 Additionally, those are changes to the agenda. I think it would be helpful if we went around the room and I'll start and do some introductions, especially so Katie can get your name for the minutes. Denise Wheeler, select board. Jim Barlow, Calis Towne turning. Cliff Emans, Calis Select Board. Rose Pelcha, Calis Select Board. Katie Lane-Carnesville, court secretary. John Brevant, Calis Select Board. Sharon Wynn-Fannon, Calis Select Board. Wilson Hughes, animal control officer, town council, visitor. Evan Hinchliffe, just watching. I'm sure, could you say your name again? Evan Hinchliffe. He's with Orca. Oh, OK. Judy Fitzrubbert, on the town clerk. Janet Ansell, statement. Chris Martin, Marshfield Select Board. Bobby Bramilcom, Marshfield Town Clerk. Nice to meet you folks. Thanks for coming. Do you know if anybody else is coming? From Marshfield? From Marshfield. Do you have an animal control officer? I don't believe the animal control officer is coming. I didn't hear from the animal control officer. I did send the notice, but it was pretty late when I sent it in the day. My office is not open today, so I don't know. Oh, you're not open on Monday, so we can open on Friday. OK. So just to kind of start off a little bit, we have a situation in Calis with some horses that are perpetually roaming loose. They don't have any, what is that thing called, halters or any way to contain them. They just roam around loose. They end up on other people's properties, destroy gardens, snop off fences. Sometimes they're in the road, and there's been several instances where there's been almost a tragedy with either somebody getting the horses, presumably they would get hurt, or somebody getting killed. And this has been a perpetual problem in Calis every year for several years now. The neighbor's file complaints, it takes up a lot of the town office time fielding the complaints. And then we have Wilson Hughes and Elizabeth, who is another second animal control officer. They spent time checking on the horses. It doesn't appear to be like neglect in the sense that they're not being fed or watered, or I guess they have some minimal coverage. Although one had a contagious disease. Yeah, strangles. In one day they, you know, last year either. Right. I doubt it's going to be suggest. But apparently those issues cleared up. She took care of the horses for a while. The horses were in another location while she was away. In another location. Right. She was away, and then the horses came back. Yeah, pretty much things to do with, this is pretty much not to do it with dogs and cats. That's pretty well under control. This is more livestock. I understand Marshfield has roaming cows. Yeah, we have roaming cows. Right. Free range. So, you know, it just seems it just keeps going around and around. We've talked to our town attorney. We've talked to the Vermont, the cities and towns. Statutes are really old. And it says any person can impound an animal, a horse that runs at large. But who's really going to do that? How many people are really going to try to catch somebody's horse? And impound it, they can charge it fine. And for Janet, it looks like we need to have some different legislation. I'm not sure what that is. So this is really kind of a, let's put our heads together. How can we come up with some ideas? How can Janet help us with some legislation, hopefully next year? This is kind of like a brainstorming session. So I don't know if you want to. Chris, why do you want to share Marshfield's experience with cattle along Route 2? We have the same situation. We have a property owner who has, now he has close to 20 animals, very large, the size is probably larger than the horses that you are having trouble with. They're cows. They're cows. And we've been dealing with this particular individual for about 30 years. We have a file in the town clerk's office. We've been dealing with the same issues. It takes up a lot of the town clerk's time. It takes up a lot of the animal control officer's time and the select board's time over the years. Some years have been better, or I say better. Some years have been less of a problem than other years. Some years we may not have a problem. But this year in particular, it's been quite problematic. The animals actually, some of the animals get into Route 2. And most of them have been roaming at large on probably at least a half a dozen other property owners, properties doing damage this year alone and in previous years. We've gone through the fence viewers, had the fence viewers, I think it was two years ago maybe, had the fence viewers to visit the property. And they went through the process that is laid out for fence viewers. We've talked to the state police. Honestly, the state police don't seem to have the time or the willingness or the authority. I think it's all of the above because we've involved them as well. Right, to work with us. And there are some provisions under Title 20, but it hasn't been clear to us in the town who actually is able to enforce Title 20. There are some different parts of that statute that also relate to this. And Jim may be able to shift some light on that. It's my understanding, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that if the animals are on somebody else's property, there is little to nothing the town can really do. It's when they're on the town roads. When she had her wagon, for instance, parked on one of our town roads, she can't park a wagon in the town right of way or have her horses feeding in the town right of way. They shouldn't be roaming in the town right of way. But I don't think there's much you can do when it's on some private individuals property. Then it comes up to them to file a civil action. Exactly. And people don't want to do that because it's expensive. Right, and that's the exact issue I think we've been dealing with. People just don't want to go through that whole headache. Although this year it got to the point where I think a couple of the property owners were almost to that point where they were almost willing to go that route. But as well as they got as far as these animals actually were roaming at certain times on town roads on occasion. They weren't there a lot. But they'd cross the road, or they might be on the edge of the road. But they were along Route 2. And Route 2 is a state highway. Yes. And the Vermont State Police didn't have an issue with them being on the. They did stop, and they chatted with the individual. I don't know. It didn't really solve the problem at the time. It seems like the last three weeks, two to three weeks, the problem has gotten better. Yeah, they seem to go in. Yeah. At least here it does. Yeah. These beef or dairy cows. They're beef cattle. And they're large animals. The bulls, he has several bulls. One of the bulls is probably well over a ton. So if he was on Route 2 and somebody hid that animal, it would be tragic. They seem to be out mostly at night. Yeah. So it's even more dangerous. That's good. Are there black cows? No, they're light colored. That's good. But still. We did try talking to the Department of Agriculture about neglect. But if you look at them, they don't appear to be well-nourished. Now, you will see new content today, right? I've dealt with dairy culture on many occasions. And all they're concerned about is food shelter and all that. That's it. These cattle are very well fed. They're just. Yeah, they're eating other people's food. They're not eating everybody else's property. So the basic system that's in place in Vermont under the law is the same system that's been in place since the early 1800s. And it all made sense when everyone as a farmer could deal with their neighbor's cattle getting out of their property. But basically, everybody in the right has the authority to impound a beast, whether it's a cattle horse swine. They can take that animal and impound it or bring it to the pound keeper. Then you give notice to the owner. The owner then comes forward. They assess the damage that was done by the beast that were roaming at large. That assessment is made by three not interested individuals. They set how much damage has to be paid to release the animals from impoundment. And then there is a fine that can be paid, which is not more than $10 and not less than $3. And so upon the payment of the damages and the fine, the animals get released back to the owner. But of course, today, who can round up the cattle? Who can round up the horses? Who's got a trailer to transport them? Who's got a pound to keep them in? For all of that effort, it's all just basically a big liability for the town. Correct. Right? In Callas's situation, with horses, I don't know, typically, a horse tends to be a little easier to handle and approach. She has a new horse that's a stallion, I believe. Oh. It's also the draft horse. It's a little bit bigger than that. OK. Well, there are some statutes under Title 20 about stallions, bulls, and rams as well. And the fines are larger. Yeah, stallions go from $100 to $500. Right. This is a section of 3349 stallions. But who has the authority to assess that fine? How do you collect them? Right. Well, that's the big thing. You can have all the enforcement that you want, but how do you collect it? Yeah. And how do you enforce it? That's a huge issue. It goes to a civil court. I'm a municipal officer, number 864. I can write a civil summons, but they show up in court, and then whether the court decides to assume it. Right. So can you write a ticket under the state statute? Yes. So under Title 20, which I think stallions, bulls, and I think livestock running at large is actually under Title 20 as well. There's especially it's cattle, horses, or swine are 3 to 10. But a stallion is 100 to 500, because they didn't want the stallion running around and pregneating the mayors and towns. Right. Well, and they're also nasty. Yeah, they're also stallions, bulls, and rams are a lot less predictable. They can be, yeah, they can be dangerous. Yeah. I mean, this statute is so old that you can charge $5 for each week. The other part of what I see with you guys and your problem or your issue, if you found somebody who's good with horses, who knows horses, and I don't know if they could be a assistant to the animal control officer. They're both normal horses, and this is good with horses. I think I've run horses all my life. Yeah, and if somebody has a trailer, I mean, you can sort of bump the cost of dealing with this for the owner up, because it's going to cost a certain amount to have a trailer and a truck come, pick an animal up, and find an impoundment out of town. So it's further away. It's more problematic to get the animals back than maybe they'll start taking the problem more seriously. Well, we thought when she was out of town for a while and they were at a different location, that they were going to stay there. And then they didn't. They came back. So as part of this says, cattle, horses, or swine, who run at large on highways or commons, any person may impound them. Most people don't have the equipment or the knowledge to impound an animal. I mean, this stuff is so old. One of these is 1950. And you said it goes back to 18 something. Oh, it's, yeah. I mean, this was all. And then the folks who do the impounding are responsible for the proper care of the horse or cattle on their case. Call the AAFM in, and that person can get in trouble for not providing the appropriate care, but it is expensive. Or if something happened in their care, it would be held responsible. Our problem's a little different only in the sense that we can't even impound these cattle. The cattle are essentially, when they're off his property, they're wild. Oh, so you couldn't impound them, but you really can't. But Chris has tried to catch them. Yeah. They can bring a lash. No, I mean, we have animals ourselves. So I actually tried to get them to follow me into our fences where I could enclose them. But they ran right through my fence. Wow. So we need the cowboy division to come on and speak to us. Right. Rounders. Yeah. Texas Rangers. Jim, can you speak a little bit to the public nuisance and 24VSA and how that does or does not intertwine with the towns or anybody's authority relating to animals? Sure. One option that would be available to the town is to define horses and cows and animals running at large as a public nuisance and to adopt an ordinance under that authority and then set out essentially a penalty, whatever remedial steps might be needed to address the problem, just in the same general way that you would adopt an ordinance to address other problems under it. Are we limited on penalties to those set out in the state such or can we? The maximum is $800 per day. Right. Per day. Per animal? Per animal or per? Well, I mean, you