reading that letter so I probably there's no reason no way you would have had time to put it in there anyway no especially because I sent this out to on Friday so yeah so well I think the board will have to discuss that what was her what was the increase she I'll read the you didn't get a chance to read that letter let me see here hold on I'll pull it right up when I got home tonight but that would be great if you could read it Justin it's a pretty lengthy one but I'll be happy to I've got to hear I've got to hear in front of me now basically what she's at what rosemary requested was that we consider a full-time assistant because we're the only hospital town in the area and that the full-time assistant salary be somewhere closer to let me see where is it first budget we're yeah with a salary increase to recognize the amount of work the assistant town clerk does that's all she states in their second budget is that our second item is that she's requesting that we look at you know Berrytown salary range of between 55 and 60 and that traditionally speaking the town treasurer and the clerk's salary were the same I believe is what it was somewhere in there long time ago well when the when the town when the treasurer was part-time I got so the you know that yeah that she references that you know the in the previous select board I've never heard a request from rosemary but the previous select board had said since the office wasn't open on Fridays that she she obviously wasn't working 40 hours a week and then she just goes on to say how she does well she I think the town clerk is here on Friday it's just isn't open for the public right right yeah she's here usually in the morning for a couple hours right yeah yeah it's not open to the public the office that's what I guess and she said she works one day on the weekend often sometimes both because there's no disruptions with land records so I don't know I don't know when we want to discuss that but I don't think I don't know if right now is the appropriate time or not well we'll have to have another budget meeting we'll go over it then right now Tim is here so let's move on to the okay to the highway highway so in highway overall it was a 7% increase overall that we discussed on the wages because Tim jr. is making less than Tim senior was there is a lower amount as far as wages go so there's a savings there I did increase the overtime for summer just because I'm not sure with that culvert if there's going to be even more work for the for the road crew I'm assuming there might be more overtime so we built that I'm just thinking that might be the case and the roadside mowing we talked about that we wanted to increase that because we have there's just like a one they just they do one pass and then if you want to talk about that Tim you are far more knowledgeable about what we were talking about on that starts the second pass and what you wanted to do for rental well it's we can either we can either rent a machine and and for a week and do most of the second passes for ourselves and or try to contract it out for the second pass also but I'm talking with the other towns around me they kind of they hire somebody to do one pass and then they rent one to do their second passes and they're more aggressive cornering on the inside outside corners and stuff like that they go through four passes they're almost paying the same amount of money that we're paying for just the one pass to pass on our blacktop that we're doing now so I'm hoping this year being the first year that we're going to try this that we actually might be able to save some money by doing it this way so it's going to be kind of a guinea pig this year but I'm I'm hoping it's gonna work out and then maybe next year we can cut the budget back once we have it established and I can get some groundwork put down to make prices a little closer do we have any idea how many hours it takes to do the roadside rolling currently though the total what we're spending our $10,000 on does he bill I didn't see the bill from Donnell this year so I don't know he puts hours I know that $6,000 is what we've been paying them just that one pass and that's why we're trying to build more into the budget because there are people that were not happy with the passes now I I got a lot of complaints this year that people were not happy that the roads aren't getting mowed back like they used to that in the brush we've cut a lot of brush this fall so now if we can just keep that mode we won't get that brush back keep the trees mowed down but I'll look at the bill as well I will go I'll dig up the bill from last year and just see the only the only reason I was asking is I'm sure you guys are already tapped for time but I was just wondering if we rented and did the whole thing the way we want it done to you know our level of expectation if that would be a break even or that's more what that's where I'm that's where I'm hoping with doing it this way this year I can kind of figure that out Justin and try to get a better game ballpark idea how that's gonna work I know we're talking with the town of Moortown they pay somebody about three thousand to do a single pass and then they rent the machine for another thirty four hundred dollars so they're paying six thousand and they're getting what they want out of it the single pass you know I mean the single pass before they go out saves on the time of doing the tedious stuff around the ditches and everything else they can spend the more time over the rail on the corners and stuff like that so that's kind of way they get the way they're doing it Tim just keep in mind that what you quote about Moortown didn't include their labor it was just the rental yes but you know I mean one guy for a week on us isn't gonna be you know a whole I mean it's opportunity cost if he's if he's running the machine he's not doing something else yeah that's that's the downfall is as you kind of lose an employee for a week but so do you feel like you have the time because I see Diane built in the extra added overtime over the summer so that would just be you know potentially because of the culvert so my concern would be I don't want to see you guys get tapped short you know that's my only concern with it honestly other than that I think it sounds like a good idea yeah well I mean I'm trying to think with that culvert I don't think there's any grants coming a lot of times you can take in or the term of where they take in they'll foot in kind sir in kind service brand yeah in kind services is where the where your labor will come in but I don't think from what I've heard we we're not getting any grants or even even offers of the help are we to be honest with me I don't think that the town highway crew will be much involved in the culvert replacement yeah I think you're gonna bid that out to a contractor and they should they should do those work assignments so I know Tim and I talked about the mowing and it seemed like a good plan that that he he tries this half a second pass this year and see how it goes and makes an evaluation I think that sounds great I think the next thing that we can go on to is the asphalt marking and ceiling I think we've left that 150,000 and Tim was that like I don't remember what what project that was we were talking about 50 was it Scott Hill Road or something well that's just yeah we you know I mean without a grant I mean we try to pave we try to pave some of the roads every year that was the one that came to mind last year had to get closed in the springtime because it became so like Potholy mogul so if it if it does it again I'm gonna see if there's some sort of remedy if we can reclaim it and get a better base underneath the asphalt and try to fix that or we have a bunch of side streets that are starting to get show you know where paw holes and asphalt's coming up in some spots and if it be nice if we could get some grants because the junction road was brought up to for hopeful grants because that's from one town to another town so usually that's easier to qualify for grants for paving that stuff down there are you are you talking junction road or are you talking dog river no junction road from the pretty much the town lines on the bridge they are right before you get to steal and and then it goes out we took a little bit of it up on the end right just before you get to Karen's this year because it was in such bad shape yeah eliminated like a hundred feet of it they're trying to get back to the good asphalt and then with the with the tractor trailer trucks that pull out of the gas station that road starting to get some pretty bad wheel tracks in it and then I had spoke with Tom earlier in the year somebody had made some complaints about Ireland and starting to break up where they're pulling out onto the asphalt from the concrete plant so hopefully the grants come back and we can probably qualify for one for that because it's from one town to another town so it's a little easier they're more receptive to give grants for that stuff and Tim I know Ireland's gonna be coming in for for zoning application I have discussed with them repairs to that road so what when they do come in you and I need to sit down with them and then on the resurface gravel we did increase that by 10,000 and let them know why Tim I heard me get a lot of roads that are losing the top layer gravel when we grade we're getting a lot of rocks like big rocks four or five inch rocks ledge sticking up again there's a bunch of spots now that are getting ledge and unfortunately the only way to get rid of them is to cover them with gravel versus so we're gonna there's a bunch of stuff that needs to be resurfaced so that's kind of where that's gonna go I'm expecting to use pretty much everything that we got in springtime we had I assume that I assume that if we had better gravel or better surface it would mean easier or less maintenance to right what was that Justin sorry I would assume that if we had better road surfaces like as far as better quality gravel it would it would turn into maybe a little bit less maintenance or a little easier maintenance on our equipment something along those lines right yeah you know I mean the material we're using is probably some of the best you can get around central Vermont for sure without having to go way away and it does it seems you know I mean it's granite so it holds up pretty good on the on for surfaces the only problem that we find is it gets a little choppy in the hills but that's just I think anything's gonna do that but it does help you know I mean with a good road base and everything else road say drier you don't get as much mud so it's just building into the infrastructure and then the next thing that have you looked at getting rid of some of the canopy the trees not too too much I know it's starting to catch on quite a bit with finding somebody to go in and with a tree shear in the wintertime and take down the bigger trees I I feel sometimes there's a good to bad to that because let it lets a lot more sunlight in in the summertime with dry the roads out and then they get dusty and then we have to use more core core ride you know I mean I don't believe that we're really that bad off for mud you know I mean it just sometimes with would like that taking taking the canopy out you let a lot more sunlight in which drives the road out and then you get dust and then you of course then you're losing you know I mean they they claim you'll lose almost an inch of road road a year between plowing grading dust and everything else so it's nice sometimes with the canopy it keeps the roads a little bit cooler yeah we'll lose some overtime expenses as well without trees coming down in the middle of the road on the heavy snow storms as well wouldn't we yeah well like I said earlier there we've been cutting a lot of brush and getting a lot of like the guys have made mention all these trees come down when we have a lot of snow on them so we've done a lot of that this fall just trying to be a little bit more proactive and we've not had that much snow so but it's definitely something we can look into as far as there's probably some areas that can definitely be cut back a little bit well of course I mean there's the the practical side of that then there's the the aesthetic side too a lot of people don't want to take and see the canopy over the road and it it would help in the fall there wouldn't be so many leaves on the road and in the ditches but sometimes like I said it's it's hard would you mean giving a lot of sun on a road it'll dry it out too and that's why you're requesting 7500 dollars for that leaf blowing machine to get the leaves out of the ditches but yeah everywhere's you know pine needles like crosstown gets real bad on the top from pretty much the black top all the way to rattle hill the pine needles get so bad over there when those trees let go once you get that stuff in the dirt it doesn't come back out and then when it doesn't pack you get like