 is 7 o'clock. Happy summer to everybody. It's first day and then we'll pull on here in summer. We have the minutes from June 7th, 2022, tonight to approve. I was looking for a motion. I'll move to approve the minutes for June 7th, 2022, subject to modification. Is there a second? A second. We have a second. Page one, page three. And page four. There are no corrections to the minutes. All those in favor of approving the minutes of June 7th, 2022, we'll say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? So we've done the minutes. Moving on, then the next item in the agenda is public comment. If there's anyone who has any public comment, either here in the room or on Zoom, this is the time to do it. Yes, if you just identify yourself, come up to the microphone, if you would. But we need to be able to record it, so. Donna Rosa, and I hope you don't mind if I read, but I'll just ramble if I talk off the cuff. I know the Wilson community and specifically this board have been vocal on speaking out against racism, the port of flying the Black Lives Matter flag, working with the community justice center, conversations centered on Williston shared values, the desire for the town to become more equitable within its practices, wanting a more inclusive community and publicly embracing DEI. So, in light of this, I have to say I was surprised when I saw in the June 16th local paper the update on the hiring of the nine new fire staff. On March 1st, the town provided their overwhelming support and voted to approve a budget to include these additional staff hires. On April 26th, the town manager announced at a select board meeting that the nine people were hired. From a vote to the actual hiring of nine candidates eight weeks later is pretty phenomenal, especially in these present times. I'm not casting aspersions as to the quality of the hires, that's neither my place nor what I'm trying to do. But I'm wondering if at the beginning of this hiring process, a wider net should have been cast and sufficient time taken so as to get a wider breadth of potential candidates that possibly might have been more inclusive of the society which Williston claims it wants to represent. Out of the nine candidates, there were no women, nor does there appear to be persons of color. Although I don't want to jump to any conclusions and I realize the danger of making assumptions based on a picture. It just seems to me it just seems to me somewhat odd to me that we talk the talk but we don't seem to walk the walk. Did we squander an excellent opportunity to really make a difference and take action to support what so many are talking about and aspiring to? I don't know that the town will be hiring such a large group of new employees at one time for permanent positions again as we did here. I'm just curious that the individual select board members have any comments on this or if I was the only one who saw that picture in the paper and had these thoughts. Thank you for your comments and I think if you would contact Chief Collette and Eric Wells they would be able to tell you more information about the process. It was a nationwide process. We had I think 40 non-candidates. Actually a woman was offered a position of at least one woman was offered a position but she did not pass the physical exam and that's all I can tell you but I think if you touch base with Chief Collette you can tell you more about it. Okay, any other thoughts from anybody else? I mean I was just kind of somewhat surprised with all this talk that we've had and it was I guess somewhat disappointing I think when I saw that and thoughts Jeff you made comments you said that we're you know I think I saw the paper you talked about systemic racism in in Williston and I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that or possibly that and how would the connection with Kyron? I'm a little hesitant to give thoughts without first understanding you know what the hiring process was and the you know the pool of people who who did apply but my thought is if I know this town government the goal was to achieve diversity as much as possible why it couldn't be achieved I just can't answer that. And so I think you know honestly you know we're awake today unfortunately. I mean and so maybe as I said maybe the net had to be cast wider because if we're just looking in Williston or ethics we're all very similar. Everybody looks almost like you guys except for Greta. So you know I mean if we're truly I guess I don't know I mean eight weeks it was a short period of time I mean most employers I was just watching the news before I came here and they're all complaining that they can't find people so it just seems all fast that we hired a total nine people and maybe I don't know I'm just tossing things out you know I'm sure there was a desire to get them into the academy with so that they can start serving our community but you know maybe would it have been wiser to maybe hire five now and or later if maybe the pool wasn't kind of what we're aspiring to I don't know just some thought but I have to say I was somewhat surprised. So it sounds to me like you're when I say questioning I don't mean that in a negative way I mean it in a positive way you know whether our hiring process is robust enough so that we can achieve some of these goals that we're looking for in my thought on that is absolutely let's take a look at that. Well I appreciate that and I just I mean and I I don't think I'm alone maybe I'm the only one who come up here and speak to the fact but I just think that we're so focused on this as we rightly should be but it doesn't seem like we're when we have the opportunity of providing a good paying job with benefits we didn't come through. So I mean I can just make an observation in my work we've been hiring a lot because of some increased funding that's coming into the state and we are having basically a similar results. Much like Duff obviously you know without having an in-depth look into the hiring process you know don't want to speak too much to it but I do think this as it always is an excellent opportunity to examine these processes and obviously you know while this hiring has happened it is it is a good you know opportunity for us to say you know what what did we do well and what can we improve going forward and what what what you know needs to be improved you know why you know what is the candidate the pool of candidates you know lacking you know the diversity that we're striving for what I will say in terms of timeline the one thing I do know is that the application the period when they were accepting applications was open for a much longer time than those eight weeks so we when we had I think when we had discussed you know that that we were going to be hiring firefighters we opened the pool of applications and said to everybody who was applying you know obviously we're not sure if this is going to happen we we're opening the the process but but with your knowledge that you know this may not these these nine jobs may not happen and so big we wanted to knowing the market they wanted to have as much time as possible to allow applicants to to come in so the actual accepting of candidates and and all of that didn't happen obviously until you know we had approved um they're hiring but um you know that's all that's the most information I have about that right now well I think you know and certainly I would hope that the board would take some time you know within your own time kind of look at that and kind of reassess thank you thank you thank you anyone on zoom I'm not seeing anyone Eric do you see anybody in the chat right no but no excuse me no one online looking for public comment this evening it's having trouble hearing the error no one no one online for public comment okay we'll move on to the Wilson police 50th anniversary presentation with chief foley um Eric do you want to introduce the subject yep can you hear me okay Terry yeah okay thank you sorry about that I had a frog in my throat there I think so earlier this year the Wilson police department celebrated its 50th anniversary certainly a great honor for our department everyone who's served chief foley's here this evening he'd like to make a presentation to the town on behalf of the department and I've also included in the board's materials a resolution to consider to recognize the department's 50 50 years I'll turn things over to chief foley good chief well good evening and thank you for the opportunity to present uh in a walk presentation this evening but I wanted to talk a few minutes about the police department I may progress this year 2022 the Wilson police department celebrated the 50th anniversary as the police department special thanks go out to both sergeant Brian Claffey and Eric Shepherd for designing the badge badge that I'm presenting tonight to the board and the community as well as the ones we wear right now will be wearing for the continuation of this year they they spent numerous hours designing it and I finalized the selection with this badge it incorporates the history and the Vermont heritage how do we get here well back in 1970 71 the department was called the rural police patrol and there was discussion on original police department combining Essex Jericho underhill and wilson however that didn't occur on May 1st 1972 the wilson rural police became the wilson police department under the leadership of harwood londonville highlights of the 1972 town report included and I state for six months there was a police patrol three nights a week during november and december it was reduced to two nights a week on a staggered basis with free patrols incidents of vandalism breaking entry had been greatly curtailed as has the quote all night about town drivers I got a kick out of that each patrolman who was provided his own uniform had to provide his own uniform his fire arms and his equipment for his police cruises besides chief londonville there was a captain by the name of press president charlin and there was nine patrol officers they were the first officers of this agency was donald burbank curbett la claire lester londonville francis mahan jr donald wheel william murphy chiles reid leo roid and henry terrier and we made a copy from the original town report of the police police department back then and you can all take a look at it but uh i want to present a shadow box on behalf of the uh men and women of the well as the police department to the board and um you can pay in some place in here the walls are kind of there as its chair like to give this to you on behalf of the police department and it says the wilson police department uh set 50 years celebrating