could try. You know, it's going to be the first time that the judge has ever seen an $800 fine for a cow running. Well, and we're troubled with ordinances and we have this with other ordinances. They're only as good as the paper they're written on. Trying to enforce an ordinance for a town is really hard to do because everybody's a volunteer. It's really, really hard to do an ordinance. We talked about an ordinance. Do you have an ordinance? No, and we've talked about the same thing. We were talking, we were looking at a livestock, like a animal control ordinance like for pets. We were looking to go that route, but we were sort of steered. We've been steered away from that. And we're looking more at the public nuisance avenue as well as an ordinance, but same issue. We haven't had a lot of luck enforcing the ordinances that we have. Yeah, the same here. It's always a problem enforcing the ordinances. Yep. Hi, can you join us? Cyrus Barker from the Do I Know House. Oh, OK. You're here for Scott. Yeah, I'm interested. Sometimes you're going to get into the traffic discussion. Right, we're talking about horses right now. That's much more fun. Well, not really. Denise, can I jump in for a short thing? I had, excuse me, met with a Marshfield select board, most in good place, a couple of years ago, a year and a half ago, I think it was. And I came up with the emails that had gone back and forth between Chris and me. I've got them here for what they're worth. But I had asked legislative councils to do some research on the issue. I have the email that sets all that out. And I think part of what happened is that I wasn't clear what Marshfield wanted. And the other issue is that because of the drafting deadline, I got to a place where I couldn't do anything anyway. That's going to happen again at some point this year. So it's good that we're having the discussion. Well, that's why I wanted to have it now. So you have great time. And our deadlines are getting pushed out. So we're actually going to have even less time this year than we used to have. I think it's going to be some time. And I would imagine how us and Marshfield are not the only towns that have this issue. Yeah, probably you're right. But one of the things that I don't know if you remember this, Chris, but when Michael Grady, a legislative council, did some research, I'm happy to share it with you. It's not any, it's similar to what you've seen here. He did also look at what some other states are doing. But one of the things he threw out on one of those emails was that the Farm Bureau, he thought was going to be pursuing legislation which would immunize owners of livestock for the damage that they caused. And I don't, I say that, no, I don't believe they introduced it, and it's Mike's best guess. But it came out of a situation in Rotland. The Killington thing. Killington, yeah. That's not what, so I only mentioned that. Just to say that these things are not necessarily a slam dunk, and you've got interests on the other side that you need to think about. It usually takes several years to get something. It does, and that's what the, because these trenches are so old, it would be a fairly significant change. And people are used to what's in place for better or for worse. And I agree that they're probably other towns with problems. But it will be really important for both towns to be clear about what it is you want. I'm happy to do it, but I don't know enough about the law in this area to know what the solution is. So I don't know. I mean, it would be. I think of Vermont State Police showing up at these folks' houses, as you said they did. I don't know if they ever showed up in our presence. They're really, they're on the flat. There's none of those things on the state. And they've got bigger things to tackle than there was in the world. Until something happens. Until something happens. Right, yeah. Well, like this situation I killed. Right, right. Until when someone's dead, then it's, then it's significant. We don't want it to get to that point in any town. But we just don't have, as you know, towns run on a shoestring. We just don't have resources. We don't have a place to keep horses. And we're not going to ask Wilson or Elizabeth to impound them and keep them at their place. And then they could get harassed by this person. Probably never get paid. If you didn't, you would probably never get paid. Right. And it's expensive to take care of these large animals. Because it's weird that there's like a humane society for, I guess you call them, domesticated pets or whatever. Well, they cover all animals. They don't do this. They don't take them anywhere. Right. Well, they would do it if there was maybe neglect, if we had serious and significant neglect. But otherwise, they're not going to get involved. There were a couple towns. We had some ordinances. I think Westminster. We had some livestock ordinances. I don't know if they have ever tried to enforce them. But we had some draft ordinances sent to us from a couple other towns as well. But they were town ordinances. The only other thought I had, possibly, and I don't know if it makes any sense, would be to go the avenue of fences and containment. I don't know if they're legally, if there's any, if that would be a better avenue. You know, if you had livestock, you had to have a fence that was adequate to maintain. Contain them. Right. Because there are a lot of different elk, bison, rabbit. I mean, if you were going to contain rabbits, that's a whole different fence than a bison. Or elk. And then again, I mean, that's a really good idea. But then again, how do you make somebody build a fence? I mean, this, our situation, the property and adjoining property owner has a fence. You're right. And these horses ruined her fence. So there's another avenue for them to take, the reason for them to take it to the civil court, but they don't want to do that. They keep insisting that the town needs to do something and we keep saying there's very little we can do. And unfortunately, they're not here tonight. So we can't require a permit for a horse like we can for dog, right? That's authorized by statute. We could if there was an ordinance for it. We don't require permits for cats, but I think Williston and South Burling will do. It's a local ordinance that would require permits. So if you call their permit, what are they going to be walking without a permit? So part of the permit could be adequate fencing. Well, the trouble is, you're punishing all the people that do things the way they're supposed to do because one person doesn't. That's true. I agree with that. These horses were fenced at one time and she was away in a friend of hers built her fence for the horses and she tore it down. She didn't like where it was. So we put up the fence again and I got a call from a guy who didn't know the land where the fence was. They didn't put it on her land. They put it on somebody else's land. That fence was called. These animals aren't fenced. When she has fencing, it's single-wire fence and she feeds them dry hay when there's beautiful green stuff over there and they're in this little area in the size of this clerk's office or less, actually. And two horses, big horses. It's cruel. So they're looking for free food any way they can get. But the way that the Department of Agriculture looks at it, they're not neglected. No, because they have a shelter, they have a movement of water. It doesn't matter the quality of the wood. I've done a couple of animal abuse cases with egg and I was appalled at conditions on a chicken coop. There were 24 dead chickens still alive feeding on the dead chickens and I've walked in and said I've seen worse. Yeah, I was that in the conversation. Is there a possibility to do something with those statues of the animal neglect statutes to say that part of proper shelters are fenced? I think my sense is that there would be a lot of what about this kinds of issues raised if he did that. I thought that was an interesting idea. I was going to ask a question. It seems, it stands to me from what I've read and what I'm hearing that it's possible to give the town authority over the situation either through ordinance or through the statute and increasing the fines and so on. But my sense is that that's not going to solve the problem because you want someone else to enforce it. Am I right? We want fines that are adequate and enforcement mechanisms that are strong and the judge is in her discretion can't say well or the agates he can't come and testify against us. It has to be clear and really strong. And there has to be a way that if those fines that the judge agrees to or imposes if they're not paid then there has to be a way for the animals to be taken or a lien on their property or you know docking of their paycheck. I mean serious stuff. A lien on the property is not much of a deterrent unless they plan on selling. Right. But it's always hard to enforce. But if somebody's family is involved in the situation and they have to come up with money out of their pocket to pay the fines, that might. Or you could add it to their taxes. Yeah, you could somehow add it to their tax bill. I don't know something. How about private empowerment? We talk about contracting private plow in certain situations. What about that idea that there's authority to impound? Most people aren't going to do it and don't have the tools to do it. But somebody might. And maybe we can have a contract just like we do in essential for my community society. That's a thought. And there is a statute, right? You can have a pound keeper if you're coming up. But you've got to find again finding volunteers is hard. This one would obviously have to pay. But then you can't if that person's whose property because the horses and cattle are property if you take them how do you get them to pay? If they don't pay, then does that mean the town has to make the payments to the person who's kept the livestock for three months or whatever? And the town's insurance will cover if something happens to them on someone else's property. It would be the volunteers on homeowner's insurance. So somebody would have to have a significant upgrade to their homeowner's insurance. See, it's kind of like there's all these good ideas and all these things, but how do we make any progress? What do we do? And that's my question I guess and sorry to dump some of this on you, Janet, but what would you suggest that the towns I mean, I'm assuming if we might be able to get playing field on board. I mean, I think the public public was wanting to come tonight. She's not failure of middle sex. I mean, we know enough towns around us and select board members and representatives and senators that, you know, maybe what do we do? Do we send them write a letter and send it to all of these different folks? I mean, putting legislation in is relatively simple if you know what you want to say. I mean, what you wanted to say that I struggled with a couple of years ago and I am now I'm not sure and I can do it but it won't do you any good if I put a little legislation in that's not going to pass. Well, that's what I'm wondering if you could get other, you know, some senators and other representatives to you know how you have to say we introduce this global law. Would you co-send? Yeah, would you be able to find support from other representatives and senators to support this if we came up with something? Do you think? I certainly can try. The important thing isn't so much getting co-sponsors, it's getting the relevant committee on board. Which committee would it be? Well, it's probably if we're talking about ordinances, it would be government operations which I would imagine would be fairly friendly if we're talking about animal control. I think it would be the egg and I think they would be less likely to be friendly, that's just my guess. But it sounds like it could be both. Could be both. I mean, I think both the easiest solution and the hardest one is the ordinance route. You know, it's hard because it actually keeps the town on the hook, but I think realistically the state police are not going to but if we tell them to do it, that's not going to be a problem. So if we adopted an ordinance then there needs to be some kind of legislation introduced, maybe just ordinances in general to have a better way for towns to enforce and collect from ordinances because there's all kinds of ordinances we could have, but most of them, like I said aren't worth anything because you can't nobody will enforce them and there's no way to collect money from somebody who doesn't have it. So maybe it would be to somehow make the ordinances more have more weight and more teeth than what they currently do because we have ordinances for other stuff that you just hope