potholes you get potholes and ripples in the dirt from the pine needles and stuff so that's you know I mean that's again what what we're hoping with that leaf blower and then have you as any of the other towns started using the blowers or yeah um town of norfield just purchased one town rocksbury has one uh there's a few other towns in the area that have gone with them um the salesman that I spoke to about them said that town of Burke had bought one earlier in the year springtime ish and they said that they've saved the same amount of money in storm damages you know I mean as it was to purchase it just to keep ditches clear yeah was that tow behind the pickup what's that go behind the pickup you can get two different kinds uh norfield and rocksbury both bought three-point hitches because they have roadside mowing tractors themselves yeah um so we don't have a tractor so we can buy a tow behind that goes behind the truck with with its own motor yeah more expensive though uh a little bit okay so the next thing we need to ask for is more money for road signs we asked for additional um thousand dollars from four to five what would you what we'd like so if you can explain that one ten as far as having more road signs well the more that is is just the signs that we use when we work the road work ahead flag your signs some of them are pretty worn out um it's just nice upgrade some of them and like when we had to close the road for fishery road um we had no road closed signs that are the pop up orange ones I had to borrow some and it'd be nice to get a couple of those because when we do change a culvert we can put those up and then instead of having saw horses and screwing the I think they're like two and a half by three and a half feet plywood signs that we have for road closures so let's just just some upgrading to the sign work that we need then the next expenditure that we had that increased is the health insurance right now with the four people that we have um in the highway three of them are on family plan and one's on a single plan and last year we had one on a single plane one was not on it at all and two on family plan so that is why there's such a big increase as far as the health insurance we have more people on the family plan otherwise than that we were asking for another two thousand dollars in supplies we wanted to go to eight thousand dollars and tim you were talking about I think had had to do with the shop just meant like tools materials you needed for some yeah hand tools wrenches ratchets sockets a lot of that stuff's been there we got a drawer full of sockets that have no writing left on them you can't even tell what they are and the inside of the sockets have been used so many times that they're loose on the bolts we were working on truck today and two of the half inch ratchets don't even work anymore than the selector for tightening loosening is they keep popping every time you try to put any torque on them so um just try to upgrade some of the hand tools so we can do some of the maintenance that we can do without having a mechanic go out to a mechanic one of them uh the other one another one that we had was the training of the highway we have a forty five hundred dollar increase brought up to five thousand do you still feel to that is is that adequate or too much or not enough or what are your thoughts on that because we do have the laptops now they're available yeah and I I think we can cut that back by quite a bit at least this year and see how it goes I've very I've been in contact with the training facility that used to be Vermont local roads now it's involved with the state so it's all one one entity so a lot of those classes will be free if not free I think they're like 20 bucks maybe at the most per employee and then right now they're doing some stuff online but with COVID and everything else they're not doing any hands-on classes so that's kind of come to a slow right now but you know I mean a lot of a lot of the classes that we will need to take are through the through Vermont local roads the B B trains class work there so so I don't I don't foresee us needing all that amount of money okay so what would you like me to bring that down to I think if we could just do a thousand for this year and and you know I mean 500 has been efficient for the years past I don't you know I mean and then with COVID everything else I don't really think we're gonna get a lot of opportunities to do much of anything so I think we can cut some there the other thing that we increased was the garage energy improvements we've asked for an additional 5000 you can explain that one um it would be nice with that to start doing some energy improvements in the garage just as far as trying to like all the garage doors need to be recased some of the sidings got holes in it from being hit over the years trying to clean the ice off the side of the building um the roof I would like to see the roof get reinstallated I think we can save a lot and just reinstallating the building probably and and heating costs so that's kind of where that is to start sprucing it up a little bit you know reinstallating the building re-chasing out the doors maybe fixing some of the siding with the holes on it and the last thing that we have brought up was the uniforms uh because we are we've had $7500 for the budget for the last two years we've been spending over $10,000 for uniforms and I know we have a contract with um Sintas I think that's the name of it yeah I think it's not like we're getting anything extra for uniforms it's just the regular uniforms we just have not been setting aside enough money um for the actual expenditure so I guess overall uh that's why it's a seven percent increase that we've been asking I will bring down the level of the training down to a thousand but still it's still you know still going to be about seven percent increase so I don't I don't know how this usually works um I'm not hearing a whole lot from anyone else on the select board so I'll just come out and say you know the social security administration has given a 1.3 percent increase this year to social people on social security so for a town to go up you know seven to ten percent is unacceptable on my in my book those people have to figure out how to pay taxes pay their fuel um there's a lot of things that are nice to have on there and just you know other towns may have but we're a third of the size in some cases from a population standpoint and we I think we need to do a better job overall as a select board uh being a little bit more financially sensitive to our taxpayers John I agree um so one of the big things with the town highway budget that I see is just the healthcare which appears to be a little bit out of sight of our control so I don't know how we would go about doing something like that no I think you're right I think there's costs that are out of our control completely um and you know that we need to continue like health insurance and then there's things that we can you know put off or wait till better times things like you know leaf blowers and things like that where you know it it would be a nice to have and it probably would save us some time but does it actually save us any money any documented dollars and where do those dollars come out of uh 7500 dollars is a hell of a lot of overtime I understand what you're saying there that makes sense from that perspective as well you want me to bring down the level of overtime then I know I know I'm just I'm I'm making a comment that we have to we have to do something we can't just leave it at 7%. I don't know what point in Berlin's process that the select board takes that on but I'd like to make sure that you know the department heads involved so we have full understanding of what we're doing as we go through you know there's things that Tim would like on there that's what I'm hearing and then there's two things that Tim feels like he really needs right Tim correct me if I'm wrong and I just want to get to the things that we really need yeah but so like the leaf blower and stuff that was just a suggestion that was brought up that's not I don't believe in here it was brought to my attention that we had some sort of surplus so it's not like we need it and you know I mean they've it's been done for years and years and years without it got it I just I just know that everybody's starting to pick that trend up and I'm being told you know I mean town of Burke said that they've saved the same amount of money and storm damage gravel overtime equipment hours as it was to purchase the piece of equipment so that's just where I'm going with that is it's it's not something that I need you know I mean we've done it for years and years and years without it it's right kind of a it would be a convenient thing to have but then again it's not going to be the end of the world to not have it and like you said you know I mean if it's not physically responsible to purchase something like that this year it's yeah I just think it's understandable and and that's you know I mean we can make it work without it it's not going to stop the process that's for sure but did we even put the leaf lower in no I don't believe it's in there yeah I thought it was just going to be like we had some reserves and maybe use some of the highway reserves for it at some point I thought that was what we had talked about so it was in the first version of the budget that we looked at we went over it I mean as far that's how the 7500 dollar number sticking in my head I don't believe it was in there though the other thing to remember also Tim is that Burke's roads are a little different than ours oh yes no by all means you know I mean they're you know I mean they're really the only one that's came out and said yeah it's a it's a world saver the town Roxbury bought theirs earlier this year and the town Norfield just bought theirs I think at the end of October and and they got theirs on a grant from what I was told I don't know where I mean where the grant came from or how that all came about but I was told they purchased theirs on a grant that's how they got theirs I don't know what grant it was but that's that's how they got theirs me me personally I'd rather watch Norfield the Roxbury for a year or two and see how much they really like it after using it for a year or two and that way we have a better use case of neighbors that have them and maybe I'm sure I'm sure if I went to either one of them and asked us asked to borrow it or or at least go and watch it work and then get some feedback on it you know I mean for next year or even two years now or or wherever we have the opportunity to purchase it we'll at least have the information right maybe there's an opportunity to you know make a trade with them you know for something that we have or even you know borrow it for a day to see how it works or something like that like you said yeah the other thing in the budget that I I mean I think it makes sense to some degree but on another level a dozen is the energy improvement piece to the building I I can see where we could potentially save you know whatever money we invest in that building but at the same time do what what is our plan with that building how long are we going to have it what is our energy plan for that building what what are we going to do so I I would hate to budget money aside that we're just going to end up spending for the sake of spending that we well I asked I asked that well you know I mean I kind of asked that question the last time you know I mean I don't know what the longevity plan is for that building you know what I mean five years from now the town could be like well we're going to flatten it and put up a whole different structure or I you know I mean I I understand and I totally understand what you're saying Justin I wouldn't want to put a whole ton of money into a building and then four or five years from now the town plan changes and we end up tearing that building down or doing something totally different me wonder if you know through energy Vermont or efficiency Vermont if they have anything for municipalities out there I mean the whole point of the program is is to stop using as as much fossil fuels right so there may be something out there especially if it's a there's major heat loss going on well then where they'll pay for 80 percent of something like that well I'm trying to think uh Tim senior he did uh he did some energy upgrades to that building they they put brand new heat in it last year and then they put uh three brand new garage doors on the back of the building um just off the top of my head that I know of but they never changed a lot of the lighting too a lot of the lighting has been changed they did all brand new led lights in there yeah and that was through energy efficient energy efficiency or whatever they call themselves yeah well so we wouldn't hurt to look and see what they got to say for themselves I mean they can come up and do an energetic