uh service uh made for us 1972 made for us 2022 beautiful looking badge thank you thank you i sat around for folks i mean we do have a resolution proposed for um celebrating the 50th anniversary and uh eric or who i'm not sure who put this together eric or the chief i put it together would you like me to read it uh chair help you uh give us a little bit of uh the background and a little bit of all what the resolution says sure just pulling it up here so as chief foley um spoke to the wilson police department was formed on may 1st 1972 under the leadership of chief howard londonville and celebrated its 50th years of service on may 1st of of this year and i i pulled some additional information out our department it's a dedicated group of professionals who are committed to work with the community make wilson a safe and desirable place to live work and visit and the department's mission is to partner with the community to solve problems and improve public safety in a manner that is fair and partial transparent and consistent and the core values of the department are integrity teamwork respect advocacy and empathy um fairness and impartiality and professionalism and this resolution would be resolved to recognize the wilson police department and its staff for 50 years of protecting and serving the community but thank you for the questions for eric regarding the resolution just a just a quick one eric first of all i think this is very good thank you um the only thing i'm wondering is if it should include information about wilson's growth over this period which has been tremendous and put i think quite a bit of strain stress on the department but despite that we're still getting excellent service so that's my only comment thank you if we wish to approve the resolution as it comes to us tonight there is a motion to oppose almost to adopt the resolution honoring the wilson police department for its 50th anniversary as presented there's your second second sorry discussion around the motion well i'm certainly not going to vote against it that it did include that where it's not that i'm a fan of where it is but so be it and i i think over the course of the year there'll be a celebration uh that continues on and we can recognize the uh growth of the departments at that time okay so all those in favor of the the resolution uh say hi hi any opposed so thank you chief and thank you i knew most of the people on that original course so yes thank you yeah thank you what you don't like my parents no yes thank you this is tricky for my lawyer so moving on to chinney county communications union district and i believe we're going to have two people on zoom tonight that are uh i mean the rob fish who is the deputy director of the rob fan board and regina mohoney from the cc rcc and um eric i'll turn it over to you to get the ball rolling thanks terry and hi robert regina hunt on zoom i'll uh i'll turn it over to both of them in just a moment but um you have in your board packet a memo from myself and regina and i'll just give you an introduction um off the beginning here um so staff's been working with chinney county regional planning commission over the past year to evaluate the options for bringing high speed internet access to addresses in the community that do not currently have access as part of the state of vermont's goal to increase broadband access statewide so we'll talk about this evening an internet connection is measured in two rates a download speed and an upload speed the federal communications commission considers an internet connection to be high speed broadband it has a speed of at least 25 megabits per second for downloads and three megabytes per second for uploads so looking at wilson's data most recently from 2021 from the department of public service there are about 138 addresses in wilson that are lacking that 25 three speed we've got just over 3500 that are served at that 25 three speed at which we'd consider cable and then about 35 that are served at the 100 100 speed which would be a fiber connection the vermont community broadband board was stood up in 2021 with an objective to bring high speed fiber broadband to every address in the state and what we're seeing in wilson and other chinney county communities are pockets of addresses we've been calling them underserved by broadband access and where these present gaps are occurring in other towns in the state um this broadband access may be an issue that impacts the majority if not all of the community we're seeing a unique situation in chitin county and these conversations and efforts led by the cc rpc or the past year reached a conclusion that is a communications union district that we'll talk about this evening in the county is the best prospect for unlocking public broadband grant funding to fill these pockets and we see as an ancillary effect of this potential build out this broadband network might be overbuilt by the service provider um as we will need to run fiber pass households that currently have access to the 25 three cable level of broadband internet to reach these unfilled pockets in the community and this would create an opportunity for these households to access a fiber level internet connection as far as this project so a cud is a new government unit that provides the conduit for the federal and state broadband grant funds to pass through to a provider procured by the cud who could then utilize that funding to augment their overall capital investment and network that they will own and manage so I think I'll pause there and I'll turn things over to Regina and and Rob who are really well versed in this to walk through it a bit more for the board and look for this evening to give the board an opportunity to ask questions and have a discussion but part of what we'll talk about is the county wants to move forward to stand up a cud looking at a timeline for later this year and then there's some legal requirements for how that cud can be stood up and a couple communities who need to take the lead later this year with a public vote so I'll I'll I'll say how the government processes right now you can just kind of tackle what a cud is and I'll I'll turn things over to Regina and Rob and Rob will make you a co-host so you can share your slides at some point here welcome both of you go ahead awesome thank you so hi everybody Regina Mahoney planning program manager for Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission so essentially what that means at CCRPC is that I manage the non-transportation side of the program that's sort of the easiest easiest way to describe it so yeah as Eric said we have been thinking about broadband for quite some time now and certainly have been sort of challenged since Chittenden County situation is really so unique from the rest of the state it's almost like we're we're sort of upside down of everybody else's problem and so because we have such a small percentage of folks in that on and underserved category and because in the grand scheme of things we have such a many more existing service providers in the region we really were hoping and really I think did our best to try to figure out some solutions that would maybe be more simple or more straightforward without having to go down this communications union district route I think we sort of turned over every stone and put all our best thinking caps on and really are just at the point where it really doesn't seem like there's there's a different solution I do just want to mention quickly that two of our municipalities in the county have done something different so I just want to quickly explain what that is and why just so you can understand kind of what what this whole thing is so what first I will say the town of Milton decided to join the northwest communications union district so that is and was a possibility to potentially join the other surrounding communications union districts rather than creating our own and that certainly made sense for the town of Milton and it made sense for the northwest CUD at the time at this point the surrounding CUDs are really like well enough along in their planning efforts and their business plans that it's difficult for them at this point to take on other towns that's not to say that it's an impossible thing but it's it's a little bit tricky at this point in time the other town I want to point out to folks is the town of Bolton they were able to work directly with the provider in their municipality Weitzfield Champlain Telecom to directly figure out how to put together a plan to overbuild the town of Bolton with fiber um uh Bolton put about $200,000 on the table the state put about 400 this is really rough I'm gonna say $450,000 on the table and yeah and Weitzfield Champlain Telecom is on the table for about 1.2 to 1.3 million dollars for the town of Bolton so these are big dollars big projects um and that worked really well in that circumstance because Weitzfield Champlain Telecom was able to deal with some of the parameters of the of the program and that may be the solution for some of the other towns in Chittenden County that are covered by Weitzfield Champlain Telecom most of those municipalities are in the southern part of our county um for uh and I should I should just say this might be obvious but Burlington also already has Burlington Telecom and fully covered by fiber so they are they are also well well taken care of um for the other towns in the county um there just is not such a simple clean solution and so again we really have kind of come back around to creating a communications union district is likely and potentially the only way to really get um the public dollars available to our municipalities in Chittenden County to make some of this broadband expansion service work um the last thing I'll just say before I turn it over to Rob who really actually knows what he's talking about on this topic um is that time is really of the essence for us um a uh the whole nation is moving forward on broadband expansion right now and so there's a little bit of a the train is out of the station kind of situation where uh we really want to not get too far behind on this um also because of the we've got the general election in November and there is the opportunity um to get this question on the ballot without incurring local expense um if we can get there by early August um but that just reminds me I totally skipped a step sorry so to form a communications union district a new communications union district um we need uh at minimum two municipalities to vote in favor of creation of this governance structure um via town-wide vote and then once the district is established then other