people do what they're supposed to do. So maybe a better option is to make ordinances more forcible and forcible somehow. And when I talk to the judiciary the judiciary that's a big undertaking because you're talking about all kinds of ordinances if you're talking just about these that would be a little more straightforward. I can put something in but it won't be useful for you if it doesn't actually result in something getting passed. So the bigger it is the harder it is to get it through just because it affects more things. When I talked to VLCT Title 24 that talks about ordinances it's clear in that statute that we can have an ordinance to regulate dogs and cat or domestic pets and then there's the public nuisance but I think that's never been tested for livestock so if something could be added to that statute to say we have the authority and it certainly would be fairly straightforward but I think we want it to be what do you anybody else on the board will say and then you don't have to use the public nuisance part of that we can take a minute's jam Katie takes great minutes so you won't miss a beat so let me ask March do you want to try to get together with Plainfield and East Montpelier to further flush this out what do you think is going to be a good strategy for the board? I think because Plainfield Callis and Marshfield share the same representative and senators and one of our senators Andy has been on the Marshfield Select Board and he's experienced this problem so he knows what we deal with I invited him to come tonight but I didn't know that I think that's a good avenue I think we need to try to figure out the best if we're going to go try to pass on legislation I think we need to try to find the best avenue whether it's ordinances fences, livestock, nuisances whatever try to figure out the best avenue to pursue to make it something stick right so Katie for the minutes in my to-do list it sounds like we need to try to set up another time to meet hopefully we can get at least Andy and I'm sure Janet would come again Andy Perchlich Andy Perchlich who's our senator and he's from your town right? he was sounds like maybe we need to try to get another joint meeting together see if we can get people from Plainfield to come it would be great maybe grant monies to go to the Humane Society so they could purchase property where they could build a larger impound that would be right county by county basis county impound town of Cal is to build an impound barn and fenced an area that would be overkill because it's so infrequent we have had problems with dogs and the like and people having animals they can't care for but if we had like a county impound maybe it's run by a non-profit a private non-profit and there were grant monies made available to incent that for all our counties then maybe that would happen and that would help us so let me just ask the folks who just walked in are you here for the horse discussion or are you here for the back you may not have to build it multiple towns to contract with the same farmer or person who has the that's what I was going to suggest in the local area there's enough old farms with buildings and infrastructure available I think it would be easy to find somebody who we were right across from the health center that he has the worst well see that's the problem you're going to want to find somebody who may have the facilities but not necessarily have animals there all the time and there are plenty of people around that have cabin trailers, horse trailers who would be more than willing to I mean they're going to charge their time and would be more than willing to come you know pick animals up for us containment or capturing is the biggest issue I don't know that that's as big an issue for it's a huge issue here because she doesn't keep porters on her horses so I have leads in the car but I don't have a halter right they're not you just can't leap up on one of those porters I'm cowboy and then we go back again to how do you collect the money from somebody who probably doesn't have it well they don't get their animals back well that's the other part that would have to be clarified through legislation but that is I think that's laid out right the big problem is like the impoundment fee is ridiculous it's not going to cover it's not even going to cover the feed and you know a facility like you're saying somebody's say for these cattle that Marshfield has they're going to have to have some substantial fencing or corral or something at least until the animals get settled down and feel comfortable being in that location what you mentioned the same thing with a horse a horse if a horse gets could we also have something where if the owners of the property don't reclaim and pay their fees could they be sold that's already in statute that's already something that can be done but it's probably never been done has it so hard horses are like pianos and people try to give them away oh really it's like otherwise they 20 days otherwise they shall be sold by the pound keeper at public auction public auction you might have better luck selling cambered around the hook I think you're right maybe you just have to have a pound one and they get the message well I don't even know the idea my idea I'll just go a second about having a fixed facility that's owned by a non-profit someone could have a fancy for this they could make a little money and then they find out they're having to maintain this they're not going to make any money and for the off chance that someone's going to call them on a Sunday night every five years something that Humane Society could and maybe it's regional but then there's a place that you can call a hauler and haul the critters too and then it's kind of out of the town's hands maybe even does the Humane Society have the authority to I was thinking that the town had the authority no but I wonder if the Humane Society already does have the authority to take large animals and house them somewhere but it's the cost of the facility and maintaining it I think state funding don't they get their authority from your contract with us well that's for dogs and cats and things like that they're the same thing about livestock I don't believe in that contract well the statute talks about pound keepers that's where their authority comes from we can have a pound keeper right well let's see Wilson's not a our pound keeper he's our animal control officer as is Elizabeth so the Humane Society could easily be our pound keeper for livestock too if they chose to accept them right if you choose to accept this they're not going to but if you had a regional large animal pound keeper appointed by multiple municipalities you had someone who was let's call it large animal animal control officer for multiple municipalities who had the ability to corral the large animals transport them to the pound that we and then under the statutory authority that already exists you have to pay the cost of impoundment before your animal gets released you get a little bit more fine that goes along with this that's actually collectible and and each town could also pay a stipend like each year maintenance fee and then they would get that plus they could the pound keeper is sort of on retainer that would cover their cost of having some hay exactly right we're going to go to the central Vermont so it's almost quarter of eight and we need to wrap this up so what do we want to do going forward we want to try to set up another time to meet with we'll try to get Andy Perchland Janet is that how much how much time do we have as far as the legislative process goes do you what you say I would say that we have two months but knowing the way these things take time I would keep working at it right right do you think it makes sense to also have someone from the eye department we could try and we could try to get somebody trying to ag I was thinking maybe we could get somebody from CDH they must get Anson Tevis lives in Cabot so he's close by he's the number one number one and then right and plus we could see if we could maybe get somebody from Southern Vermont Humane Society to come to a meeting as well because they might have ideas or thoughts because I'm sure they probably get calls I don't think they'll call Erica Erica okay so we'll call Erica pilot program pilot program for regional large animal talented right set up a model and then I think maybe talking with either UVM or Vermont Tech might not be a bad idea because they both have existing facilities they deal with large animals they probably aren't know a lot well let's start out with this other group see about putting a meeting together when does Marshfield select where to meet first and third Tuesdays first and third Tuesdays okay we're second and fourth Mondays I don't know what point it is but I wonder if Jim drafted something if that might move it more quickly so that people are responding to a draft document rather than conversing about it can you do that yeah this is sort of an outline of a regional I think it's a regional large animal impoundment program yeah fee structure you think you have authority to do that now well you can do an interlocal agreement so in anything a municipality can do multiple municipalities can agree to do jointly see what any legislation to do it it would be just a question of right and then the legislation might support the fines myself the ordinance something about fencing I'm not sure what to do with it and raising the impoundment fee rate in the animal cruelty statutes we're supposed to provide all these things for the animals safety well fences provide safety great from getting hit by a car yeah yeah if we did an interminiscible agreement would it be likely then that the pound keeper would be covered by municipal insurance the VLCT we could pay the pound keeper enough so that they could have their own insurance so folks think this was helpful let's keep it on the radar as far as Myersfield goes if you guys want to meet we can try to find a mutual day or time is Bobby the best one for me to communicate with if you communicate with Bobby it goes to all the select board members I looked on your website I didn't see any email addresses for you folks I'm thank you for supporting email on usually everything goes to the town clerk's office and then that's the best way thank you thanks for coming your story well we feel for you yes we feel for you too by the way I spoke with the sheriff's department today and I told him what we're dealing with in both towns do Sam? no I actually spoke with Brett Meyer they're coming to one of our meetings that's what he mentioned so he's expecting to hear about it and he was going to look a little closer into what if the sheriff's department could we could invite Brett or Sam to come to this meeting if they're available grain or not okay good because I know I've got him lined up so I figured probably when he meets with us this issue we'll come up well good luck we're hoping our problems done for the summer I don't think ours is thank you thank you thank you thank you I wonder I was going to I must have had Marshall in the road it walked as the fence so little it was that it was really little I stopped at the wrong corner thank you thank you thank you alrighty so we all learned a lot about livestock cows cows did you get all the are you good with all the information you need alright next up traffic calming in east callus I bought hay from the okay traffic calming in east callus and that's been going on for a while does everybody do introductions again does everybody know everybody or not alright I'll start Denise Wheeler select board Cliff Himmons callus select board Rose Kalschuk select board keeping her as the reporting secretary Karen Lee Fanon select board Judy Fitch Robert I'm the tackler John Prybank callus select board Mary Rives at east callus Keeper of Betty Tell Cyrus Parker with the Doyle House in east callus bridge Linda Evans from east callus Brian Evans from east callus Scott Massage east callus Evan Hinchel I'm with Oracle okay so Scott and I have gone back and forth a bit about traffic calming in east callus we rose to a really great minute search of the past talk about traffic calming in east callus there was a group of folks a few years ago that got together to try to do some work with in east callus and one of the things we looked at was traffic calming crosswalks, cones some kind of speed bumps thing but that doesn't work when you do plows narrowing effect narrowing effect I always wanted to see those signs installed that are now solar and Woodbury, Scott can talk about this Woodbury has them they have them in Montpelier I think they're very effective we used to have one that was on a cart but it's kind of seen better days so