for you too they can see where you're getting heat loss yeah well I can I can point them in a few spots right now because you can see outside in a few of them not totally but you know I mean there's one of the doors you know I mean years ago somebody caught it with a wing going out and you know I mean it just yeah it got fixed but it's not right like it was when it was new you know what I mean they they nailed the board back up on there and now all the boards are starting to weather and rot and yeah of course the other problem is those little plastic rubber strips they use to seal the door they wear out get caught curl up Diane when efficiency Vermont came and helped us with the led lights did we get a discount on the lights when we bought them through that correct we did a lot of them were like half price right if not even more what I did is I paid the whole thing and then I got a rebate yeah and that happened for quite a few years in row and was always with the highway so we did quite a lot with that okay good enough that's great so you know I mean in that aspect I I'm not you know I mean I don't know what the building plan is and I don't I'm not sure if anybody has ever like oh this building's gonna last us for the next 20 years or anything like that prior to me you know what I mean I don't know if I was ever brought up in the past but really as long as the posts are good we're good to go yeah you know I mean it's I think it's all like main frame of the building is steel and then it's wood in between everything so the roof will stay up yeah well the thing that is is that some point in time you need to take a look at those steel posts for their next to the ground make sure they're not rusting away yeah that's going to entail you know I mean it's all plywood on the inside and it's all metal sheeting on the outside yeah so I'm sure you I mean there is a hole in the side of the building where somebody caught it years ago with a plow or loader or something and you know the insulation's all weathered and black and yeah that's all good stuff like that that I kind of like the you know I mean we could eventually just kind of work toward that but I totally understand you know I mean we don't want to go putting a bunch of money into a building and then end up changing the town plan in the next five to ten years and and have wasted all that money because that's not that's not good either so you know I mean if we had to we could we could cut that back to where it was for the for this year um and hopefully I can use what's there to maybe recase the doors and try to seal them up a little better there and save us some heat loss and then we can look at um get energy efficiency in there and and do like a building audit or whatever to see what they say does that sound good with you guys or sounds like a plan yep agreed yes thank you what else on this Diane okay well we could do the police but right now I think we're getting into the seven o'clock hour so should we try to plan for another meeting I think so okay good and that way we could do the police and then whatever the next step is going to be as far as you know well we'll have to next step yeah the next step would be finalizing the budget yeah thanks Tim guys thank you welcome thanks Tim thank you Tim thank you very much Tim you're welcome have a good evening you too okay it's seven o'clock somewhere uh seven oh four uh I'll call the the continuation of the select board meeting that we just did for budget prep with the additions of John Quinn is now with us um let's see here any public comment hearing none treasurer's report Diane okay for some reason I've lost my picture I don't seem to have a lot of I don't have a very good connection right now but at any rate um we have a contractor's application payment for dupe voice construction I've sent you the paperwork and I'd like to get the approval this is for payment number six this is a pain term pipe south north extension sewer extension project and the amount of this invoice is 161,596 30 and I did send it out to everybody I think it might have been either Friday or today and I will need you to sign off on it once this approved okay it has been approved approved by the contractor the uh engineer and the USDA well well before you go any further let's have a motion on that so we can keep up the caught up on this stuff uh a motion to take in for me to sign on the promissory note for 161,596 dollars and 30 cents per edit it's not a promissory note uh the bill yes it is payment yeah contract payment sorry about that motion yeah I'll make the motion for conversation purposes at least here a second second okay John uh I'm just wondering who checked the work uh the our engineer checks to work and Robert's on the call here now the I checked the work USDA checked the work and we meet we met with the contractor and discussed what was on it right so from the town Tom you're you check the work or you you're in agreement that the work was done to the standard that we wanted after the USDA and the engineer that's correct okay the only question I had any other comments on this all those in favor all those opposed motion carries okay Diane okay that's it for that one I think I have something else coming right up too Diane you had a greater you have a greater yes okay and I've sent that perfect paperwork I just received today and I've sent that paperwork to all of you um this is for the 10 year loan that we're going to be having with our community bank NA uh and it's at 2.05 interest which was agreed to in May the 247,900 dollars for the greater is the exact amount that we were quoted by Caterpillar so I do need to have a signature on that and then once it's approved to get approval and signature I will be sending it to the other board members for their signatures as well as three different places to sign on the form okay motion on that so moved second second any other discussion on that hearing none those in favor aye motion carries thank you okay Diane Diane is it draft audit report draft audit report I'm sorry I'm just reading my form now okay so I have sent the audit report to you and is obviously very long so what I did is there's like three or four pages I sent to you that I just wanted to really talk about some of the highlights of this actually our next meeting I am going to ask our auditor to attend the next meeting and go through the audit report as she does every year and then I'll ask for the board to approve it but the first page that I've sent has to do with if you look towards the middle of it says management has determined that the effects of uncorrected misstatements are immaterial so that means if it was material that would be something that would be significant but there was like I think there was three correcting entries that they made for me and they consider them immaterial so I wanted to point that out to you because that's always an important piece of the audit to make certain that my work is as accurate as can be so I do want to point that out to you now the next page has to do with the management it says management discussion analysis so our fund balance increased by $366,707 for FY 20 which is significant part of that increase was we got $150,000 loan for a piece of equipment that we bought also we got some grants that we were not anticipating and we did not spend as much in March even though some of our budget went over budget a little bit in the police and in the highway in March with with COVID began we said we're not going to be spending as much we're going to try you know just give up what we absolutely needed to get and so we obviously we you know we did very well because we you know we have a surplus of $366,707 which is significant the year before we had a surplus of like $200,000 then the last page of this that I gave to you on that three-pager if you look downward says unassigned our unassigned um balance right now is $931,530 last year it was $707,000 let me just tell you exactly what it was last year last year it was $603,700 so we have obviously because of the surplus that we have this year um we've increased that but out of that $931,530 which is something that we can use to buy down the tax rate $150,000 of that actually be pledged to FY 20 21 the year we're in right now and that's not going to show until another year so so we have something so it's going to be $150,000 less than $931 but that's still a significant amount of money and I did want to point that out and like I say at the next meeting when um I have the auditor here she'll talk more about more about this as well but I did want to point that out to you I had a quick question on any of these fund balances that we have you know like there was a restricted fund balance which can be used for records and all that recreation restoration is there any way we can use that fund balance to cover any of those server expenses as well as maybe digitize more of our records to make things more efficient for the clerks no um no because what we have um we have our own reserves and some of them that are not restricted some of them that are like unassigned we could reassign those for something else but the restricted ones or ones that either were voted on for instance the one that was voted on within the bond that when we had the bond we got a bond loan that can only be used for building uh or if um or for instance what we have for uh like listers there's like a very small amount there you can't spend that because um that's by statute you can't spend that so um the unassigned the 931 530 is what we can spend if we wanted to it has nothing there's none to restrict it in there but that can only be used to buy down the tax rate it can only be used to buy down the tax rate correct you can't like you can't say I want to buy a greater with that you can't do that right you can build a greater into your budget and then use that to buy down the tax yeah and this is kind of kind of what we've been doing so actually with the budget we have now that we're working on now we could potentially use some of this I mean if this elect board chooses we could potentially use some of that to buy down the rate like we did last year we used 150,000 last year like say in that 931 we do need to subtract 150 because we're always like you know two years behind in the audit well we but we can't use it to set up capital improvement funds or capital equipment funds correct we cannot so what you could do is you could say okay I want in the capital expenditures I want to put in 300,000 dollars in the capital expenditures and then so you build that in there and then you turn around and then you say okay I'm going to take six cents off the the tax rate through the unassigned that you can do does that make sense one thing right so so could we hypothetically pay off say a dump truck you know with a annual payment of 15,000 a year shift that 15,000 a year to a capital equipment fund so we'd be paying off so we'd be paying down our tax rate and at the same time taking the line item that was going towards paying off the debt and moving it to moving that annual cost to a equipment fund capital expenditure right yes yes so in other words instead let's say you're going to pay an extra 15 and your payments 15 you could say we're going to pay 30,000 on that in the capital expenditures show it that way and you can do that so why hasn't the board done it in the past to eliminate some of this interest expense that we incurred that that I can't answer Justin you know that wasn't brought up you know we've been trying to or I've been trying to you know have some more reserves built up but that just didn't happen Brad can you speak to that the the the money's there the unreserved we always kept as a as a rainy day fund and we thought it was more it was important enough to have money in that fund to have in case of a of a bond then then to take in pay down the debt but if I if I understand correctly now we're in a position where we have our rainy day fund where we want it from a percentage standpoint right yeah okay and so in the past we've always used some of that money basically trying to think how does this it's the people's money and by by paying into the to the tax rate you're you're redistributing back to the to the uh taxpayer that's a great way of explaining it Brad and I mean Diane has always wanted to take and keep at least oh 500,000 that's my comfort level yeah just my comfort level I didn't get quite so much though yeah but we certainly can take some of that and once we finalize the budget you take once you finalize your budget you can take that money and and and put it toward the tax rate basically is what you're doing so you're basically buying down your tax rate a little bit yeah I understand what that concept is but I like for me the way my mind works around finances I'd almost rather look at how to I mean I instead of buying it down later I just I think that if we can eliminate debt sometimes that's that's a great way to go