municipalities can join via a legislative body decision but it can't be created at the start without town-wide vote at least two town-wide votes so that's why we're really sort of focused on the November general election to try to potentially get a meet a local question on that ballot rather than doing a special meeting and incurring local expense um but that is also an option um and really I think the Vermont Community Broadband Board is really looking to Chittenden County to hopefully show some good faith effort towards making use of the funding that they've got allocated towards our municipalities by the end of the calendar year or they're probably going to be under some pressure to start doling that those funds out to other projects that are really on on the move um so with that I'm gonna hand it over to Rob um who's uh gonna give a little bit of a presentation um yeah so great thank you everybody and thank you for Regina and Eric you've covered a lot of what I'm going to cover in a little more depth in the presentation thank you for the opportunity to speak about communication union districts my name is Rob Fish I'm the deputy director of the Vermont Community Broadband Board um I do have a brief presentation feel free to interrupt me during it and I'll keep it quick so there's plenty of time for questions and answers let me see if I can get this sharing well Rob why you're getting it up um can I ask a question certainly uh CUD is that at all similar to a union municipal district you know such as our solid waste district if you're seeing my slideshow right now you you know the first thing I'm going to tell you you know this you know this like I can go home now uh so yeah so a communication union district it's similar to a solid waste district a consolidated sewer district the water district you name it it's about communities working together to solve a problem uh they're organized under title 30 uh was created in uh 2015 and it was modeled on ec fiber which I'll talk about in in a moment but I'm going to get through some of the logistics first here uh so it's a legal entity for municipalities to start telecom planning it provides the structure and governance it also insulate towns from financial risks a communication union district has no taxing power it cannot accept any in any income derived from your taxing authority as a community everything must come from either gifts grants revenue bonds income so it's it insulates towns from from the risks associated with doing their own municipal broadband a lot of this came out of some of the challenges with Burlington telecom which I'm sure you all are very familiar with so as Virginia said in order for it to happen it has to be on the on the warrant or at a November ballot in at least two towns and then new towns can join by a select board we're not like take a step back and look at the map uh there's the original communication union district ec fiber that's down by down by ton bridge it took them about 10 15 years to get to where they are right now they are the district that's serving well over 5 000 customers with fiber in a very rural area since then and especially during the pandemic with the telehealth remote learning uh yeah need broadband it's expanded around the state we now have nine districts 208 towns most of these districts are on their way to starting construction this fall or have already started construction we approved a grant last because it was two months ago for the northeast kingdom communication union district for 16 million dollars and they have an request in for another amendment to expand to additional towns we'll be considering grant requests from most of the other districts during the months of of july and august you can see the areas that are in gray are not part of communication union districts you have the chitney county area and then you have areas in the south that are served by vtel where they already have fiber or where there's other pockets where there's a provider that they're working with very closely right now and i would you to mention now watesfield wcvt working with bolton and we know that they're committing to building out their entire service territory over over the next few years some of that in conjunction with cud some of it on on their own but all with assistance of grant funding so there's a lot on this uh but i'm just going to go through some of the reasons for creating a communication union district the first one is just aggregating the demand especially in chitney county there's not that many addresses in individual towns to come up with a project that these are addresses that don't have access to 25 three or now some of the funding is available for if it's 100 by 20 most cable if you have access to cable you have access to those speeds uh by creating a communication union district and joining with other towns you're aggregating that demand so you're aggregating all the numbers from all of those towns as opposed to being like oh we have 200 addresses that are all at the end of roads that are scattered across the area how are we going to solve them it's also a way to really just just raise a flag and say that we want to do this as a community all around the country and i'm hearing it every day there's providers that are interested especially in areas that are a little bit more suburban where there is some density in creating a fiber network uh this is a way to have a single point of contact like these the larger companies they don't want to deal with 50 towns they rather deal with one entity that's why some of our neighbors i'll talk about have had great success in attracting partners so funders and companies are familiar with municipal districts if you're building an entire network it's more efficient if it's larger and it can be integrated and more redundant town boundaries are really irrelevant it's where it's where the wires go so we're talking more about wire centers which much too my chagrin don't follow town boundaries like you'll have some towns where half are covered by consolidated half are covered by weight's field which causes a problem with what one of the requirements in act 71 is a universal service plan so a plan to for every address that's underserved to be served the other thing it's public accountability so rather than giving money directly to a company you have some citizen input the telecom industry for broadband it's it's deregulated that doesn't exist right now but this is a way to have an entity that can hold the provider's feet to the fire so the the basic model and i said there's different models for different different cudes uh several of the cudes are going for a public ownership model where there it is a public-private partnership they're not trying to operate it themselves but they're bringing in income from other providers some revenue from other providers or have selected a provider to operate the the network uh ec fibers being run by valley net gwi is working with the down in the deer field valley area it's working with gwi um and then google fiber just to your north is going to be working with the northwest cd and the moille fiber net and in this case the infrastructure is actually owned you're creating a public act public asset that can be further leveraged and it's startup comes from grant funding income from the operator donations uh the cuds will build build an only infrastructure the operator provides the service uh once the grant funding runs out they access the revenue bond market to complete the project if there's not enough income from from the providers it's kind of the model that ec fiber fiber used our goal is to provide is to provide the communication union districts with 60 of the funds they need be a grant funding the rest they would have to go find elsewhere so then there's just another public profit partnership model and this is what could be an option could be an option here um act 71 prohibits individual towns from working with a telecom provider that is in more than five counties well consolidated is in more than five counties so consolidated cannot receive funding directly a town can is not an eligible applicant but if they are working with a cud so there's another layer of accountability and oversight they can receive the funding consolidated throughout the northern part of your county is the primary is the carrier they are on the polls already and there's a chance that they it's very likely that they will be building overbuilding cable over time so that would be one one possibility here the cud would serve as the negotiator provide the oversight they may own some of the assets likely not all the assets consolidated as as fitium just negotiated in agreement with with the southern for the beddington county to do a project where parts of the infrastructure will be owned with the grant funded areas the part that fitium is funding on their own uh they're going to own oops sorry so we talked a little bit about the challenges facing the non cud towns especially the chinning county ones talked with scattered addresses would require a lot of overbuild of cable to get to those addresses some of the other small providers are not interested in competing with cable they don't want to they don't want to poke the beast of so there's also the split wire centers i mentioned in different communities there hasn't been as much study of the issue in the towns because there hasn't been as much of a demand uh a year ago if uh if you said that i think willison is about 95 or 96 percent covered by cable everybody that's pretty darn well served uh it's not it's not a priority but as the rest of the state and the rest of the country moves towards speeds of 100 by 100 so this is an upload and a download speed the upload speed is what you need for the video conferencing is what you need for telehealth and medicine it's what for what allows you to have a zoom call without it freezing uh it's also future proof and it's what's the future is going to hold so we're in a situation now where the rest of the state is building is building fiber 100 by 100 and chinning county is risking falling behind it's not going to last long there's a market there's a market case for a provider to come in here and build the fiber that's why you have cable in the first place but it's creating a strange dynamic let's say uh there's other challenges in the chinning county towns there's a lot more underground utilities in more more suburban areas uh there's some gaps in the infrastructure there's also some exclusive conduit in any of the the multi dwelling units the a lot of the condominiums or apartment complexes complexes I also mentioned that act 71 requires