go ahead Scott John reminded us all today this has been going on for a long long long time nobody disagrees it's just a question of really making it happen and I have to thank Cyrus who's in many ways responsible for the health and safety at the Dwinell homestead a lot of kids not from around here are there in the summers when their families are there in residence and it is scary for those parents to see a huge amount of traffic I think the enemies know that they have to take the road to get on the bus in the morning and sometimes that's at 7 in the morning and get the bus over at the school I mean over at the store and it's pretty sketchy first thing in the morning well I know we've had a traffic study done thinking about what we could do for traffic calming and the signs so I think we just have to get refocused back on how we would get the sign in Woodbury were there about 12,000 a piece you said for a set one on each it's funny that this just came up because just last week I saw those and I was like how do we get those and then I got a phone call today saying this was happening it works for me I see those and go they're very helpful we have so many big trucks that come along that road it's so scary you're right it's not just the volume especially the granite trucks as they come off from the north the speed from our vantage point we look west right into the Moscow Woods Road watching people the narrow window they have to turn left to go north some of those rigs as they come down I follow the men to town sometimes they never touch their rigs this has been on my to-do list for several years I guess I didn't do a very good job so true story I don't know how many remember I used to live in Woodbury there was a granite truck that was sailing down from Sherbrooke I think with a granite block and something happened it became unfastened the truck hit a bump the block went sailing in the air and actually the guy was in a compact behind it and the block started coming to him and I don't know how this guy did he had the presence of mind to step on the gas I would hit the brakes right he stepped on the gas the block went over his car and it put a hole well it bounced off the road and it put a hole in the front yard of a camp right on Woodbury Lake 7-8 feet into the soil and sat like this it was so heavy it could not be moved by a piece of hydraulic equipment so they had it jack hammered apart into pieces that were small enough this is the kind of stuff that's coming down that highway at 60 miles an hour you know those trucks are not stopped do you see those red ones or something let's go into the landfill and come in and that road is pretty hammered well and if you come up that from 14 headed towards the store you know people step on the gas to get up that I think they're going to step on the gas to get up that hill even though it says 35 they tend to be coming slower going north because of that blind corner right it's coming south but then they get on it that's right Cyrus has a good story about something happening last summer we just had to be picking our way to the store and watched another couple park across from the store and it just happened in one of those quiet times there wasn't any traffic so they kind of strolled across towards the store just as a like a big Pepsi truck just doing what you had said was actually accelerating trying to jack him up through the village and they had no place to go I mean they were literally right in the middle of the room so he just swerved out of the way just as somebody also was trying to negotiate their way out of the gas did he even stop? did he even stop? no it was a reaction thing I think the gentleman pulled his wife back to the center line just about for him to go through wow that's scary those are the things that you see I mean there's a lot at night in particular I'm sure you hear it too a lot of close calls down there in the intersection of Moscow you must hear the traffic a lot I mean you're right up through the post office it's not only a 14 I mean it's across traffic too right exactly in fact I wasn't sure if this was just heard about it at about 5 30 I didn't pay attention for a short term but anyway I didn't know this was going to be 14 or if it was going to be Moscow Woods Road and Marshfield Road because that I do a lot of walking and mostly walking but running on Moscow Woods Road and it's pretty I mean the cars come through there the village pretty quickly I just I don't know whether signage is a possibility to if pedestrians or something I wonder if we had the speed limit signs the flashing ones and people slow down because they see those I wonder if that would help with the situation you're talking about get your attention I think a lot of people come on the back road over by the dump and they're very inviting for somebody who wants to go fast even though they don't know what was coming I was going to say really well I mean kids in VWs end up in the ditch there I would also say it's not just the granite trucks it is all manner of vehicles that are flying through there and I've talked to neighbors who want to move because there are pictures falling off from their walls because it shakes the entire house it shakes we're on the backside of the mill pond and you can feel the really big trucks so where are you I always tell where I am in Berlin do you know where our early Leonard lived where the house is right next to hers so right on mill street when they leave town headed towards Woodbury if you've got somebody that's going to be whether it's motorcycle or what if you know when they hit straight away over by the ball field and that road's not in the best spot that was nice you think that would deter people a little bit it is it's a poor man's feet bump right there but that is, we've done just this last two years logging on both ends of the village and we've had real difficulty getting our trucks out you know where the waterworks are we had to build a woods road there and that straight away is amazing it's Talladega it's incredible how fast as they come in both directions but usually they're making their way out of the village now they want to make time so even though the road is in such bad shape well it doesn't matter I've gotten complaints well when's the town going to fix this road it's like well it's not what you have on XV trans it'll be worse but it's better the idea is to get some calming in place and also the bridge we're told by AOT folks know that the bridge finally the bridge as there's maybe three of them it's spring of 21 so to have anything in motion or have as much in motion as possible might be a good good idea because the paving would come after that Scott remind me did Woodbury get a grant for their signs I talked to the guy who managed that and he tried a number of places for grants he said the most likely is AOT itself they have grants for safety equipment and he spent a considerable time pursuing that grant he found out after everything after he spent a lot of time on it all that money goes to the sheriff all the money from the governor's commission on highway safety that they allocate for safety equipment goes to the sheriff find a sign or who knows what they do with it they have some of those portable some of those carts some of the money probably went for that but basically the Skip said that he had spent a lot of energy looking for grants and there may be some out there but given the total cost it's the kind of thing that I think the town would support the town meeting budget for it so it was about did you say it was about $12,000 for both signs $11,200 $11,200 each $11,200 each $12,000 each for each wow for each set they brought two sets they come as a set well no, you could buy one at a time or you could buy three but it makes sense to have one at the entry and then they have the two at Woodbury Lake oh right, I forgot about Woodbury Lake I don't understand those now so we would really like at least start out with one set which would cost about $12,000 under our procurement policy it might make sense to try to get bids ahead of time I don't know how this would work I'm just wondering if we could put a warned item on the town meeting warning or put a line item in the highway budget to buy a set of signs it seems like we could make a decision on you know the board can make a decision on doing something like that it wouldn't be this summer obviously unless we have $12,000 to spare in the highway budget I think this is the kind of thing that you could go on the warning and discuss the warning meeting imagine if the board supported it probably would have a pretty good chance of going through the first time so can we make a note for next town meeting to not forget to talk about putting a warned item on the town meeting warning for a set of digital solar digital signs or whatever they're officially called can you start your budget list this is item number two if I might if you're going to get bids be sure you get an installed bid just installing those in the state right away you got some real thinking about it plus you want it snowplow proof well that raises up a really good point does b-chance install them do you know Scott it's actually two separate amounts that we'd have to get contractors for the first would be to supply the hardware the second would be for the installation you got to get a permit probably the series of permits that have to go through AOT and AOT sometimes has stipulations on the permit one often is that they give them out their speed limit sign on our post so we'd have to get a slightly taller post you know would if they weren't there a couple of other things like that yeah so but anyway there's the manufacturer of the equipment and then the install is a Woodbury used a company in Essex and we're very happy with them and did they do all the permitting this company no it's up to would be up to us to do get all the permits and they actually they did Woodbury paid them extra to do the dig safe and you know traffic control when they're doing the install okay well that's all good information so we'll have that in our units and so I know looking back what we need to do so another important consideration is if we're talking about traffic coming obviously the the racetrack there should be part of that effort but at least visually that thing goes outside of the village yet it's still a concern to speed on that so I'd like to learn more about maybe we should figure out more about how some municipalities get to have their city or village limits extended for miles I brought up Montpelier that's always been a little bit on Montpelier's fault they're doing a good job there's been a thorn in my side that you know and this dates back to when I was on the Woodbury planning commission that we I think we had AOT and and they were so back it's a different AOT now this is 20 some on 25 years ago but they were very much like this and we need our job is to see that vehicles move through as fast as possible and traffic calming the guy didn't even know what it was and they were very they were very reluctant to even consider such ideas and I brought up the issue about how you set village limits and how far can we go on a state what would otherwise be a state highway so Montpelier route to that busy route east west goes from whatever Washington state to Maine that goes right through a little downtown Montpelier and it's 25 miles an hour by the cemetery and I think Montpelier maintains that stretch of road but we might want to look into that too I'm trying to understand what you're saying so if it's a designated village then you could slow the speed to 25 okay that's a really good and then we have more say over traffic calming because AOT is going to get in our way on that they're not they're not looking for traffic calming on what's their property or their their section of road we have more authority than a village or city so I don't know how that works and that might be another thing we could have Janet or representative explore improving our authority to the extent that we're limited because we're not a city but a town another really important thing would be to get a crosswalk at the store in the bowl field and morning lights with those apparently Woodbury's crosswalk has been there forever his grandfather the skip researched all this for Woodbury discovered it way back in the records of AOT somewhere but that's another thing maybe before the paving happens if we could get if we could establish speed limits crosswalk anything you could do to narrow narrow the road narrow the road and create a beautiful entrance entryway it's beautiful what they did over in Danville and you folks have had a pleasure they actually fought AOT was going to widen and ran that thing through and they