about it and then if we're putting money aside for a capital eventually we're going to end up putting the town and the taxpayers in a more stable and and they're just going to be in a better position from a tax standpoint so I'd like to as a board start working towards eliminating some of the debt if possible as well well and I think it helps our bond rating as well if we are if we don't have as much debt Justin right so and then as far as reserves what is the turner like this let me ask this question so we just bought a brand new dump truck for example we have a pretty significant loan on that if we were to pay that dump truck off is there a process and what would that timeline look like if we were to all of a sudden need some rainy day money and needed to maybe refinance that dump truck for example okay if we were to pay it off obviously that comes out of cash and then at the end of the year instead of having you would have a loss potentially and that's what that would eat at that unassigned monies does that does that make sense to you what I just said sort of but I don't think maybe I need to re-explain the question my question was just simply this you want five hundred thousand dollars as a just for your comfort level which I understand I'm just trying to wrap my head around it if we paid off one of our say newer dump trucks and then we needed to recoup 150 000 and the truck was worth 150 000 is it possible for us to just go to the bank and refinance that dump truck oh yeah yeah absolutely yeah right now I get what you're saying yeah we could so instead of paying six percent interest or whatever or well two percent I think two yeah yeah instead of paying that interest rate which is an expense to the taxpayers that's an easy way to help reduce some of the costs that's all I'm thinking well again it'll be at the end of the at the end of the budget cycle that's what you would do that so was this question better move just to your next budgeting meeting to get digger digger the deeper and depth yes yes I mean there's no point in discussing yeah because you finalize your budget then you have a solid number you're looking at you can estimate what the what your your does to the tax rate and then you can take in some of that money as you can buy down the tax rate that returns money back to the taxpayer right but if you don't build into the budget that you're going to pay off a piece of equipment you can't you can't take those unrestricted funds and then put them into the budget I don't believe no right so it would it would be a prior to buying down at that point conversation but it's definitely something I want to talk about at our next budget yeah is that it Diane yep that's it okay thank you Diane uh let's see here um and you did the draft audit report yeah we're 710 Brad yeah uh chief what's up about this can't hear you how about now that's better I was trying to use your phones um I talked to Tom a little bit about this last week um since COVID came into play a lot of first responders have been discussing hazard pay because we are on the front lines and exposed to COVID in a little bit more personal way the state police are receiving an additional bonus I guess to their regular paycheck in the form of hazard pay and a lot of municipalities are going that way I just learned today that very town has a significant um addition to their pay um related to happen to COVID so just recently when in the last month or so I was approached by members of the police department expressing their interest in getting some kind of compensation because there's as you know we are kind of in a hot spot here in Washington County with the hospital here the hotel we're a little bit more at risk at COVID than some of our neighbors um I don't know if Tom shared with you a letter that was what I drafted I did James James it went out to them so you kind of got the gist of where we're coming from with that uh that James what was the uh what was uh what was the amount that the that very town was uh giving their officers my understanding it drew 50 an hour more I've seen as little as and there's been some legal action by federal employees saying they should there's stipulations in government regulations um allowing for hazard pay when people are exposed to hazards like chemical and biological hazards so the argument has been posed in in the court that COVID is one of those biological hazards so people find and expose to that to be getting hazard pay so I think the federal government level it's well was five percent but around the state police are about a dollar or so an hour and like I said very town is at 250 254 an hour is there in your budget is is there any moneys for that no my understanding is there was an opportunity earlier at the outset of COVID for municipalities to apply for this essential worker kind of compensation I know very city asked on that for some reason I remember Lynn probably didn't put in for it so it's certainly not money within our budget to that kind of compensation and there's no way for us to retroactively or just moving forward to see if there's anything we can do to assist and I don't know as far as federal compensation I'm not sure I'm kind of on the fence here as a first responder and certainly as having recently on the road I understand what people from but I also now that I'm a department head I get that where are you going to get Justin I think they answer Justin I think they answer your question that I know the the feds are looking at a second cares act bill and as of yesterday they have stripped out any additional funding to municipalities and that's where that that first dollars that chief was talking about in March came from and then that the so the state wouldn't have gotten an allocation of those funds or anything where we could apply I I they the state on the first cares fund did I believe all those care funds are are exhausted by the end of 2020 and the federal government is looking at a second stimulus package of my understanding it does not include aid to municipalities thank you so it comes down to where we find the money or or I mean do you do it and if that's me that's the first question are you are you going to do it and then the second question is is where you're going to find the money when did we I'm trying to pull up my emails now when was the email sent with the that in the information for this in there by Friday on the whole package went out Friday Friday the 18th at 1130 yeah sorry I missed it when I downloaded everything the there's no new round of this cares act till next year which is coming right up there's nothing in there for the first responders as I understand it Tom for municipalities for any municipality so so that's correct that that would include first responders yeah chief what other you said berry towns doing this is every is it pretty much every police department doing something with this or is it just kind of I mean can you explain that a little more yeah I think some municipalities had a foresight and I'm not trying to dig the town here had the foresight to apply for the funds and so there was some monies there for that other municipalities are trying to catch up I don't know where very town got their money that's a significant thumb my failures in the process of exploring their options for this the state police probably got it when the state applied for the initial funds and then and it's pretty common on a national level and I think it's a mixed bag probably of municipalities that aren't getting anything and municipalities that are getting do you know if northfield for example is doing it I don't know if northfield is doing it I was just curious if they weren't you know they're similar in budget to what what they were doing and how it worked out and what you know I was just curious I can't imagine very town that's a huge budget to work with I don't know where their money came from but it's then I don't know if it's retroactive or since the start of COVID but since the start of COVID from this point on officers are getting company does it make sense for the chief and I to explore sources of this funding and come back to you folks yeah I mean unless we know where we're going to fund it from there's really nothing we can do to in any way shape or form anything however so I would encourage you guys to explore every avenue possible and maybe even yeah I don't even know I don't know yeah maybe even reach out to the other very town and ask them how they're funding it that was that was my thought Justin and I'm up here sounds like they're going through the exercise now well if you can do that get back to us the first of the year first meeting we'll do our best okay thank you for bringing it to our attention thank you for your consideration yeah okay thank you chief uh uh fish a road culvert Robert Clark is here I sent out to you folks a estimate on the uh fisher road repair that was in that Friday's packet Robert you're on the call but you're on mute you want to bring that up or good evening can you see me okay Tom yeah new space uh so I had sent to Tom uh basically a 60 cost estimate we have some really good drawings at this point and a good understanding of what's needed for the foundation for this structure I think there is some room to make some cost savings by shrinking the structure down a little bit but I wanted to get this to you guys because I do think it does a good job of providing a overall estimate of project cost and an order of magnitude of what we're looking at for this project and certainly is um a good conversation started I do have some drawings that I didn't get to Tom in time and I'll try and share what we have right now everyone see this screen yes so the dark shaded area is the new structure basically and I'll try and highlight uh the ends here this is the end of the existing culvert on this side and this is the end on the outlet side for orientation the north side of the screen is towards Northfield Savings Bank and um and the south side is headed towards up the hill towards the hospital so this is we're looking at a structure that's about 120 feet long just based on the angle we've been trying to um since last Friday trying to find ways to actually reduce this and we think we can cut it down to about 105 feet which will save a little bit on the structure cost as well as excavation some of the other items that were in the detailed estimate um in general there's two kind of options that we were looking at true circular arch and we put in the existing structure for comparison and then a more of a kind of squared off structure and the difference between the two of those is about $50,000 in material costs so we think we can we think we can make the least expensive one work which is the lower option the one on the bottom here and we're just waiting on hydraulic approval for that but it appears to be adequate based on the numbers that we ran and you can see from this section we've already shortened the structure length from what it currently is and I'm and we're pretty sure we can pull it back another 10 feet on each side which would get us down to about 100 feet um and save a little bit of money uh as well so um this is kind of where we're at here um I know Tom distributed kind of a detailed construction estimate this is um based on 60 percent plans which included the grading and I took took the grading off of that plan that you saw just so that I could um make it a little bit clearer but basically we tried to go through and do a really detailed estimate on all the things that were needed for this particular project and I I would like to tell you that I think the number here this one million dollar number um would be conservative I'd like I'd like to think that and that we could work towards getting that price down with some of the things that we're talking about right now um but I do think it's a good number to start having a conversation about funding and I'm not sure I wasn't able to attend your last meeting so I'm not sure what Tom had talked to you about but what I looked at was so one percent feet alone for uh for the project um they require essentially a 20 percent local match to that which is uh this right here um and so basically you'd borrow uh anywhere from 20 to 30 years and it has some impact on the debt service payment depending on the loan term so this this looked at a 30 year loan and um and just kind of roughly estimates what the annual tax increase per $100,000 of assessed value would be to a property in Berlin and uh at the bottom we kind of highlighted what we're hoping the project schedule will be we have a pretty good handle on the plans we're in the process of preparing contract bidding documents and permit applications at this point and the expectation is that that's all going to get submitted in January theoretically we could bid the project in February if we needed to um but I I think for this there's really no reason not to wait until later in February or early March I