requires a plan to reach every address that's underserved in the community so when your addresses are scattered all around it's hard to have one it's hard to have one plan for solving that without coordination that is the role the cud can provide if you have to coordinate between multiple providers or screen multiple providers we're also limited by how funds must be distributed they must be distributed by the number of underserved addresses or underserved miles which also limits the amount of funds that are available to areas that are heavily cabled as the priority is bringing them up but the state wants to bring everybody up so I just have wilson on here we already talked about the numbers of addresses the areas that are in red here are the roads that don't have service so it's it's scattered but the biggest reason right now I want to recommend creating a communication union is big companies want big deals they don't want to negotiate with a single town they want to negotiate with 20 30 40 50 towns and we've seen the results already there's no chance google fiber would have been interested in working with the town of georgia but the but working with all of grandisle and all of grandisle franklin and lamoille counties that got their attention with a single point of process and they're working out the details right now and it's it's looking good uh was that I'm actually out in cleveland right now and at a conference this is what we have being featured right now is that vermont's making progress on public private partnerships with the google fiber deal and we have in southern vermont I mentioned with consolidated so things things are happening uh we feel that bringing together the various towns in chitney county are a way to make sure those underserved addresses are served and to help lift everybody else so let me stop sharing now if I there we go so there's a lot of information there sorry and I've been up since 3 a.m so bear with me flying out here uh so we're up to questions from the board one one quick one um what is a split wire center I didn't understand that so a split wire center is where part of the town is served by in this case is served by consolidated and another part of the town is served by weightsfield makes it where you have to negotiate with more than one partner in order to get a universal service plan so it what it also means is that those towns that are slipped by weightsfield weightsfield can't get grant funding unless we figure out a solution for those addresses that are served by consolidated it's one of the it's accept anyone is designed to make sure no one's left behind and that providers don't come in and cherry pick the addresses with the best density the best business case but there's the fact that wire centers don't follow town boundaries causes complications at least you only have two carriers i'm dealing with towns where there's three in one town and it seems like the options in terms of what this network for lack of better words would look like in the future are are kind of endless it could be one provider that we we whoever the cud ends up being a negotiates with it could be multiple carriers it could be a cud own system we just don't know right soon yeah there's there's a variety of options and a variety of pathways forward the easiest is usually negotiating with an incumbent provider they're already on the polls it makes it faster deployments they can usually do it cheaper and frankly it helps them avoid competition the but there is this big interest right now that's happening all across the country and what we're seeing up in northwest where there's where it's a publicly owned network that's that's open access where multiple providers can be on that network and compete it's something that if you would have asked me two years ago if that could work in rural rural areas i would be very skeptical but there's a lot of companies that are ready to put money into it to make it happen they just need an entity to to negotiate with and i chitney county is high up on that list i can pretty confidently say that if there was a single entity to negotiate with you mentioned the cud aspect of this who's interested in being at one of those two towns or multiple or more than two towns i assume you can have more than two towns decide to move ahead with it yeah so great question um we have been um talking with uh the northern towns about this we haven't been talking to the weightsfield champlain telecom towns about this not that we won't or you know because they may be interested too we're just not seeing it as much of a neat as an urgent need right now um so other towns that are certainly interested um south burlington um escs uh colchester has been putting a lot of thought into this and uh for for quite a while not interested in joining a cud because they were considering joining northwest cud also um but i think uh they're in conversations as well um and just west fur as well i believe right yes thank you um and one thing just to add to that uh previous question um the the thing that sort of made the final difference for me in my mind that this is the right path to take was just acknowledging that our current cable providers uh like rob said because we're at a pretty decent density in chitlin county they are likely over time to over build with fiber it just makes sense for their building for their business plan and their business model but without the oversight they are not necessarily going to come in and serve those underserved neighborhoods and roads and so that really is what's kind of pushing me over the over the edge to do this because and i i'm not sure that going to a public ownership model makes sense although i think i'm a little bit of a dinosaur and might get to where rob is where this is exciting right like this is really big different stuff but right now for me if we can get public ownership um on those cable companies of when they switch over to fiber they're going to also hit those people that are completely underserved right now that's a win-win and that's just for me reason alone for us to go this is wrapped yeah and i think you mentioned public oversight and it's uh we do know that that consolidate the telephone company not the not the cable company they're they they've said they're going to serve 200 000 vermont addresses over the next over the next few years with fiber it's kind of hard to find 200 000 vermont addresses without entering chitlin county other questions and the pounds that create the cd do they have to border each other it seems to me if you're going to work together to implement a plan to get these fiber optic cables you know if you have towns that are actually separate from each other that might be kind of difficult i think it depends on what model you're if you're building a brand if it's a new new operator coming in that's building building a new network putting new wires up on the poles it would be helpful if it's the if they're contiguous there are ways to do middle mile to connect those areas if it's just negotiating with an existing provider that happens to be in all of those towns it's it's less of a concern but it will make it easier because there's there's a the wire centers don't follow town boundaries you've mentioned a couple times stringing wires up on the poles what about towns where we don't allow that we don't have poles in some of our subdivisions because we don't allow well for the for those areas i hope you have extra conduit um if not it makes it a lot more expensive to build in those areas and that's that's just the nature of it in terms of going going underground okay i see i probably know so but there's there's different models that could that can make it work but that that would be a limitation and that would be something that if i work together the the cd of the towns can address and those might be higher cost areas those are negotiating points with whatever provider but if you're able to give a provider a bigger deal you're going to have a lot more sway Bruce your thoughts the answer jeff is that a lot of times when utilities come in to do work now uh you're right we say everything's underground but a lot of them have to put in not under their own conduit but a spare conduit for some future use the the the issue with that is finding out exactly where all that has happened that but there are there are quite a few of them out there like uh just as an example the muddy brook money brook project we just did that extra conduit in the ground spare conduit most most contracts now say you know they have to add you know put in yours plus one extra for a spare or something so there's a lot of them out there how many more for developments where stuff are underground or not i would think there's probably something there but once again it's a matter of identifying them it's not going to be absolutely or absolute all over town by any means okay so that's that's something this entity could help you and the state would be able to provide what we call pre-construction funds that can help with some of the some of the planning that's that's necessary those are those are the types of funds that whether it's the high level design or whether it's a detailed design or hiring hiring capacity for for making this happen that have allowed the other CUDs to get where they are today so i think tonight our job is to see if we have any the initial interest in pursuing this and if we do what other questions or information do we need to have answered one other question i have sorry what let's say will ascend decides that yes we want to be either part of or help lead us CUD how much what is the liability that will ascend would be facing if we were to do that that's one of the one of the beauties of a CUD it's you're you're creating a you're creating a new municipality you're creating a municipal district it helps insulate the town what what the town has to provide is they have to appoint two delegates just like with any kind of commission two delegates to the board that's the decision-making board for the for the CUD i think there's something else in there about providing space for equipment as necessary but that's but that's the major one so your your liability is limited is limited your credit rating impact is is very much limited so if you did go if you did go the public option anyone for the revenue bonds it would be the the CUD holding the revenue bond there is no general obligation bond option okay so the answer is simply you know minimal to none yes okay well can i just a couple questions i'm sorry i'm really lost on the basics here a little bit um uh is is the is one of the possible results of this that