fought and it was great a wonderful story I just went through there on Saturday and they got how the the roadway actually isn't any narrower but they got this curbing effect and in guardrails going in like this and then there's you're entering a village 25 or 30, 30 maybe and it slows you down naturally but in terms of the actual travel lane it's the same with but you think it slows down yes so those are the kinds of tricks you want that was funded they pursued some special federal grant they had to go through some steps thinking that might be great for East Calis we asked Dan at one time about speed limits and I can't remember I just dug out the emails the other day about what you have to do to be able to lower speed limits like when we were asking about it for the county road I'll have to look at it again this is more state highway but that's all part of the the look we need to do I love the idea of trying to extend the corners of the village because we also have kids walking on that road to get to the ball pit that is where they are starting they're going there fast to see it coming in and going out so that's an awesome idea and you need a transition zone it should be gone from 50 at the northern end basically where the benders were and that's where you should see speed zone ahead then 40, then 35 it should be 25 once you hit the village I agree, that's what I've been saying and then it'll go 35 or 40 if they're speeding not 85 remember there are speed limits 50 by the town garage and then when you get to jans it goes down to 40 oh it does, there is a transition zone by the ball field but like I said it would be nice if you could do like Danville did right there at the ball field but that would be a really long stretch Danville's is a pretty long stretch it looks beautiful way up, it's great well that's millions and millions of dollars right I would love it if we could get there someday but in the meantime there's going to be that repaving anything we can do to establish the crosswalk to establish anything to make it narrower I wonder if we can get them to install those parts part of repaving but that wouldn't be that would be 2021, we don't want to wait that long well the bridges are 2021 the paving, I didn't see it on the site I had a brief conversation with David Ellemurg today he's on vacation just in touch with his point he said one interesting thing that the TAC has been John probably heard this AOT would love it if the village would take over 14 village limits I'm not quite sure what this means well there's a quick pro quo we could probably work on that you mean take it as a town road in the village that's what Montpelier said that's what you mentioned it could be our class 2 highway inside the village there'd be expenses I don't know if the plow is there who pays it that's what happened to Montpelier from Worcester that's why it's 25 miles per hour as you get by the community college of Vermont from there and you creep 25 when you're coming down the county road into Montpelier no no no but it's the same way when you get to and they had the ball field there the rec field and it becomes pedestrian and it took it was hard work interesting maybe what do they want what would it take we'll do that we want to extend the village limits we want to set our loose speed limits we'd love to put in a couple across traffic we want them to score grants do some work on this as you've been seeing there's AOT guys that are meeting and this was one of the things that this was one meeting's worth of presentation I wonder would they make sense to contact David he's been on TAC for a while now and see if he could get an agenda item added to a future TAC agenda to talk about Route 14 in East Calis AOT would be there and then a couple of us could go to the meeting I'm calling it the new AOT the current crop of AOT engineers and planners they're very different than they were I had that 25 year ago conversation if you go Route 15 it basically brings you to just about a stop that was the most dangerous intersection in your month there were so many fables there and they wanted to put a traffic light the problem was we were running right through the stop sign on AOT not realizing that it had gotten to Route 15 so with this roundabout it made it such a safe intersection it's amazing and they did it they've done another 302 in orange and it's made these dangerous intersections much safer so maybe they'll work with us so I guess there are four things that I would ask or that all of us together would ask to make happen I think it was 2016 so maybe a request request CBRPC to do another with all the same parameters as the 216 I think we could see some interesting changes there traffic study so it's an updated traffic study yeah try to get hold of the cart the sheriff's cart it goes on a two week rotation around Washington County but get actually a couple of them I will contact the sheriff that would be great and then sort of more long term thinking about after paving so getting some connection we find out about David's idea about opening the road but even if that wouldn't work out fill them up the permits for the flashing signs are easy but permits for the crosswalk is going to be a bear and as we all know changing the speed limit it really should be 25 and anything we can do about narrowing before the repaving so some ways on with the new AOT and I think they could be fun to work with I really do just go on so I'm using the speed limit permit for crosswalk narrow the road visually I'm just making myself a note because Danville is a really good example scene bridge that's what we get them to do too on the scene bridge and north front there it was the same stuff but how do you get the visual right the brown and getting the cost of the flashing sign in March oh right tell me in the morning okay I really have to thank Cyrus for bringing this up over and over in the last year just worry about their kids good I'm glad and our neighbors in the village are certainly more and more kids in East Calis it's wonderful when they asked to go to the ball field you're like 11-year-old and almost a 14-year-old and when you're hesitant to let a 14-year-old ride on 14 to get to the ball field you know when we were kids it didn't seem like a big deal but maybe we were more traffic probably way more traffic way more traffic well the other thing is you see people those shoulders are very unforgiving coming into Calis you see people checking their phones as they roll into town you don't want your kid walking along there one last thing the Danville I think there might be some data on how that's squared economic activity and of course Calis maybe not just maybe revitalizing if the store's going to survive we could have a farmers market on the ball field could just have a lot of impact we could have a farmers market right across from the store and that well the rec center owns that property oh I guess there's probably not much for parking but in the post office parking a lot on some days there's a lot of things that's where the kids play now because it's the safest place without leaving the town there's a lot of stuff we can do on these roads the ball field would be good from the village some things it's unfortunate but it's unfortunate it's where it is but listen Clark was just saying when they raised their kids 23 years ago something like it is okay well this has been good thank you thanks so much for coming and if you check the website in a couple of days the minutes will be posted so you can talk about it I don't know anything I can do I would be glad to the board has to be in touch with AOT right and the board has to decide how to handle the kids for the kids so maybe we can talk with Skip what was his last name? Lindsey and he actually offered to send a lot of material which I got just before this meeting so I didn't forward it on to you but I will take a look at it I'll take a look at it and forward it to the board it's pretty much a complete package of what he did there for the speed zones well it sounds like John knows him so that's helpful he was a hard dedicated board member he just sort of took it on himself I'm going to make this happen alright thank you thank you everybody see ya thank you oh no nobody ever wants to stay I'm really going to be here see you I'll be in a minute thank you so can you send me off to the office I'll be there I'll probably be there good day hi hi we'll be with you in just a minute we're down to the now on the line okay I'll be there I'll be there I'll be there I'll be there are you you're not leaving us there welcome welcome I'm working again tomorrow I'm going to vent your anger I'm going to vent your anger alright so John we'll step out for a moment but do you want to do IT real quick do you want to do IT real quick what is it? basically not with any real updates since we last met last week the office was deep in the audit and so it didn't seem like a good time to schedule a meeting but Judy we have a meeting staff meeting coming up this Thursday and so what happened at the last slack board meeting is they asked me to meet actually Denise and I to meet with the office staff and go over the presentation that I made to the slack board because what we really need from the office staff is a good understanding of what our needs are because what we want to do now is go back to these vendors who we think might potentially be good fit and say okay this is what you offered but this is what we need and get those responses closer to being in line with our needs so that we can really get to an apples and apples comparison and it's not just about what is the least expensive option is what is the best investment for the town to make in IT services so we get the largest return from that investment so that's kind of what we're planning to do don't you have somebody coming in Thursday well 9 30 was the time that Barbara requested we meet if there was no town hall meeting I don't know whether it's a town hall meeting I think there is a town hall meeting and we'll just meet after that after that I thought somebody was coming in but maybe that's what it was about was this meeting the only thing I saw was that we've got a different from guy because we had a communication maybe that's I thought that that's what it was I mean earlier oh yeah we'll just let us know because we want to get this done with you guys I would imagine the conversation taking 45 minutes to an hour and that's and you sent out emails to the potential vendors saying that we're delayed, blah blah blah nobody had a problem they're not necessarily reading the emails because they had a couple of them come back to me okay so we're on for the date I picked I just ask you to tell me if you would be available we haven't scheduled any meetings yet right so okay so they need to double check their email right and I will be sending out another email because the other thing related to this that I need to share with the board is we had talked about potentially having meetings the week of August 12th and I will not be available in person to attend such meetings the other thing I would add is an IT change is going to be very disruptive when you can't have it during the tax collection and that is basically September through December so in some ways this is almost delaying the whole time a year from when it started if that's what it takes to get the right fit and to really analyze it that's what it takes one of the requirements of the RFP is that all of these offers had to have a validity period of 180 days and if we go into negotiations with any vendor even if we stay with the same vendor there would be at least a 60 day threshold before any changes could happen or even be implemented I don't know how to look at a calendar to count that out so realistically I think it puts us pretty late in the year okay thanks Cliff alright so I guess maybe you need to do introductions again do you know all of us because not everyone okay so we'll do introductions again at least we are select board Cliff Himmons call us select board Rose Pellchuk select board Katie Lane Carter's on the recording secretary John Graves Sharon Wynne Fanon select board and if you could introduce yourselves I'm Peg Tassie I'm Ken Tassie my brother I can see your resemblance there and this is Orca I told you that they were video recording our meetings so you had I don't want to have you go into you know all of the details and you did send us a letter and I think it's in the is it in the Google folder? it is so if you want to give us just a like I said so you don't have to go into all the personal stuff we just want to kind of reiterate what you said in the letter yeah sure so that's what I was thinking do you want to come and sit at the table I feel a little