think it'll help with some of the stuff that you guys have going on with town meeting and um at this point it's not a project that you want to try and start instruction on in the spring anyway I think this schedule lines up with what we were talking about to get out there in June and July and no later than August basically have everything buttoned up so um so with that I'll just ask if there's any questions Robert can you can you scroll back up and um keep going okay and so that where his previous page yet though the million dollar was the cost of construction but there's some also additional oh yeah uh so you can see the very top the construction cost is the million dollars that he just talked about on the other page but there's also three other light items in there that add up to a project of 1.3 million dollars so I would say you know just for order of magnitude you guys had authorized us to spend 40 000 on design and permitting and I expect to be considerably underneath that I just carried a standard percentage for technical services and a standard percentage for construction contingency at this point in a you know project development so that the 12 percent and the 15 percent are just placeholder numbers and similar to the construction I think that I would like to think that we could finish under both of those the one thing that's a little uncertain that I've only had a few conversations with um we're able to do everything um in an area that takes up less space than what the current structure is occupying uh if you look at this you know the end of this culvert is sticking out further than in there and these wing walls actually need to be shortened up a little bit but basically we're working in the same area the one concern is whether or not we're going to need an easement from any of the abutting property owners related to this project we're still working on getting the final V-trans uh right away plans added to this they have some pretty detailed right away plans and we picked up some property bins when we did our survey um so we're we're hoping to add all that information in and just kind of finalize and make sure that we're not going to need any permanent easements for the project and on this um by shorting up are you going to narrow up the the roadway or just the the culvert itself just the culvert itself so that because this one we're going to be able to put head walls on the end of it and so that's going to give us some more height and will allow us to grade from the roadway shoulder down to the top of the head wall and so what that allows us to do is actually pull the structure in and narrow it rather than rather than have to go all the way out to like the top of the metal like what's there right now the only reason I the only reason I asked Robert is um there was some talk with the town center about having a hiking or a walking path down through there um to get to some of the build out areas I just want to take it healthy uh just how I just wondering how shortening up is going to impact that that's a really good point about and discuss that with Tom I think right now this is the garden rail right here and that dark line next to it you the garden rail is the one with the circles and the dark line next to it is the edge of cave and I was thinking we could actually pull this structure back over in here which would be near the force wing um we're going to have to deal with that anyway this is the old force main from the chamber at commerce so it's not really an active line that we're going to need anymore and that would still leave just based on this scale about six or seven feet from the garden rail to the top of the to the top of the structure and then the question becomes whether or not um we would want to have the head wall be taller and and make that relatively flat across there with like a two percent cross slope or if we would want to just need to cover out as far as it is and flatten off you know make basically make a wider shoulder before we taper down to the structure and um I don't know if the sidewalk right now is on the up on the other side of the road I don't know if there's been any consideration on where the crossing for that would occur well I mean if you shortened over and then allowed allowed a slight pitch to it so the water drains off the from the guardrails to the edge of the culvert you say you'd have six feet there I think we can make a flat side of about 16 there yeah that's 24 sides yeah for a bike path whatever yeah okay that's my question I had Robert quick question I noticed on your initial one million dollar estimate which we have the 15 percent contingency along with the 12 percent on there on the top of that it was for for 120 uh 120 I believe it was a 120 foot structure which we're talking about decreasing potentially I mean by a really good percentage how does that impact the you know yeah we got 120 foot and in there if we get it down to 105 feet how does that impact this overall projection so that's a good question I mean a lot of these are fixed costs right so site clearing and and stuff is still going to need to be done for access down to the to the river level so that's not really something we would save on but I would expect that this item here structure excavation would be reduced um preparation for footings could be reduced a little bit just on a percentage basis similar for the pouring of the footings and and more importantly the the delivery markup of the structure which is estimated at just under 350 000 for that that structure so I think there could be some some savings I haven't gone through the specific reductions because I didn't know exactly what we were going to have but I think what I was hoping to do was have a conversation with you guys about things like that that shared used path to that sidewalk and see if there's ways that we can make this smaller or if there's things that I'm missing just because I haven't um you know been involved with you guys at every meeting to see what you've been talking about I understand so you they were talking about doing live with that force made on the um on the that ran over to the well brand that that is that is a privately owned force main um the ownership of which needs to be investigated I would so I would as of now say that that force made would not be removed uh because it's privately owned and um we just need to do further investigation on it it's um it's inactive right now and so what I was thinking was that we could just move it in towards the guardrail a little bit um but that it was it would still need to stay there but it's not an active force made with a new station online and um and some of the other infrastructure that we just put in if if the covert is failing then that force main there if we do nothing that force main is in jeopardy right so we actually um recently with the sewer project your voice just connected the chamber of commerce's pump station and rerouted the flows from the chamber in the northfield savings bank to the new pump station we put in a new force made as part of that project that's this big bold line over here on this side of the street and when the culvert failed we actually we did a change order through that project to put in 60 feet of steel sleeve centered on this existing culvert and we upgraded we had in our project but we upgraded to htpe pipe it's a fused solid pipe all the way through the project area so we have less less concern with the force main obviously it continues to move the last time I was in Berlin which was just last week uh there had been more settlement up there I'm not sure the last time you guys have been down to that site but it it certainly continues to wash out um and sink if you will I was just wondering if if the owner of that uh that the private force main taken pitch in some to say that I think it's Henry and we could have that conversation yeah and to be honest we've read that's a nominal cost in it in the whole yeah so so the next steps from the select board um we did bake in here the Vita loan so I think that you've that the decision needs to be made is if that's if you want an application to be to be submitted to Vita as Robert mentioned there's a 20% match required there but there are also other projects that the select board has been discussing the the Richardson road culvert the the lovers lane deck project or other items that that I mean there was talk of of doing a doing them all yes so um and and I'm not not suggesting that you make that decision to tonight but it's a decision that you as a select board need to have and it and it could be as part of that next budget meeting as well why don't I get the loan documents application and just start looking at it yeah yeah because I mean no matter what we're going to have taken fund it somehow can't have that road especially if it's if it's still washing out it had probably settled in a couple of sinkholes the other day um that were four to six feet in diameter and it had dropped another eight inches in those sinkholes um and that's just been in the last two weeks so um I know that it's certainly I didn't I didn't feel safe kind of walking around there putting heavy equipment on there in that area until it gets kind of excavated and exposed and some of that weight taken off of it because it's certainly whatever caused it to collapse it's it's progressing pretty quickly at this point so okay anything more for robert have anything thank you thank you robert thank you robert we'll we'll work towards this schedule here and I'll come back to tom when we're ready to submit permit applications and and prepare to go out to bed for this one thing one thing to keep in mind that the timing of it's pretty good I've heard from contractors that there's not a whole lot of work coming out um right now uh and uh at least from our firm we don't expect to see a significant amount coming out in the next two months anyway so uh it could be good timing to get it out to bed and get some competitive prices okay thank you thanks have a good night thank you robert okay planning commission draft zoning regulations and official map and capital budget yeah so the planning commission met last wednesday they had their public hearing on two of the items here the draft zoning regulations and official map for the town and they have made the the respective changes that came out of those that public hearing and uh you folks received friday the recommendations from the from from the planning commission on those two items and and the uh the the capital budget uh program for the town center uh brandy you still brandy you're still on the uh call you want to share your screen and pull up those items and we could briefly talk with the select board about them at at the end of the day that the select board needs to hold their own public hearings on this um and and we're assuming that that would occur on um january the 18th as part of your regular scheduled meeting sorry tom i don't have the files open i didn't realize you wanted to do that but um maybe it would be good to know if any of the select board members have specific questions um on those documents or um want some sort of a presentation at their public hearing that and then i'll be looking for the documents yes well we plan on doing a that presentation on behalf of the select board um what what came out of the the the meeting on the 16th with and i sent you folks all the minutes from that um sent from one medical center had had some concerns on zoning regulations and we believe all of them have been addressed to their satisfaction and i think they're they're pretty pleased with the efforts of the of the planning commission building height was concerned with with them and it was concerned with our first responders as well and we seem to have come to a agreement on all those parties on on building heights there um so the official map that was sent out that had very few comments on it just more of a that's explaining what some of the items listed on there there's actually quite a few parcels of property that the town owns that we listed them as facilities and it was a little confusing and so that's going to be it has been relabeled as um parcel slash facilities on on the map okay thank you go ahead randy are you able to share yep should be it there you go this is the official map that i was just discussing and the only um change of any substance to this from the draft that um you saw previously was the addition of the water and wastewater the existing water and wastewater infrastructure to the map we have finally managed to get that converted over from the engineers CAD drawings to to the GIS mapping and put that on the map other than that as Tom said there were some slight changes to labeling and things like that but that was the only addition that's uh from the draft we've seen before on content randy maybe you could pull up the uh capital improvement uh a plan that's relatively new to the select board they've seen drafts