the infrastructure that would be created would be owned by the municipality that we're talking about uh owned by the communication union district that that's one of the possibilities whether it's the entire network or or parts of the network but but that municipality would not be a utility it would not be operating the system itself just on the the physical aspect of it yes it would be everything else would be contracted out we're not we're not encouraging anybody to try to to own and operate it themselves there there's experts for a reason that do these things okay well contract it out does that mean that the the municipality that we're talking about would be responsible for finding somebody to manage the services if it's a publicly owned network yes so that's one of the roles that the board would play and but usually what you're doing is that's a very long-term contract because nobody wants to get their electronics on a network and then leave after a few years there's there's some there's some costs some costs that go go in there like most of the contracts the CUDs are doing are 10 to 20 years and it's more of just having that check-in after 10 years to make a decision whether to add someone else to the network or if it's not working it's just another way to provide some public accountability and oversight thanks um the one of the things on the basic model public ownership slide said the CUDs access to revenue bond markets to complete the build out of their district what do you mean by revenue bond market you mean that's where we the voters would vote for a bond like we do for an infrastructure project here what what does that mean so it's it's a bond that's based on the revenue generated by the network so it's not backed by the grand list and that's the only tool available to the to the CUDs that they have a business they have a business plan they bring to the bond market or bring to um I guess it's not a bank I bring to the bond market I'll leave that to the to the finance people uh and the business plan shows how much revenue is going to be generated and it's enough revenue to make the bond payments but they manage they get the money for the capital expense up front what if there's a default with the revenue bonds it there's nothing that comes back to the taxpayers it's the the asset is what is backing it so the network the fiber thing the air the equipment that's what backs backs up a revenue bond is that one of the things that happened with Burlington telecom is they were about to be sued and their infrastructure was about to be taken as collateral Burlington telecom used general funds uh the one of the reasons why there's a prohibition on general funds being used for municipal broadband is because of that what happened and can I ask just a quick follow up this revenue bond market or these revenue bonds it sounds to me like unlike a municipal bond where you have the tax space to basically uh give the bank the bank um encouragement uh that we are going to default um the model I hear here is there's very little the bank is going to look and say yeah they default we can collect does that mean that those revenue bonds end up being more expensive because in order for the bank to take on that risk they have to get more back they tend to be a little bit higher and as said they're they're backed up by the operation of the network and the revenue that's generated by it so they're a little more difficult to get so you need to have a good business plan in order to get these in order to access that market that's a very interesting point you know would you might not be able to get a revenue bond because nobody likes your business plan there's there's certainly that potential uh the the fact that there's all this grant funding being invested into these networks is very helpful i know i'm just trying to understand oh no no no no no i'm i'm just i'm just trying to i'm not a bond expert so i'm trying to be a little bit careful okay if it if it helps um i can just quickly try to explain what's going on as i understand it in the bennington cud so they are working directly with consolidated communications and uh like rob said there is some parts of that network network that's going to be owned publicly but for the most part it's going to be owned by consolidated communications um and any bonding that they do uh they will pay it back by a little service fee that they put on the individual monthly bills that they get um and again i'm probably looking fairly short sighted and lacking the larger picture of what could happen here but um it seems to me that's very likely what our program will be it will be not very much publicly owned uh infrastructure and the existing providers um will own and operate the network i i think that's that's accurate that's probably that's the the path of lease resistance most likely and that may not require any bonding whatsoever and then within the case of southern vermont i i believe they figured it out where it's they're not going to have to bond in order to do it with their model um we don't know what the situation is going to be for chutney county until those conversations and negotiations can happen yeah i have um so i'm totally i understand the broadband for all and i think that the coverage gets to most communities but i had heard you mentioned before that there there's that percentage that you're trying to target that you can't and i heard before you know well we can plan for conduit for new you know housing or you know new development but what about those folks that don't have that and there's no overhead like how do we reach those folks and who puts that bill so it's it's part of our mission to make sure everybody is served so that's what comes down to the business plan of and comes down to your negotiations with a provider of whether those are going to be high cost areas or how of how you're gonna gonna figure that out it might have to be an infrastructure fee in order to pay for for more conduit to be put in like there's a variety of different options but the the whole whole point of universal service plan is we want to bring everybody up if you don't don't have service that's the equivalent that can meet 25 three right now we want to make sure that you're going to have service that reaches 100 by 100 by the time we're done with this uh there's areas the cable companies didn't go because there's not enough density uh we want to go we want to go to those places because it's we believe that it's it's universal service uh it's an essential public service right now as we saw during the pandemic no i understand i just i've heard for years you know that that coverage is going to be implemented and i'm a teacher and i have kids that still don't have access right and how do we get that to them how do we get those families it's just seems like that's still lacking we get the we get the broad you know percentage the majority but that minority still is missing uh well you're not you're not getting any grand funding from us unless you figure that out and that's what that's what it comes down to uh it's that's what we're requiring every provider for universal service because we don't want that's what's happened in the past those tough to get areas have been left behind and we're we're frankly tired of it no i think the legislature is tired of it so yep any further questions like i guess the the question for us then um is are we interested in pursuing this uh at another meeting so uh if there's a straw hole for those of you who um are interested in that raise your hand what can i ask what are we we're asking are we going to study this further or are we going to have a vote the next time we talk my plan would be as if we're interested in doing it at all that we would have another meeting that we would discuss any further questions that we have and have a vote to uh by the board to have a townwide vote and this is to create or join a cud to create a cud just want to make sure i understand what it is that looks so our part at this point if we're having a vote that would be to create a cud and my presumption is that this would be not a separate ballot item but one that's added to the deliver ballot is that right the the timing there is um it would i think the deadline by the secretary secretary of state's office is august 9th to add any local articles to that ballot so that that's the i believe the timeline working with for that option but if the town wanted to hold a special meeting um town could also hold it as a and mail out its own have its own separate ballot available but there's a cost to that as well but um those are the options for the board if it wants to ask this question to voters in november of this year i see this as a matter of equity and access and i think that this is an opportunity for our town to be a leader um in our county and in our region um in providing that equity and access so yeah and if you recall uh for several administrations now all the legislature has been interested in getting into the last mile and this is the way to do it it's just not the money in state uh i sure uh money is to do it i could add to what gretter just said is even if it was just wiliston we were going to form our own i think i'd still be i don't think i know it's still be interested yeah i'm i'm interested and i'm i'm likely to support it i just but there are questions that i need i need more information and that's that's fine historically this is like the rural electrification issues though we're like the rural rural farms wouldn't get the electricity because there was no there wasn't enough payback for the utility company to run the wire out there right and i'd be happy to connect you all with uh other with existing communication union districts so you can learn how they operate and if that's if that's helpful i can also feel free to reach out with any specific questions have i share ted's concern is i feel like i'm kind of entering the unknown you know and it's i'm never going to get to a point where i feel like i truly understand and thus can uh form a strong wealth sound decision so let me ask one question has anybody created a cud and it's failed not yet so we're we're we're hoping but uh we're we're not we're not we're not hoping for any failure we're hoping there's we're certainly hoping that there's not going to be any any failure but uh they do have to come together and come up with a business plan that that works and that will accept it because uh we're stewards of a lot of federal and state funds right now and if we're going to be investing them we want to make sure that it's successful and as i recall rob there's um articles of um