nervous to be honest so our stepdad is David Rogers he was married to my mom or mom for 33 years and our mom passed away in 2016 in February of 2016 and he was developing dementia he was starting in maybe 2014 it was kind of coming on and it's gotten very advanced and I came down to look up some things here and found out that his house the house that all our kids and my daughter took her first steps in that house was up for a tax sale and well it's not up for tax sale yet possibly coming up for tax sale sorry thanks I guess we were surprised to hear about that but what's happening is that he's he has people that are supposed to be caring for him sorry this is just hard stuff to say and my brother asked for a welfare check because we haven't we've been denied contact with him since October there's four siblings and the oldest of four of us and when the police officer came back they told him that he was terminally ill and he was in a facility they wouldn't let him in the house the officer had a funny feeling about it and went back again and we then found out that he was taken out of state and in the interim because of some of the stuff that's going on which we won't get into too much the Jamie Renner who's the assistant attorney general opened an investigation into elder exploitation and while I was here I saw that the person who's supposed to be caring for him while he was supposedly in a facility terminally ill which we think she needs from Alzheimer's was put onto this property her name was put onto the property and a couple of other properties so there's some fishy stuff going on and if it is going up for tax sale and we don't understand really that process although I got to talk a lot with Sandra and she was well but we don't know like does that mean it gets put up for sale in five years or is that kind of soon and what we're asking for is some time for this investigation to figure out what's really going on because we hope to be able to keep the home and the family well to answer your question the board tonight will be looking at a list of potential properties that would go up for tax sale and the select board has the ability to say yes or no and I don't know what everybody else will think or vote we have to vote to send properties to the tax sale and to the attorney that does those so we base it on like for instance there's an ongoing investigation different things like that so that will play into how you haven't even had a chance probably to even figure this out we're still waiting we don't even know if he's okay that must be really hard I feel for you so we have a really good select board so I think everybody will be empathetic yeah wonder do you have any idea the timing of this investigation have they given you any information I contacted I requested a welfare check actually before I contacted Jamie Renner and that was on June 11th and Peggy just described that welfare check it was about a week after that that I contacted Jamie Renner we you know, corresponded by email and by phone a few times and he felt that there was enough material that was questionable that would warrant an investigation of some sort and he can do that even though your dad's not and your stepdad's not in your heart well he was I'll just give sort of a quick timeline I had called a we'll call him pop in Florida the end of April and I was told by an individual who was sort of intercepting phone calls that they would be coming to Vermont in a few weeks so I inquired Dan probably mid mid-May and learned that he was in that's when I couldn't reach him and asked for a welfare check because we were just being blocked from communicating for a long time so but we were told that he was in a facility being taken care of and as Peg described, terminal ill and then weeks went by and when Peggy came here to check on for a merit certificate or for property information that documents were signed by pop you know with his signature under the under the sort of or in the presence of his attorney on May 15th and June 3rd which was the time that he was here supposedly in a facility over to someone else's name or jointly together with another person so so to answer your question it would be somewhere in the middle at the end of it's really Jim we don't know how long it's gonna take second week of June until now but what Jamie said was that now that he is not in the state they can make inquiries but there's not really much authority that they have so he asked me to contact people in Virginia and I've done that and you're sure he's not in the state I mean that's the representation but actually I ordered a welfare check in Virginia and after about a week they did find him and said that they spoke with him and I was stone wall to some degree sort of there's a little bit of an attitude as if maybe the sheriff might you know that's just kind of my my interpretation maybe but and didn't really get much cooperation other than yes they found him and they saw him physically spoke with him in person so he's you know seems to be in decent health so as his children you don't have a right to visit we're his stepchildren so he did not adopt you all no he I was going to tell you an incredible story of how they met and they eloped but he was my landlord and my mom came up here in the 80s and they fell in love and it's a really historical story which someday if I see you all gathering I'll tell you because it's a great family story they have 10 grandchildren you know between we four siblings we grew up with them as the grandparents even though our physical dad is down in Florida our kids really never got to see him much biological our physical dads we don't need to just to answer your question we're stepchildren but he was our stepdad for 33 years it's not we were with him longer than I was living with my biological dad and if any of you know him I mean he's he's in great college so and I take it from what I'm just reading what you're saying that he does not have other children he does he has one daughter and he has two stepchildren who are local but for biological children he has one and are you in contact with that person? so can I tell the story? do it real quick I don't want you to go into personal stuff if you don't have to we have been in touch with her great we're gonna decide based on the treasurer's recommendations what to send to tax sale tonight I have Santa's number if we need to get her on the phone I think we can either do that now or we can do it at the end when we do all of it what's your pleasure so these folks can maybe rest at ease a little bit so I mean we're not going to be in an executive session when we're looking and considering the other properties I would say we should try and resolve this while you're here you know where you stand and I completely agree with you and support you in this and yeah I mean if we do go into executive session to talk about any of this which I don't think we really can we should we've talked about it in an open meeting before I would just like to let these folks know while they're here so I guess I would make a motion I want to make sure that I agree I mean I agree but the taxes have to be paid right so are you guys are you going to pay them? is there a plan that's kind of what I'm wondering now that you've done it I don't think they have a lot of ground but we're just going on that we haven't got a plan yet and we're not in a position to we just don't care we just don't want to see it sold to a stranger and we're not in a position financially to be outbidding somebody just remember though that if we don't do it now we have to have something I'm sure that the treasurer or the delinquent tax collector will want some kind of a plan going forward as to how this is going to get paid I understand there's an investigation going on but I still think you know we have a lot of it will be an end point all we know these people may just you may get a check in the mail tomorrow you don't know we don't know who the tax bill went to I don't have a clue is that I mean we wouldn't even know that yeah yeah yeah I mean this is what I'm hearing is you've got a lot going on and this is just another piece and it's really new and you need time to react and come up with a plan we just need just know that this is a temporary reprieve so I don't want you to completely forget about it I realize you have so much more important things to deal with emotionally and everything so we want to make sure that we're not adding more stress to what already sounds like a stressful situation if I can just ask one question as far as the the process, like the tax treatment process of a house that's gone to the link, or taxes that have gone to the link what is sort of the standard timeline from the time that Alina is issued to go into auction or does it it gets sent to our taxa our attorney does tax sales they send out a letter explaining the process and you can look it up online hang on the town website there's a delinquent tax policy callusvermont.gov all spelled out and that's town of callus website and you just click on delinquent tax collector or commission policies, ordinances or whatever and you'll find the delinquent tax policy so the process starts as soon as there are rears which is the last payment is due November 15th interest and penalties start to accrue once they get sent over to the tax attorney they send out a letter explaining to you the process you have an opportunity at that point to pay up until the time of the tax sale so you could even come in or even after the tax sale you have like I think it's a year after the tax sale to make it good to get the property back but it's very expensive once it goes to the tax attorney the town's done so you had to reimburse for attorneys fees and penalties and interest and all the part fees whatever we hear that there's people that just go big investors that just go buy up places like that so that's why well they can do that but they run the risk of it the person's simply paying off their debt and they lose title goes back which is what you want if you're the person that has this happen so even if it went off for tax sale and someone bought it anyone bought it you have the owner of record or errors in the signs has the ability to purchase it back within that year anybody that's worked out a payment plan with a delinquent tax collector if it's a reasonable payment plan to get things caught up prior to the next year's taxes being due we're very good about working with folks so that they can pay up with AO and still keep their property we don't want people to lose their property it's not what we want since this is on your agenda tonight I imagine you have the numbers for what the delinquency is Kurt on the property right now on your on that property how much land is that property so the town has the ability to sell just a portion of land to cover the outstanding obligation so it doesn't mean a house necessarily has to that's an option but again do you want to know what it is? there's one parcel that owes a dollar and 89 cents so we're probably just going to abate that at a future meeting the other two amounts and I don't I guess this is if you want the parcel numbers because you can always come in parcel number is 140020 and that one has a balance due of $32 and 41 cents and then the next one is parcel number 461240 and this is the one that owes $4190 and 10 cents okay and just so you know anyone could pay that bill I'm not saying you should this way if it was a priority that this process looked like it was going forward you folks could pay the bill for someone else your neighbor and then there's no bill there's no outstanding debt to the town but you don't, there's also not a lot of recourse right but then you don't but then even if you pay it if it ends up being somebody else's property here's the thing about something like that for all we know this is the way POP wants it we just don't have any you know what I mean so we don't think he's even aware of it but it seemed if he was aware and said we'll pay my tax we just haven't been able to when are the next year's taxes due well they usually do like mid-August and mid-November do you know if this is one year or two years' taxes probably one year it's probably one year you could call the office and speak with the delinquent tax but or while you're here make an appointment it says 2018 it is 2018 okay so the 2019 will be due in August so it'll double that's why we try to keep on a plan so that they get stuff paid off before the next you're just going to keep following her the behind right okay Peg I just emailed you a link to the Calisthenics tax policy so you'll see that when you check your email next thanks so I started to make a motion sorry that's okay that's okay it's no problem that we