of it but we've we've uh put some final numbers to it now this is going to switch over here i might have to switch it manually this is the capital improvement program there are eight projects identified in here that relate to the burlin town center you had seen seven of these previously as a result of the comments we got from this the preliminary state agency review um v-trans wanted to see something in here about the interest of the route 62 intersection so we have added an eighth project line in here that um is for some a transportation planning study that would look at the intersections at some point after you've done more of the transportation planning and design work and permitting for the the sidewalk and pathway type of infrastructure inside the town center then you could look at connecting that infrastructure across route 62 so we did add that there based on those recommendations um essentially there's um these projects are still fairly conceptual and so we don't have a lot of hard um numbers to put to them um the municipal building project the street project the pathway project are all things that need um sort of a next step planning study so you can get some um better idea of cost estimate and um potential funding options and sort of the final design and permitting requirements and things like that which you could then put together a much more detailed plan in terms of what amount of money would need to be spent by what in what year and what the funding um options would be on the excuse me brandy excuse me brandy excuse me brandy so to that end uh you may recall uh uh we submitted the plan commission submitted grant applications for number one there the municipal building and number three there the town center path uh the grant application we just found for number one the municipal building was denied uh we found that out last week so uh we will see a similar grant for that project in the next grant cycle um we should have our designation by then once we have our designation we believe that's going to move us up on the list of viable projects for that uh for that demonstration grant so um but the the town center path is we still have not heard from v-trans if um if they're going to fund that grant this kind of year or not and one of the other things that tub and i have done to the capital improvement program here since um you've last seen it is to go back and to try to more accurately capture the expenditures that you've already made to the water and sewer projects serving the berlin town center um we think this helps strengthen the new town center application and helps show the town's level of commitment based on your already the money you've already committed and and spent so that's you're seeing that in the prior the first column in the in the table and there's really number six and number seven there yeah yeah and then um we've also broken it out this is the second page of the improvement program looking at where your funding would come from and this is something that as you look at this capital improvement plan every year and update it as you do your normal budget cycle you'd be able to add more detail going forward um in in future years as you get a better sense of what your funding sources would be and and those actual project costs and as you recall we're once we receive designation we begin looking at the tipped district is really we really see that as the potential source of a lot of the funding for this project and this is also uh you know a tool for tracking your your debt service commitments um so you can see that this this keeps track of how much of these um funds funds are going to project costs and how much is going to debt service as you go forward okay um brainy can you enlarge this screen a little bit probably just a bit i can show individual pages for projects it's a little bit hard to get it so that it cut off here on the screen but so we've still got page two up that helped a little bit so the um the capital all three of these items need um select board hearings and adoption um that is hopefully i think the idea tom is that these would all be done in one session but you'll need to do hearings on each of the three items so much yes it's it's tentatively scheduled for january 18th which is a regular scheduled select board meeting you probably read in the paper that the the painter bike north wastewater project i had a funding of 2.75 percent um usda is going to lower that uh to 1.75 percent which saves roughly uh 12 000 a year over that 30 year note um so that's a that's a big savings that uh is reflected here in this capital budget and this is that this is the the sixth but actually probably the seventh page in its project six um and that's the wastewater um project item and the water and wastewater paid by user fees yeah which is what is showing here in that that enterprise funds line going through i think the only other thing that i would um note that um to supplement what you said tom about the zoning um revisions is that we have and i think you sent along to the select board the comments and the responses so you can see the comments that the state has made on the preliminary application and some of their recommendations and requests and what the planning commission decided to do in response to those so some of you can see where some of those changes are coming from and as well as the comments from cvmc and other public comments that we had as well yeah that was part of the uh draft planning commission minutes that i sent out to you folks i think it was thursday or friday so cmvc is on board now they really have been for for the for the time there were some uh questions that they had on um how our streets would impact their ability to to develop their campus and uh we we believe that we have ironed all those out rad okay that's good news i did invite them to attend here tonight um i don't see them on the call but so if they would have had concerns i think they would have been here yeah so it's moving forward slowly we're still hoping to get in front of the downtown board with our application in in february so it's what was that brandy we're on schedule yeah we're on schedule yeah so sitting in this sitting in this chair it hasn't been slow thank you brandy any more questions for brandy thank you brandy so with that said is is it the select board's um desire to advertise this public hearing for january 18th at 7 p.m sure yes okay thank you okay um promissory note approvals um so the you may know that the water division has currently has two promissory notes with the select board uh for projects um that they have have undertaken and i'm just pulling out my documents now brad and um the uh public support board would would like the um the wastewater division to to close out the select board held promissory notes with the water division and hold uh that note uh between the visions of the public's work board it what it what it has what they believe does it it puts all that under one roof and what it does it potentially frees up for the select board's use 100 near nearly 142 thousand dollars um and they were very cognizant of your fisher road culvert issues and um so they thought that this may be a way to help the select board out is to to um close out uh the promissory note with that the two of them that you folks hold give back to the general fund 141 thousand 578 dollars and assume that promissory note between the water division okay here emotion on this i'm sorry i had to i had to step away for a moment i apologize otherwise i'd maybe willing to make the motion well the water department and the sewer department want to give us give us back our 140 41.5 thousand yeah that sounds good where's the money going what where is that money going to our does that go into our fund balance or that general fund the what into the general fund so moved here a second second any further discussion all those in favor all right motion carries pratt you have a document there that uh need you to sign and i'll have to witness it at the end of the end of the meeting up here thank you yeah do we need we don't need to give you any authority to sign on behalf of the board or anything do it i i don't think so but i wouldn't hurt what's that john i don't think we do on this one with with them just paying off the promissory note because we we already approved at brad just signing as the chair yeah i agree okay so uh let's see here the conservation commission so uh you may recall i see fills on the in the call so uh uh the conservation commission and the vast have um come up with a uh you folks uh wanted to have a joint public hearing uh there's they have tentatively scheduled that for january 20th at 6 p.m uh they have uh the the the agenda would be that that the conservation commission would give up an overview of of the townlands the existing easements and such after that the vast folks would give a presentation on their application to the to the town for use of townlands and then um then uh with the joint committees joint organizations would open it up for public comment and so we we've perceived through public comment um on the application until there was really no further comment and then my my my thought would be then that the the uh uh the conservation commission and the select board go into an executive session with respect to contract negotiations to uh to um just weigh the merits of of that of that contract with vast and come out of that meeting with the decision so i don't see where that would warrant an executive session there is nothing there that that it's not a true contract where we'd have it where someone would be disadvantaged in the conversation but then we did someone would do it then it's an open session then yeah okay bill uh can you hear me tom yes i guess the other the other thing we wanted to add in that uh we have uh composed a survey we thought might be useful we shared with tom and brad i don't know if it's been shared with other members and we would like to get that into the community for responses before january 20th we're hoping possibly to post it uh there could be paper but in this day and age of covet i think everybody's probably going to want to do remote or you know online emailing and uh we could possibly post it in a few places to get some more responses just to make sure we're covering all the bases what did you brad did you get the chance to look at that i haven't seen it i okay um tom did you get it i reviewed it yeah and i uh i spoke to um folks uh uh feel about it i don't i think it just helps move the the vast application along i'll send it out everybody yeah that would have been good i don't know why when we get these things why we don't send them out almost immediately to the rest of the board is there a reason we don't do that uh i haven't been instructed to do that and i just always thought it would be the administrator and the chair i don't know if everyone well no phil let me clarify i was it's definitely not the chair but it would be like a policy so in this situation it would be the administrator so i was just curious um i mean i know why you maybe wouldn't put five people on it or a quorum on the on it but if there is information that's important to share phil the the best thing to do is to get it out to everybody as soon as possible so if you did put people on it that would be great um we're not making a decision so you can absolutely we're not going to discuss it so you could absolutely share information that way so if you could just send any future correspondence to the entire select board at the same time it would help expedite the process i'd appreciate it hey phil hey phil um are you asking for names and addresses on the survey yeah okay i was just wondering how we were gonna tell you what i'll i'll get that out to you later tonight and then you know i mean we've got we've got four weeks and we were thinking of front porch forum any other input from you guys on how we could share this would be great uh karin said she could put it on i think we can get it on the town website that would be me phil so send it to me and i can get it on the website oh okay i'm good to send it out to everyone right now all right thanks yeah i think probably front porch forum will be the place that catches the most visibility so that'll be good yeah yeah and the the only other uh follow-up to this whole process is we did meet with uh a gentleman from the state and i went up with josh and we looked at the bridge and so we've got more information on that which is is good to have under the belt as far as the structure and the rebuilding the bridge i think the one the one concern i mean it's not a concern one thing we'll have to address is if in fact unlike other situations with vast that their work and energy and other than the three thousand dollars in material that we're providing uh josh mentioned or via dav rule that uh this this bridge would then be uh owned by the town right and no matter what happens in