incorporation you know the legal side of establishing a cud that i can review and if the board is interested in looking at this further i can review those with the town attorney and come back to the board with any uh any items the town attorney addresses there as well um it's certainly forming a new government is no small feat and to be one of the towns um that may step forward to do it for this is certainly bears with it a lot of responsibility so i want to make sure if the if the board wants to ask the voters i i'll be the pathway to get all those questions answered here over the the next couple of months and one thing i'm going for you is there's nine ahead of you that have gone through this process that have developed the by-laws that have developed the conflict of interest policies the procurement policies all of that's all of that stuff that's the administrative back end of things that's good so i hear a forward or proceed uh gordon no i'm definitely in favor i'm just like i my reservations are i have more questions on how we reach the rule folks that don't get that opportunity but i'm definitely in favor so we are in favor at this point of moving forward uh and we'll be discussing this at another meeting and i think the challenge to us now is to feed uh questions to eric to feed to um both uh and the only question i have is about the need for better broadband i think we all know that but i'm trying to figure out a timing issue so we don't need to make a decision by the early august it sounds like whether we want to put this on the ballot or not august nine from the beginning of time that we would need to have this done uh so we would need to do it probably late july will we know by that time whether there's another municipality interested and one that we feel we can work with i don't know whether they would i think uh cz rpc would probably hold just a minute sorry the um online dropped well we're back if we had a hundred hundred i'm thinking a lot of lightning outside right now so i'm guessing it may have something to do with that lightning yeah everyone on zoom has access but they're removing the camera should be back in just a minute okay so we're back on okay okay so the question is is it's a timing thing we need to make a decision by august ninth i've heard about whether we want to you know put this um item on the ballot will we know at that time what other town or towns uh or cities in uh the area are also interested in doing that because not only is it a question of or another town interested it it's also wanting to make sure we're comfortable you know working with this town on this uh cud yeah interesting good question so uh tomorrow we are having a meeting with um the other municipalities that we've been talking to about this so uh we will certainly know more tomorrow about um how folks are comfortable sort of bringing this forward in time for meeting meeting that deadline um and i i think that that deadline isn't that putting your question on the general election ballot is ideal because it doesn't cost anything more to the town but um if you did have us your own special town meeting your deadline is not quite that tight so that's a sort of uh pro and kind of that but um certainly we will continue the conversations Eric and Aaron have been a part of that uh thus far so we'll be able to keep you as informed as possible as as we move through any final questions just not thank you both for having me and giving us the information and we'll be uh Eric and Aaron will be back to talk with you very welcome thank you everybody have a good night yeah thank you thank you let's move on to the user fee and charges schedule and we have um Bruce Orr and Chief Collette uh uh on the line i believe and Eric going to lead off with the uh um uh what we're playing on doing here yep this is um one of the issues the board considers each June is setting our user fee and charges for the new fiscal year coming up in FY 23 just a couple weeks away um i've included in your packet memos from um Public Works Director Bruce Orr and Fire Chief Aaron Collette that that outline um those fees proposed this year the uh utility rates and fees um were included in the utility budgets the board approved back in May so those you'll you'll see those same numbers here um in addition we'll speak to a couple new fees um i'll briefly touch on um now that there's a temporary events permit in place establishing a starting fee for that um then Chief Collette will go through the the ambulance billing fees proposed for this year. Terry do you have a preference to uh Public Works or Fire First? Um why don't we do Fire First? Okay i'll turn over to Chief Collette. I think it's uh timely that we have this discussion as i'm sitting here at the house with very limited broad service so i hope that we can navigate this okay with enough bandwidth so um in front of you you see i assume Eric's distributed the memorandum um and what this does is sets the user fee rate schedule for ambulance billing for the town. We last increased this in uh 2021 with this we evaluated all of our neighboring partners in EMS eight communities and this is really the work of Lisa Steadman our administrative assistant so Lisa takes all that and then compiles the average for the neighboring agencies that we work in partnership with and looked at what that cost for service is out and about and as all of you know the inflation has driven our costs up including increased cost with supplies and fuel in addition we also have seen the increased level of capability that we are able to serve the community with with the addition of paramedic level of service and more paramedics on staff which is a great thing so we are out and about but that means that you know we do reflect a little bit in increase in cost so when we look at the evaluation and the averages of the other communities we saw that we were deficient in a couple of areas and what we did is looked at where we may be able to make up some revenue unfortunately as as you know you may remember from last year when we had this discussion the Medicare and Medicaid have fixed rates of reimbursement so whether we increase that cost locally here at the municipal level they still have fixed fees that are set by CMS and so we won't be able to collect more than the allowed rate for Medicaid and Medicare the areas that we did identify that we could help offset some of our costs would be to catch up with the local agencies that are around us in table number three of the memo it shows that currently for a BLS emergency call and the average that is out across the community the greater Chittin County area is about 845 dollars so we're under many of those other communities with that 750 in addition the ALS one charge where we are currently at 950 the average is well over a thousand nearly 1100 and the ALS two charge we're at 1295 and the average is over 1400 and so the other area that we were deficient was in our mileage where we're charging 19 a mile right now 19 dollars per loaded mile and we see an opportunity there to increase it to the average which is over 22 an hour 22 dollars per mile and so we would be looking to bring that up to 22 dollars to meet the the average that's occurring across Chittin County that we've actually if you look in again table three there's only four proposed increases that we're recommending all of the rest of them we are remaining fixed with our current fee schedule Eric did challenge us to look at other alternatives for revenue we did look at three areas here we looked at responses with where we don't transport a patient we looked at a lift assist and then field termination responses which mean that we have a cardiac arrest patient who we work through a resuscitation protocol on scene and then ultimately declare the patient deceased when we looked at all of those there was only one agency that charges a fee for a non-transport that's assets rescue we looked at that we talked to our billing agent with this and ultimately we made the decision that this probably wasn't going to be a good option for us we didn't want to discourage people from calling EMS because of the fee they're going to be worried about receiving a fee and that same sentiment occurs when we looked at lift assist so when we look at our population that we serve and they need help we don't want to disincentivize them from calling 911 for fee that they're going to get a bill for us helping them back into their bed or back into their wheelchair or the like so we elected not to pursue that and in fact when we pulled the neighboring communities there was no one that was charging for the lift assist however that does occur across the country but that's just not something that I want to try to look at right now we did find that 50 percent of the agencies that we pulled were billing for field termination responses and so those agencies were Burlington, Colchester, Milton and Richmond the field termination and resuscitation so we work a very aggressive advanced life support protocol and that costs the department significant amount of funds and equipment that we use on those calls and we all of that is essentially written off right non-collectible so I would like this to consider that we would adopt and the to look at this going forward and actually try to invoice for those field termination responses but my recommendation is this is that we only invoice the patient's insurance and that if the patient's estate would not be charged or the patient's loved ones wouldn't see a bill afterwards but we have a connection through the Vermont Health Information Exchange where we could access patient information through their insurance information and that's how we would bill that the rationale that I have for that is that when we provide that level of service much like the hospital unfortunately the hospital sees patients who do expire despite the best efforts of medical clinicians that the hospital still builds for those services and I think that that's the same mentality I'd like to adopt here is that we do our best to try to resuscitate a patient to the greatest ability that we have but we lose that you know it's essentially a very costly endeavor for us so I'd like to be able to pursue that as some method to augment the service that we provide so at this point I'd be happy to answer any questions but ultimately we're looking for just a $100 increase for the BLS emergency call, a $100 increase on the ALS1 emergency call, a $105 increase for the ALS2 classification of emergency call, and a $3 per loaded mile increase to match all of these would catch us up to the average in the neighboring communities. Thank you