not send the David Rogers parcel number one four zero zero and four six one two four zero not send them to tax sale at this time second okay the further discussion and like I said there's one parcel that owes a dollar 89 cents but that's most likely we'll just debate that when we have a board of abatement meeting well you can come in and look those parcels up and see where they are I imagine the $4,000 one is probably the major one you're thinking of yeah I mean Judy told me about those three when I was here but like we're both trying to figure out where the heck that one is with the dollar or something okay so there's a motion in a second is there any further questions or discussion anybody all set are you ready to vote all those in favor please say aye any opposed to any non-motion carries so we're not going to tax them right now you're welcome you're welcome and you'll stay in touch with us and the tax collector yeah I would suggest that while Ken is here that you might want to set up a time to meet with the delinquent tax collector she would really appreciate it if you make an appointment which makes it easier he's just here until the morning oh really oh you're just here all night telephone work just call her she's fine with the phone closed on Fridays okay Thursday they have a meeting yeah I know I have a oh it's a right here she's busy she'll call you back she's very good yeah I had a great conversation with her thanks everybody you're welcome wish you well you're welcome you're welcome wish you well stay in touch see you all again thanks for coming I know you probably also had to stay late later than you normally do oh no it's not 10 30 it's just getting warmed up here it's not 10 30 we party after 10 bring the man with you thank you thank you okay so we have that one done does anybody I told Sandra said she'd be on call if we wanted her on my phone does anybody have a reason I can think of why we would want her on the phone now she's laid out this document that she always does with what to send to tax sale we try to probably go with her suggestions does everybody have this in color we know what we're talking about okay you got it all okay I don't think we need pages 2 through or right now so we just said that we weren't going to pay we were not going to turn over to tax sale numbers 20 20 20 and 21 so let's cross those off our list because if I don't I'll be confused because the ones that were 20, 21 and 22 20 and 21 right no 20, 21 and 22 19 20, 20, 20 19, 20, 21 so I'm going to cross those off my list so I don't get confused 20, 21 you leave the duty unless there's something on the agenda that you'd like to stick with do you have anything that you would like to update us on before you go I'll meet you guys on Thursday thank you for everything thank you so the ones that we're looking at on this list are parcels number is parcel number 5 which if you look at your list I see orange ones and then we have parcels 17, 18 22, 23 and 25 um that the delinquent tax collector the delinquent tax collector is recommending be sent to Gloria Rice for tax sale Sandra sent a new list I think it was it's in the folder right right here this is the most current list and we just said see we're 19 class 20 we've taken that one off 21 is the dollar 89 so we have 5 17, 18 22, 23 and 25 that we're looking at as parcels to send for tax sale and I actually would just say not even I don't think it matters we've talked about it over and over these have stayed in the orange right there's been no there's nothing left to talk about there's no they haven't made any arrangements or come up with a plan or come to the board I mean it was good that Pegg contacted us when she did so what I'm looking for if there's no other discussion is a motion to send the properties recommended by the limit tax selector those are the ones blocked out in orange before we make that motion I do have a question okay when we had talked about abatement Jim informed us that we couldn't just do a blanket abatement so that we had to individually that's what we're going to do that's what we're going to do on August 12th when you're not going to be here because we have a Board of Abatement meeting I'm wondering if the same rules apply here that we can't just do a blanket turn them over to Rice do we have to go individually? no abatement is a process and criteria that you consider ergo you can't look at a block and assess whether they meet criteria whereas this is just a process that is they all meet the criteria so the block of properties because the ones that we just said we weren't going to send are in orange so the block the number that corresponds to the sheet from the delinquent tax collector is 5 17, 18 22, 23 and 25 just so we're clear in the minutes so when the delinquent tax collector goes to see what we did it's very clear that we're not doing in 19 or 20 which is we're in orange as of today this is something here is this the last one? yeah I think that's the one she sent today um what is the question here 22 I know I noticed that they didn't say anything about that I think that's the worst and they're not together anymore you know nope not at all welcome to Calis so that I guess I'm making a motion do you need it do you need Katie to read it back do you want to read it back the chair made a motion for parcels number 5, 17, 18, 22, 23 and 25 which had been recommended by the delinquent tax collector to be turned over to the attorney for tax sale does that make sense to everybody? parcels as as noted on the delinquent tax collector spreadsheet right date the delinquent tax spreadsheet dated 722 19 722 yeah are we going to go with that? did you second that? did you second it yet? does anybody want to second it? is everybody clear? is everybody clear? do we second it? do we second it? I'll second it so we can discuss I just was thinking allow the parcel 17 it's such a small amount to send a tax to then I realize the total tax assessments are already a low amount to begin with it's not like that's a residual a larger amount so it must be a low value property so that changes my thinking but I was if it were a $6,000 assessment and all but $200 $400 savings paid I would actually not support that one going but this is yeah no you're right I wouldn't support it either is anybody else have any comments or questions? are you ready to vote? all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed? hearing none motion carries and we can get Sandra the the only good tax collector the minutes the only thing I would ask is is that the minutes reflect the point just we do we talk about this a lot so that somebody reading the minutes doesn't think we we started this section with reviewing for several weeks is that enough? several months you could actually look back in the minutes and say that we've been discussing this since whatever date the minutes are several times and maybe maybe in the minutes you could put high on melt put down the dates that we talked about this and reviewed spreadsheets so if you can just go back and look at those other minutes and put that in that would be really wonderful thank you this is this is part of the job we want people to know that we we didn't just show up in the 22nd and just to be clear for our viewing audience just because it we're sending it to the attorney to begin the process of the tax sale doesn't mean these things will go to tax sale steps these can sometimes send people to pay the bill figure out how to pay the bill well often times when it gets to this point where they get a letter from the attorney they figure out a way to pay up which is unfortunate because it just costs costs them more they just walk out of payment plan with the town and we're pretty I think we're not heartless speak to yourself okay you just like to be okay okay you guys it's not even nine o'clock yet drone yes sir no until we get trapped wait until we get trapped in the institutional members did you bring a snack we know that you wonder one other thing that I found that I didn't forward was it was Don Singleton who recommended their institute at the summer hours yeah was Don Singleton and it said because they work so long and then it said since they bring their equipment to a job site and they're working they could work those longer hours four days a week she did but I sent the other one Paul Hannon I don't know Bob was it was so it goes even back it goes back even before me I don't know if we're in the same time frame or not I think we are pretty much but anyways that would be interesting to have because they don't have a life in the winter time they're on call 24-7 as you said they can't even have a beer because you never know when you're going to get called out you just don't they don't have a life so that's just something to take into consideration but the ones that I did send you were really interesting especially that traffic thing you did that really fast I was really impressed I didn't do it fast it was on my computer see I thought you were so so much stuff on my computer don't ever make sure it's back now I know it's not but I was like when I retire I'm just going to give you my Dell here's my Dell put a hard drive to that back it up bring it up next time or the town should buy you a hard drive I can load stuff onto a hard drive while we're meeting can we get the town to can you tell this office staff what you need for a hard drive and they can order one portable hard drive yeah so they can order one with the credit card staples or something so you don't have to do that well it's yours as a windows Dell or yeah I'll just put it on mine and then we can put it on a thumb drive and then put it on our transfer to another okay are we all back to business now they didn't have any snacks for us while we were waiting to change the battery so alright so yes you do so the sheriff is either going to come on the 12th of the 26th you're not going to be here on the 12th were you planning to do it via Skype or do you just want to be out of it it might be easy yeah you're going to be in California not for fun don't come I don't think I can do anything on the 12th because I won't have access to you'll be out there on Mercy right when I have access to the internet I will be you're going to be on Epstein's island he's going to be held hostage on investigation investigation okay I thought you were going to be held hostage that is probably more accurate alright I'm still waiting to hear from Toby about contacting Tyler Brown about the Beaver Dam on Kent Hill Road I don't have anything on that office phone system the staff have been in touch with Consolidated and then some other company Rowdy I guess is now on avails they've got somebody else who's coming in on Thursday we have a backup coming in on Wednesday this week who's going to do the next layer of analysis and we'll have more to report after we meet with the office staff on Thursday and get another update from them but it really boils down to untangling with the junction up in the attic and dropping lines where we need them and then we'll have to decide we may take the DSL and dedicate it to a line so that we don't have to have a line that shares phone functionality with DSL functionality because that's one of the issues that's causing us a problem right now and once we get all this figured out it's likely to cost us a little more too right yeah but it'll be like a one time thing okay roof I had originally contacted Andy and he didn't get back in time for me to put him on the agenda tonight and he's going to either meet with us at one of our staff meetings or he's going to send me an email about the roof it seems that the roof situation is not that easy my concern is it's already July then it's going to be August we want to get this roof fixed this season so we don't have to go through the buildups and stuff like that over the next winter we started on this certainly we started on this in the spring talking about this roof Andy's having trouble getting quotes because people are concerned when they and as you said you were here yeah we spent probably an hour back there he's concerned about people are concerned about when they rip off the roof to put on the new one fixing the so you don't want you don't want a roofing company there's a little patch or something tree branch goes in but that's they don't know how to bid on it there's something that's much more complicated than a little patch and what I was suggesting to Andy and I told him that I'd bring it to the select board that we hire him he's now working on my house okay we hire him to pull back the roofing rip it back and he can seal up a weather shield or something in between he would have time after he's done with yours why I needed to run it past you he's still not there then we