the future are any agreements with vast that uh the materials would stay on site and the bridge would be ours now i don't know if that needs to be formalized in an agreement or any sort of written agreement so because that may be a little bit outside the bounds of other ways that vast improves and builds bridges bill i i i i talk to uh david uh about this and he he's okay i'll ask him for a letter to that effect okay the thoughts that i have in terms of the survey is the news to knows that corinda's and also perhaps in the times argus in the world with a link letting people know that they could go to the town website and complete the survey there as well that's a good idea flow i'll make sure we do that why don't you everyone take a look at it any additions or any suggestions uh i don't know i know you'll be able to edit on that but you can send them along and we can adjust uh yeah i think that's i think that'd be great get this moving i know it's christmas week but you know people are home a lot so they're going to be looking everybody's home searching the holy thank you phil yeah i guess the one other quick thing just that uh we are going to not open the uh the larger skating rink or the warming hut this winter because of covid restrictions but we will have the uh the other skating rink open but we want to encourage people to mask and the lights will be available and i think we're going to try to get a porta potty up there but there won't be any warming hut and we want to make sure that people are adhering to things so we'll have proper signage on all that it's kind of not what the conservation commission always focuses on but as you know because we don't have a recreation committee that uh tom willard's really taken the bull by the horns on this for the last 10 or 20 years so we'll continue to try to keep that open tom did flood it and uh but i did want to mention with uh central vermont you know the other ice uh facilities being closed down we thought at least we could have a small pond up there for for families as long as you know they're going to have to adhere to some distancing and we're encouraging everyone to wear masks of course hey phil you mentioned too for the orca listening audience uh could you just give the locations of those so people so people that are listening listening in uh know where those are yeah it's up by the municipal building is that the one that's closed or is that the one that's gonna oh excuse me there's two up there oh there was a hockey rink that won't be open but there is a small skating pond that'll be flooded and will be open it's open now yeah it's yeah i didn't realize there was two in that same location yeah yeah okay so before we move on off this topic i just uh so i will plan on advertising this january 20th hearing this week yeah yeah and tom i appreciate you uh volunteering to moderate it no problem thank you phila all right thank you have a good evening the second piece for the conservation committee uh justin you had some thoughts on uh on the uh illegal tapping in okay uh burlin burlin forest is now an appropriate time to talk about those or no are we in a good spot with the letter going to the lawyer right now tom well the i sent out to you you i think yesterday um uh rob helpert's letter to to the howards uh i we i can we can talk about that if you want but it's i think it's it speaks for itself and um he'll get back to us well i think quinnon john and i had briefly had a conversation about uh one of my friends the maple syrup producer and we went over you know just the actual numbers um uh how many pounds per tap you should expect to get you know obviously how many pounds per gallon um and then what the barrel rate is for a product you know a finished product um and so i was going to send an email out explaining all of the details and and i saw that there was a dollar figure on the the letter you sent out today tom so i didn't i didn't take the time to do that i need to actually sit down and do that i just wanted to make sure everybody was on the same page for the the finished product pricing um so because i feel as though if there are damages there that we're entitled to collect or that we should collect we should i mean we should go do that my other question would be um with insurance carriers i don't know if we have any sort of lost coverage um inside our municipal policies but if we have losses due to damages that are outside of our control i mean it may make sense for us to to put our property and casualty agent on point um because if we have potential losses there that we can claim against our insurance our insurance company would then bifurcate against their insurance company which could also help us collect that money back we might get it sooner if we use our insurance company and also have to help cover our potential legal costs um so i think that's something we definitely need to look at for the town i don't know if you thought of that or if that makes sense but makes sense i'll i'll call tomorrow yeah so i would think so i think phil and tom you can see kind of where justin was thinking i think any further conversation because of the legal situation we should take it up in the executive session if we're gonna go into into much more depth uh but at least you know everyone understands kind of where we are and you know we're serious about uh collecting on the damages up there on the hill i concur thank you all yeah thank you okay uh diane nope i don't have anything okay we're at the town uh 755 there brand yep uh town clerk uh the town meeting for 2021 town clerk is recommending to have an australian ballot to make a motion to make uh the 2021 town meeting all by australian ballot this year due to covid second the motion okay um the only thing i had on that was how are we going to or how how do they um envision being able to get the like being able to get a local options tax being discussed in the town meeting have you heard john um i'm not aware of any other town that's uh that's doing that this year or that it's on the ballot for this year i could just be missing it well it's it's not so much just the local options tax i'm just saying any any controversial item that may be coming before the town yeah it's it's unfortunate given the covid situation uh what other towns i think are starting to do or what they're encouraging uh in this you know there's some equity issue here uh but a lot of towns are taking to front porch forum um so they can have that live community discussion in a way the the ins and outs of the different um uh ballot items that you know as i said there is a equity issue there of not everyone uh potentially has internet or is able to get uh front porch forum but it does cover a large majority and i think um you know maybe we have um maybe we have an email address that we can you know have public comment to or or do a you know some kind of public comment some other way uh but you know given the guidance right now we're not going to be able to meet this it's just not going to happen yeah well i would i would want to i wanted to add to that i would think one of the other things that we might want to be proactive on john is to um maybe do some some sort of presentations and have links set up in advance uh because we know they're brad like you said the local options tax and you know for an example well if that's something that we're going to discuss um or a big item like that then we also have to have a reasonable presentation to get the information out there which i think will really really help make put a lot of people's minds at ease so i don't know how we're going to develop a plan to do that but i don't maybe you'll get it yeah my whole thing was that we're starting to see what that bridge is going to cost there on fisher road what 1.3 million and with that you're going to be able to take in and show people what's going to do their tax rate whereas you then you can take in and make the argument that the local options tax would save them x number of dollars or even reduce their taxes so but uh at least that was the strategy i was looking at right so who in our crew of volunteers or paid positions would make a presentation that would do something and give that explanation where would we go for the the first thing we got to do we got the salt box to do it and that was town meeting yeah but if you send it out electronically that's how the majority of people aren't getting their information at town meeting i think there's a majority that do or a portion that do but the i believe that the majority of taxpayers are gathering most of their information prior to town meeting in venues like front porch forum so if we have something prepared in advance that gives people the information that they need to make a decision that's how we would do it that that's where most of their that's where that's where most people get their information now i i've suggested to the board in the past to to really retain some professional folks to maybe put together a youtube discussion on this matter and and it's that way it could be distributed widely i i don't think anybody in the town has that wherewithal i don't know if there's any volunteers that have that wherewithal i really think that a relatively inexpensive professionally developed case for this would would would be very fruitful well even you know one of the other things we could do if we got right on top of it would be to put out on front porch forum put out all the other places the questions people have in in reference to these you know you can just plant some seeds so that when you do do a youtube tom i completely agree with that idea that you can address some of these specific questions maybe that people have other than just anticipating or other than just having sort of a one-sided conversation do you have a resource for that sort of production or and if so the other piece to this is who in who in our town is going to field those questions or who would we have one of our engineers or one of our other advisors field the questions and be a part of the youtube video you know that's what i don't know i'm just trying to get a picture of it i would be honestly i'd probably talk to brandy she has her pulse on a lot of the planning folks who have done this kind of work um and i and i maybe take her lead on that and get some cost estimates and for for for you guys consideration and do you think that brandy would be able to cover it would obviously have multiple videos covering other topics but what what sort of spectrum i mean i know brad just tied in this bridge project as a piece but i mean the bridge project alone is a topic people would probably want to know about so i mean you can't really just jumble it all into one how do you think we would go about covering all of the the topics that we're gonna need to cover for town meeting well the trouble is just right now we're we're we're uh we're going for don't be it is about before i don't think it's that complicated though i think we just need to break the system down we just need to break it down into each individual silo people's expertise and speaking of expertise a person that came to my mind is jeremy hanson i think he would be an invaluable resource if he would push to help us in this regard i think john clinton probably had up a bunch of it too myself not really in the key guy he um uh jeremy he he was the one that was pushing for it probably five six years ago maybe a little bit longer um he did a lot of he did a lot of legwork on it a huge proponent for it i think it will be very beneficial for the town and for residents and it's just a matter of pulling the data together and getting getting it communicated in an informative way and being able to answer folks questions as we move forward with the discussions yeah let me let me reach let me reach out to some folks and i'll talk even if it's even if it's in my opinion even if it's not like a youtube but you know a simple message you know saying you know here's a frequently asked questions that we can post in different places please go to the website here they are or at the same time that we list out all of the valid items have an explanation of what they are over here with you know options to send feedback i mean it's not going to be a perfect year by any means but that's you know people have the right to vote up up or down and you know historically at least um from what i saw last year and in northfield in my years there i love town meeting but you have less than five percent that gov oh yeah yeah it's terrible okay well wait brad you guys have you guys have a motion here yeah i know i was just getting to a top but but but i just want to call your attention to rosemary's note she she also says that the board vote not to hold the physical or virtual town meeting on february 27 2021 as the date was voted on last march so your your motion now is just to hold these things by australian ballot i i think you need to add to it that you're going to