Chief. Any questions for the Chief regarding the request for increases? That's to say Chief could you I always get I always get confused with this when the ambulance goes out and is the fee that's charged for that ambulance service dependent on what the entity needs the person who needs the service or is it based on what is provided by that crew on the ambulance? So it is based upon the level of service that we provide so the clinician will look and say the patient meets this clinical protocol and then these are the procedures that follow that protocol and then so we will apply those procedures as set by the EMS district to that for that patient care so the more critical a patient the more at the higher level of service that we provide so if the patient fits basic life support criteria where we maybe simply do some reading control or splinting or something that's not necessarily invasive then that would get built at that BLS rate because we don't do anything in an advanced service delivery but when we see patients that fit that advanced life support where we have our paramedics or advanced EMT providing intravenous fluids or medications or doing EKG recognition and rhythm interpretation or advanced assessments including breath sounds or any of the other sophisticated equipment or diagnosis that our team can go do then that's when we provide that level of service. Okay all right good thank you and then the other question I have is it's the mileage rate you know the 22 dollars a mile and I'm not objecting to it but I just think at the mileage rate I get reimbursed for I don't think 85 cents and so I'm like I just what goes into that mileage rate why is it you know compared to 85 cents a mile so much greater I mean I understand it's a bigger vehicle it uses more fuel maybe depreciation it's a much more expensive vehicle depreciation of the insurance that you need to carry on it can you just help me understand that. Sure I mean I honestly Jeff I look at it the industry trend to answer it with full transparency I would have to look at it more I know that the industry drives that number so the average of what's what's happening out there and the Medicare rate is only at eight dollars a mile the Medicaid rate is only at six dollars a mile so we could set that rate at 19 or 22 like we are but we're only going to get reimbursed at those six or eight for the majority of our Medicaid and Medicare patients so I would have to look into more to see what that actually why is that set like that okay I don't know the industry standard than it is you've looked at what cost you want to be reimbursed for as part of that fee and then you know divided by the total miles you think that ambulance will travel in a year yeah that that's absolutely okay all right any other questions for the chief we don't move on to the utilities with Bruce okay we have the memo to Eric all these rates that you see all these are rates that were already set in the budget water retail rate is going from five dollars and ten cents to five dollars and thirty cents which is a three point nine two percent increase sewer retail rate seven forty nine to seven seventy five three point four seven percent increase the other rates are all set raised using the CPI which we use three point five zero percent yeah percent so the residential water rate per quarter is six oh two commercial be twelve oh six and the sewer rate basic user charge i'm sorry those basic user charges if we're sewer increases to sixteen fifty seven per quarter storm water rates staying the same at four twenty five per year are you having sex and water and sewer connection rates are all raised based on the CPI as well and those are on the memo water and sewer connection fees for FY 23 what they're going to and all of these will support the budget we approved a few weeks ago that's correct questions for and then i like the way they're already set and really don't know i would just add the sewer allocation charge increase we're proposing from ten dollars of fifteen dollars a gallon is is based on a recent valuation study for the sx junction plant that the board's seen but just to call off that that number is that that is a change has been adjusted for number of years right and that that's based on our negotiations with the village over what we're going to hopefully purchase additional sewage capacity for correct yep and uh report that uh that looked at the valuation as is where we we rounded it up to to the nearest dollar there around up to fifteen okay any further questions there is a motion suggested i'll move to adopt the municipal user fee and charges schedule for the fiscal year 2023 as presented is there a second second if not i'll close in favor of the motion say aye aye any opposed we're done thank you very much terry could i could i just have one minute please absolutely heard i just want to let the select board know that the nice emerald ash borer that we've been removing trees for for the past five years is now confirmed in wilson it was found in ash trees and best buys parking lot and has done quite a bit of damage which means it's actually probably been around for a little while but it's the first confirmation that we are now one of the zones that has the bug so just want to let you know before you hear it somewhere else where do you see your phone that's fine i'm sorry where do you see you found it the state found it in best buys parking lot okay you'll see a bunch of a whole row of trees there that are dead and if you have any interest in seeing you know i've gotten a lot of reports over the years oh we've got the eab we've got the eab well you go over there and look at those trees and you'll see the telltale signs of those bugs and there's no mistaking them that the shape the d size shape that they make when they come out is is like the most perfect d you've ever seen and like what my guy said today is it a small d or a capital b it's the capital b so well thanks it was good for us to get ahead of it anyway so that's good well thank you all right thank you eab gets high marks for their pen and yeah to fire warden uh appointment and uh eric tell you a few words about somebody simple yep and uh it's a the forest fire warden i forgot the word uh forest in the agenda but uh you might recall um cheap collette filled the remainder of um retired chief morton's term when when he became chief and then this is up for a five-year reappointments um at the end of this month for for five years through 2027 um one of the requirements we asked the fire chief is to serve in this role um the chief salon get any questions about duties as forest fire warden any questions for erica for the chief looking for a motion then lucaria point fire chief erin collette forest fire warden for a five-year term through june 30 2027 is there a second second there's a discussion on the motion all those in favor of the motion say hi hi i get posed moving on to the albert master plan and we have um thought good room with us tonight and uh at the last time we had this presented uh two of our board members were absent so there may be some more questions uh tonight from them but eric uh she can give us a brief introduction sure thanks harry um editor i see todd now hi todd um this is back in late april the board received an overview of the draft um updated master plan for alan brook park from the sc group our consultant that worked in coordination with the recreation and parks committee and and director ty goodwin um the agenda item this evening's for the board to consider adopting this master plan update for alan brook park and uh as a reminder for the board folks watching uh the master plan does not commit the town financially rather it's a vision for the park um that would be further developed and planned in future capital budgets and future town capital plans so i'll uh i'll turn it over to todd and the board um if there's any additional discussion or questions on this proposal right go ahead i i don't i don't have anything other than the answer or any of your questions for the questions that you have um i will say that you know the last time uh sc group was here to do the presentation they did a good job with that they did a good job overall the master plan the recreation and parks committee acted as the group um and they did an excellent job as well plan working with sc group to plan a park for everyone all ages all everything and the future is is to um look to build out that part and be aware of equity inclusiveness and everything else and the different things that um goes into that part so i'm reasonable with these kind of things there's a um a large ticket price uh over the course of numerous years and i think the report outlines the projected costs and um also some funding sources as well that's correct yeah so questions from the board regarding the um the plan so first of all i apologize i wish i had seen the presentation i also apologize for not getting back to you and eric about the email you sent to meet with you just you know it it's it's the classic you slipped down in my inbox and unfortunately i got never came out never saw the light of day again so i apologize for that because i would like to be more informed than i am first comment is a sticker shock but i think that's normal for anything that we end up doing um um which leads to my next question which is given the phased approach and that the town may be only able to do this and maybe some fairly blanky time in between when we can go from let's say phase a to phase b one is the plan put together in a way in which we can do that and what i mean by that is we won't be left with a facility that really isn't all that useful because we haven't gotten to be one yet does that make sense yep currently up there there's um just two fields i mean right now we call it allenbrook community park it's really not a park it's two multi-purpose fields that we um useful across in the springtime and soccer in the fall it's open to other times and you know for groups to use but the parking is difficult and everything else so phase one is that infrastructure of giving us our own access in building a parking lot that's closer to one of it would be one of the existing fields possibly the other existing field which you know ultimately at the end could that be a synthetic turf or not you know so but natural to begin with so taking what we have building that infrastructure would help to main to use those two fields more than they're being used right now so that would be phase one and and somebody to that when we get into phase two or two a two a to b and that would be the playgrounds the splash pads the bathrooms um the courts