know what we got underneath and what needs to be done and it may be better to have a carpenter come in he also suggested that green line since they're over there and those guys have the expertise that maybe we could have them time and material we trust them that they've been good by us and open it up and fix it there's going to be a cost to it so what do we need to do we need to authorize Andy to take over on this project and I would suggest that a green line had an interest in it at their standard rate that we allow them for time and material and maybe we could for them not to exceed number until they come back and authorize it do you want to put this on the agenda for the next do you want to put this on the agenda for the next meeting because we can't do it tonight because it's not really officially on the agenda other than an update but I could put it on for the 12th maybe get Andy get Andy to come in he's probably going to be busy at my place well you can give him time off for dinner right but if we're going to be prepared to make sure we have information we need on August 12th to approve it and make sure that Andy knows what the job is cool and we're going to you know things are looking really good for this thing so that he can hit the ground running after we say yes so we'd have to talk to Andy and explore a little bit for him get some facts in front of us and if we're going to do a not to exceed we would need his idea of what that number should be we should keep running into the we can't exceed 5,000 otherwise we have to go to bid that's because that's the policy right now it's our policy but Andy's also he's an employee so Andy's work is fine if we brought green line in right it couldn't exceed 5,000 just like the one we were trying to get bids on the roof if they didn't exceed 5,000 so if Andy wanted to open that up sooner than the 12th that would be okay because he's an employee and we said we would pay him for additional work most of the stuff he does he just gets his $50 a month but I would like to see him I would like to see him get paid for this well plus I mean with all due respect you did write that we were going to talk about the roof I mean we're not really raising expenditure of money we're just well Andy's an employee so I think we're okay asking him to move forward are you going to be seeing him John? every day he's my new date John he's been out of town so can you let him know? I will tomorrow so just to be clear if he has time between now and the 12th he can open that roof up and explore yeah and he knows by the hour what his normal rate would be and in the meantime he should look to coordinate maybe a green line if they have the ability I mean I think he could ask them if they have that the ability to do that I know that Derek kind of heard right now things are not as good as they could have been but yeah and then he can give us some idea maybe what green line would charge I just want this to get done it's been going on and on so alright thank you for being a message okay I just want to remind you we have a BOA meeting on August 12th at six o'clock what? what's where we going? do we have anything besides those that of Arkansas are we doing anything besides those the rock band that you like BOA yes there was another one that Sandra or Judy sent out I'll find it in Florida I probably have it you should have it I'll go for it yeah so I forget the name it's actually on the list of one of these ones here in white okay I'll find it just to know that there's one out there okay Curtis Pond Greta Grant program hasn't been going as smoothly this year as it had last year so Sandra and I are going to meet with Colleen and the two employees the two greeters the two kids teenagers tomorrow morning at ten o'clock just to kind of have a little chat so the communication is opened up we need to come up with a better system for a collection of time sheets getting Colleen to sign off on the time sheets prior to them being paid so just little things like that it will be fine with Colleen Colleen Bloom she's the one who's doing the Greta Grant program again this year okay at some point we're going to need to talk about the conservation fund the way it was initially set up in 1989 compared to the way it's been operated Jim's been involved and he doesn't see this as a really huge issue we need to fix maybe how we get some clarification right and it may be that it can wait until town meeting next year which would be great it just needs to better clarification there's all kinds of documents that the state has about conservation funds and we're doing everything appropriately within those documents it's just the wording of the article initially passed by voters in 1989 that was one of the minute searches that I sent yes I saw that thank you so we may need for the purpose of even oversimplifying it but at least for housekeeping just for clarification we'll warn something at town meeting next year or if we need or if we need to hopefully we won't need a special town meeting as long as the funds aren't necessarily needed immediately and even if they are Jim really doesn't see a whole lot of problems but we need to fix it if we know something's wrong we need to fix it that's what we do it's our ammo that's our job fix it Charlie and there was something else I was going to update you on that I thought of before I left the house not with the head truck yes Sharon thought she was going to get out of here without her head in the truck no such luck we just keep going around and around circles on this truck John had a visit from Alford again today yes you have a lot of company to oh I'm exploring Joann's way the cat plays the mice will play so you want to give us do you want to update Joe I had sent well we all received the e-mail from Toby Toby saying that the truck we had agreed was the right one to purchase and met all of our needs no it wasn't the right one was it white? whatever color what would be the heavy duty alternator and the extra gas tank larger fuel tank and differential locking differential all that wiring turns out we got scooped so that truck is no longer available to us Alford came by to let me know that he'd been in touch with Clarks or they had reached out to him and he was going to check in today and see what truck with a specification of the truck Clarks has an inventory or we'll have an inventory soon if are I had asked I'm just one member so I don't have any authority but I'd ask that Toby not go forward and purchase the other truck because they moved me they said this truck doesn't work we shouldn't get this truck for all the following reasons we then explored that makes sense this is the right thing to do spend 5,000 more which now in hindsight I really wish that we whatever so now suddenly we're just going to buy this truck that was inadequate so I can't work like that not with a hundred thousand dollars well and especially when twice they brought a specific proposal we talked about it over more than one meeting and then approved it I'm not saying we need more than one meeting but here's the proposal we approved it the third time you don't just say we decided to buy the other one yeah thank you I think we need to step back take a breath take a breath and let's wait and see what I'm going to suggest so that we don't have to talk about this every meeting with Alford and Toby is that John be the point of contact on this truck issue and when you feel it's ready you come to the board with a proposal John does that work for you? I don't see this sense of urgency there is not a sense of urgency and there are a lot of what ifs what ifs that truck but you know that truck is still a pretty young truck yes I know it's a little truck doing a lot of heavy truck work but if all else fails we have the backup truck we're spending in theory that costs us money to have the things sit there and that's what it's there for and you know Alford said well it'd be kind of a waste to run such a big truck just for a little sand and salt and I said well it's only for a temporary small window of time and so the Clark work up if that turns out the Clark truck is closer to what we need to be getting I should say then that will it's looking like the time frame to get complete the fitting up is not till January so it's getting out of the way and we approved that once right is that the first one we approved? but we don't know if that's the same truck now who knows there's a lot of flux there I guess I would interpret that when we approved one and then they say now we change our minds about that one now we want this one we didn't talk about this explicitly but I would interpret that as rescinding the approval on the previous one they decided they didn't want that one as we learn more they told us why it wasn't good we obviously need to approve this process this is a little bit funny the list gets longer well and that's what I'm thinking let's take a step back let's get one person on board that really understands the lingo that they're talking about which is not me John understands it and let them work running things like John and then they can come to the full board with a proposal which is technically what we should have done look at the clock is there a place for Toby one of the things they made and get us off track but isn't there a role for Toby in the traffic calming in East Calis there could be roads and operations there could be we'd pay a lot for that so sure I think that's a really good idea to get him involved in working with the state and how we can make this happen I like that idea well it seems it's roads and it's community and it's a fit to me it's a fit for that job yep I think it's a perfect fit for that job and he has such a working relationship with Shawna he has a great working relationship with the V-Trans people so it's a good idea I like that will you just ask Toby to once we have the minutes we'll share with him that the board and we can reflect in the minutes tonight that we're going to ask Toby to help us work on traffic calming in East Calis will that really help that rather than us being the of course and approving it and the money and all that works for me I think it makes sense do you want to wait a few minutes next time I couldn't find the bloody minutes I actually read them all today I was very busy working out there on conservation fund and other stuff so I looked at them and I didn't get a good chance to review them so I would appreciate it if you wait so I looked back I couldn't find the minutes I was supposed to fix I don't know what date they were well it had to do with the truck so I went looking through minutes where we approved I actually made a language change where it said select board change here but I think you were going to I was going to clean it up all I did was making that authorization for the 18,000 trade in and the purchase clear but I can find them for you but you were going to put the meat about why this truck is better why the white truck was better it's a black truck right hand column is better that was what you what date is it actually it was a different meeting 6.20 6.20 this is round one this is the first one you were last week or the week before you mean it was prior to this one no after so it would have been 7.00 7.00 I didn't see anything well on the 15th I think is when I took the minutes it was that last week yeah that was last week and I remember that I spelled out like differential and all that it might have been the 8th because I made some changes on that one too there we go there it is there it is so it's July 8th John yeah that's easy but they're always in the current folder so after each meeting I move all the ones that haven't been approved up to your next meeting so everything you need to do is there in this folder thank you do you know how to do that yeah in the current folder thanks for holding my hand I appreciate it even I know how to edit them now oh my gosh I'm going to look to you as well that was another mistake you made that was a mistake I okay is it old business new business I want to know the memo to employees on the kind of policies the office staff because there's so many more people than what I thought they're going to mail it out tomorrow it's literally going in the mail I think it should no that's fine I don't think it should be email I think that's something that should arrive either with your paycheck with the paycheck could you say that one more time the memo to employees regarding the changes in town policies is going to be mailed out by the office staff they offered to do it for me pending changes town policies okay dope anybody want to make a motion to leave I'll make that motion to adjourn this board meeting is there a second July okay all those in favor please say aye bye