cancel that february 27 2021 i guess it was pre-town meeting i guess it was the pre-town meeting on saturday yeah i would i would amend my emotion to uh cancel the pre-town meeting on february 27 you said tom yes okay second that okay any further discussion all those in favor hi hi motion carries um um okay tom grand list erinal brad brad so rosemary had a second um item there that she's she's saying that articles the requesting funding funding would be treated as they always have been if an organization received money last year and they are not increasing their request they only need a letter requesting to be on the ballot if an organization did not receive funding last year then they would still need the normal petition signed by five percent of the legal voters of berlin yeah she's she's asking the select board to um clearly delineate that correct reaffirm that yes uh motion for that one so moved your second i'll second it all those in favor hi i motion carries thank you yeah grand list errors and omissions hold on brad brad she she also she also requested the board authorized the expenditure of funds for postcards to be printed and then mailed by the town clerk to all unchallenged voters on the berlin checklist the postcard would be much the same as the two part one the state mailed back in the middle of 2020 the postcard would be informational it would let every voter know that there would not be an actual meeting and that all articles would appear on the ballot as well as those wishing to run for office in March be aware of the different requirements absentee ballot form a portion of postcard would be returned as an absentee request for cow meeting as well as any other elections there might be in 2021 she's asking for the similar postcard systems that went out um or she wants just absentee ballots she wants postcards telling folks that there's going to be no meeting and that if you wanted absentee ballot there's a she said she there's a part of the postcard that were that they would return return yeah okay so it's like a try do we have any idea how much that would cost i asked her that justin and i she did not get back to me so i don't know does she have it in her budget i doubt it um well actually what she did with me is she'd asked me um how much she had in the budget how much they spent and she did have a couple thousand dollars left it has not been spent and part of that being that we didn't have the absentee ballots that we had to mail out because it was all done for us in november i don't know if this is worth anything but i know the fire department we can't hear you justin sorry i don't know if this is of any value to the town at all but i know the fire department wanted to mail some information out as well um in reference to the uh potential study they're doing to see whether it would be beneficial to be in municipal department i don't know if i could get them to split the cost or how that would work but i mean there's another budget there to potentially get money from so so it sounds to me you guys don't mind if she doesn't let's she has the money in her budget well she has the money in her budget she should go for it well i mean i'm not i don't think we need to put out to a motion we all can concur with this can't we absolutely it's a it's it falls under her authority as as the town clerk is part of her duties to uh the voting system or the um that falls under that that piece of statutory requirement so she has the authority to do it from my standpoint well i trust that she'll do a good job if the money's in the budget i see no reason not to move forward with that okay tom just tell me all right let's let word concurs okay thank you now airs yes uh grand list errors and omissions would we up to now i sent you in advance the list from um the assessors the the dollar amount on my calculation is that uh the there is would be a reduction of about 8600 dollars in revenue in the grand list correct by these errors and omissions and uh yeah some of them have to do with the personal property tax i would send the forms out to people and if they don't respond then i i charge them and then some of these companies they just went under especially during covid i think that's probably the majority of them i think there might be a mobile home in there too that was was torn down and taken away and they didn't know about it but i haven't seen the list so i'm not absolutely certain what she has on it can you share that list with her tom by any chance or share that i can yeah i'm kind of like did i miss the notice for those board of civil authority and uh for that or is this just the list just coming before the board this is the list that's coming yeah they come in december because they have to file their final 411 report yeah okay i had a question just on the same well it's on the same topic with the listers but uh we had previous errors and omissions claim on there and i don't think my question ever got answered so when it's appropriate i'd like to discuss that just want to put everybody on board so they're looking for uh for the board to accept their uh errors and omissions yes yes you said it's 8600 that's my calculation of what it is brad you know i i used the higher of the of the tax rates yeah i think a good bit of this fall under the lower end of it but i used the higher number so probably a motion to allow for errors and omissions up to 8600 the motion to allow the errors and omissions up to 8600 on the grand list you're a second second that any further discussion all those in favor all right motion carries uh you used the town owned coups property trail richard riendo yep i got up i sent that to you guys in advance i got to pull up my may recall a couple meetings ago uh mr rando uh wanted to use a portion of a town owned property on uh kuas trail for uh logging of a of a contiguous piece of property down there the board asked for a uh certificate of insurance naming the town as an additional short and he included that and a uh two thousand dollar performance mod and he has uh submitted to the town treasurer that two thousand dollar so i think he is he has satisfied the select boards desires with respect to this you know the only thing we we we don't have is a official document from you know that that the applicant would sign in the town would sign um it's something we've got to work on but something we don't have right now well um have a can i hear a motion contingent on the uh the uh the document that way there when the document's done or with the board care to uh review it i don't need to review it some moved a second second any further comment all those in favor motion carries um minutes of november 10th those minutes were edited by uh conservation commission so you guys have what i've sent you was the uh the edited minutes with their comments to it a motion on those make a motion to approve the minutes of november 10th as amended john as amended near a second second any further discussion all those in favor okay motion carries minutes of november 16th i make the motion to approve the minutes of november 16th 2020 second all those in favor hi motion carries let's see here approval licenses permits vouchers and applications your motion who's got the paper i would but i don't have it in front of me can i hear a motion to uh approve payroll warrant 21-12 for payroll from november 22nd 2020 to december 5th 2020 paid on december 9th 2020 in the amount of $48,924.99 also payable warrant 21g 13 with checks 20747 to checks 20793 in the amount of 438,749 dollars and one cent november journal journal entries and tax admin adjustments and november budget status report trial balance and delinquent tax report so second thank you brad there's about 18 documents here that trying to find the right one here yeah i think you just outsource that yeah um let's see here so uh all those in favor hi motion carries uh round table john justin quickly hold on justin hold on hold on put yourself back on mute for a minute my my question was more around process around the budget when do we need to have a finalized budget buy was in january i i know it's like the beginning of january i can't tell you exactly it's toward the end of january we got one we can one more uh select board meeting before we have to have it done i want to say it's what january sometime around the 21st 22nd you got to print the booklets right yeah how long does that and then they have to be out 30 days ahead of time yeah the the the trouble i'm seeing this year is um how many booklets do we print or do we take and put it on uh put it on uh electronic in in north if we do it electronically we're not going to have a whole lot of costs in northfield we did it as a budget saving exercise one year brad exactly what you're talking about we ordered uh quite a few the first year and did it online and said basically you know if you want a copy come to the town office and pick one up yeah you want to read it online here it is and then we scaled back the number of copies that we made each year until we found the right balance what was the balance i'm just curious i don't remember you know we usually take and print about 600 and have what five hundred five hundred fifty left right well i think the only ones that they get it on the slack board and some of the uh some of the dihide oh so i i would think if we put it online and and had 200 copies we would we'd be doing pretty well yeah i do too i especially this year if we're not going to have any you know a lot of people you know a lot of people came and picked them up then okay anything else john um no i'm good justin it's justin thanks thanks john for giving me my floor back um no mike i had a quick question it was following up with us the cessers that having this here's an omission reminded me of an issue justin we we can't hear you can you hear me now yes perfect so this errors and emissions deal with the the assessors reminded me of a question i had of a few years back on a piece of property um and that was where the the previous owner retained the development rights so we reduced the tax rate or the tax the assessed value of the property because the current owner has no development rights so they they lowered the property by like 50 or 80 thousand dollars and had to put in an eno claim but i don't the the values based i mean the property is still worth what the property is worth so i just wanted to get an explanation of that tom this might be right up your wheelhouse i don't know if you are familiar with what happened i i heard about it but i'm just i i can't speak intelligently to it but it well just makes no sense that i would like to have them explain that to us at some point because i mean shit i or shoot i could if i sold my property and but i maintained all the development rights it sounds like a great way to defraud the town of its tax dollars i i agree with you because the property is worth what it's worth today and that's what we're taxing it on not what it's potentially worth in the future and i really want them to come back in and explain that and i don't know how to make them do it well it it's no different than than the land trust buying up your development rights and then it reduces your taxes it's very different we get funding from the because but at the same time the i think that the that the land trust also pays some taxes there to the town i'm not i'm not positive they do but the land trust is a completely different deal than private parties so i just would like to have them come in and explain you and i could debate it all day long i'd like to ask them to come into one of our meetings and explain that or give us a letter explaining how that actually works from their standpoint when it's private i mean do we want taxpayers selling properties and maintaining development rights and then i mean we could we could easily drop our tax revenue in half if everyone in town want to do that so i don't think it's setting a very good precedence and i'd like to know how that works and why that is why don't we have them come to this budget meeting beginning of the budget meeting and we probably need a set of date for your next budget meeting that'd be phenomenal thank you tom blow anything tonight but thank you okay any executive session tom no no but i around table i do you guys want to set a date for your next budget meeting now let's see here so our first meeting's on the fourth it is yes the week before that diane you still have a phone here yep i'm still here what time are you available diane anytime how about wednesday december 30th as good as any flow i shouldn't i shouldn't i should probably make that work yeah you want to make it work for six o'clock or what time that works for me that night at six o'clock try well get it done with i don't have anything else mr chair a motion to adjourn move to adjourn second all in favor hi hi thank you everyone you all speak up so well when that motion comes up good night happy happy holidays happy holidays