and stuff like that then we're getting into developing more of that community park for everybody to use so the quick answer is phase one is going to get us closer to and using the same existing fields that we have um by developing another one and using keeping one there and possibly able to use it more and that will hopefully would generate some money and helping us to move on and building phase uh phase two the other thing that we you'll see coming forward to the board soon is uh park donation naming rights those types of things because if somebody came along and wanted to build a pavilion and have it named after somebody that would give us that opportunity to look at that look at who wants to make that donation that type of thing make sure if it's all our criteria is and then the town gets a pavilion that the taxpayers didn't have to to pay for so that growth and then the final phase is that ball field baseball field kind of complex and if we again the synthetic turf of the future and that is an opportunity to bring in tournaments and the synthetic turf to use more you know with extend this season on the shoulder ends of and even with our bad weather type of the thing so that in and lighting so that brings in that revenue that helps to be back to paying for the future you know that's a future of paying for what we built prior to it is a large ticket price if you were just going to say we're going to clear everything and build it tomorrow but if we phase it look for grant opportunities naming or donations that type of thing and then when that you have that fee that you're looking to pay back those tournaments and synthetic turf or whatever else gets put back into that and and pay so hopefully over time it pays for itself and would the tournaments be you know it sounds like some baseball tournaments soccer tournaments yeah the what else the the baseball is set up to be two little league fields and I don't mean those to be baseball I would like to see them set up so that they're baseball or softball okay there's there's you can bring in the mound for baseball but if you remove the mound then it's flat for softball so having two of those there would be able to be a softball tournament or a baseball tournament and that we also look at as equity inclusive you know we're we're not just providing for baseball games to be played or softball games or one of each but you can't hold a tournament because you only have one of those type the third field is a Babe Ruth field and right now we have two adult leagues I had a third one I didn't have room for and they didn't want to take an afternoon we have uh strikers and then we have the Wilson Babe Ruth who sometimes shares with Shelburne and there's not enough room for everybody at this point in time so there's that need and the synthetic turf would be that soccer and that would that could be soccer lacrosse football all those field types of sports to be used so what if you don't mind me repeating what I think I just heard to make sure I got you don't see any issues with this being a very desirable place for people to pay to have tournaments held here right no and you know we do a lot now here in village park with groups ultimate frisbee and adult soccer and that kind of thing but I think if if planned and built right this opened up that opportunity to be a regional place that um people would want to come to our organizations or groups would want to come to to have tournaments given the um it was nice to see all the you know potentials for ways to fund or finance this given that what can we expect to be the tax to be the burden on the tax papers it's that and I don't actually know exactly what I need to hear back from that but it is important to have an understanding I mean for instance one way to look at it is can we expect 50 percent of this sorry we I think we lost again oh oh can can you hear me yep yep okay um so when you're talking money and and taxpayers of a doubt probably would okay go back to to Eric there but um we have a a good amount of wreck impact fees right now that would help us to start this process um I you know in talking with Eric and I'll let him you know he's talked about the current bond and that would on other items and that's coming to kind of a um a sunset of being paid off so you know maybe we move it back um there's a capital program which he's talked about that you know if we have the approval moving forward we'd start looking at how we can can fund these so could there be something to taxpayers yes who knows what that is because you can try for grants hope that you get them um if you don't that either puts the burden more on the taxpayer or it holds the project off and it's not done at this point in time Eric do you yep I can jump in Todd where we look at something like this with multiple phases over multiple years I I think with the the plan's trying to design that that first phase as building in that critical infrastructure for access for the existing facilities and then looking to build it over time so certainly using leveraging the wreck impact fees that we've already held thinking about what this is the future of the wreck impact fee and how that may um move forward the the additional phases of this project and understanding with um this is a vision and some of the the figures put together by the consultants um are our best estimate right now and understanding if there's ways to trim this back as well I think they identify some of the paving or putting um curbing in as well as are some larger ticket items they include that can get scaled back but I I think this creates the roadmap and the vision for the ideal park but it's it's going to take multiple years and additional capital planning and recognizing where funding would come from um to how much is built out at and when but I I think with there's um potential to start the first phase here in the coming years and looking at how that rounds out financially but it would be something that comes back to the board before moving forward in any phases of this and certainly looking at the financial aspect and and the town were to consider borrowing money at some point what what what that may look like but certainly um not not something I wanted to I want to look at too much right now but as as Todd mentioned our bonding capacity in a few years we'll have some more some more room in it as well but um I think I can take any any additional questions there and again if you to go off what Eric was saying if you look at the plan it's really the bells and whistles like he said the curbing if you go to any of our parks right now there's no curbing in our parks and it's actually you know we can do without it but it's nice to have um two of our parks have gravel parking lots and and one doesn't you know maybe a parking lot starts off gravel but over time can become paved or whatever else so it's again looking at things and if if we can scale back and and still do things properly and save some money and that as money is generated can go back to those so even phase one it doesn't need to be completely done it can be partially done so long as we have that solid infrastructure and then we can go and put the bells and whistles on it later okay so it better to get something than have nothing right so do you anticipate and this probably a question for Eric that will start to see um this in the capital budget next year yeah if the board wants to be far with this master plan it's um I know this park built out and planned for many years and that hasn't been a lot of activity in recent years so I would work with Todd to next think about what's that phase one help um you know we look for permitting and design work on it just we're talking about new access there's certainly a large storm water component to it as well for the permitting so um that would be my my plan and in the next capital plan work with Todd um how this of the first phase could um could begin here from a design and permitting standpoint and then probably in the year after that um we would have a good sense of what it was going to cost and then working to understand how how that would work um look at our impact fees as our our first pool of funds to look to uh to utilize well our questions I know I played a lot of baseball on my day and I miss hope for grass I want to hear artificial turf that's like a dream if you can pay for it great did the ball react on the grass compared to the order I don't know we had a lot of pebbles just yeah that's what you you blamed all those myths those errors on those errors tonight it is definitely bells and whistles and a dream but sure you got you got to put it down to you know hopefully make it see it happen someday okay well it sounds like the real rubber gets the road when we start to get into the design and the cost and yep okay sure any last questions if not then I'm looking for a motion move to approve the alanburg park master plan as presented zero second a second there's a discussion on that motion thank you thank you if not um all the paper of the motion say hi hi hi any opposed uh we have passed that thank you again time for uh your hard work on that moving to the community senator scoping in library assistant project then Eric uh this is yours yep and I've got um Jane currents our library directors also on zoom this evening if not any questions come up for Jane hi Jane so I've been working with Jane and Todd on next steps to get the project underway the library assessment and community center scoping study that's included in the town's FY 23 capital budget you may recall these discussions from from last winter this project will work with an architectural consultant to assess the options for this for these spaces and in my memo though those are a recap of of what some of these options may be our our plan is to issue an RFP in July to find this right consultant for a combination of consultants and the board identified ARPA funds to pay for this work in the capital budget for FY 23 for the library uh component the work would include a building condition assessment of the current space and in looking at the library and community center concept in this project the goals to identify the space needs on a programmatic basis understanding the cost estimate for new construction and or renovation or addition when when looking at the library and ultimately the library trustees in the select board we need to decide on any preferred alternative and whether the project would continue to a degree at this time following an initial scoping study that I was looking at here so as we're thinking about this this project and how to tackle it some a concept I want to uh suggest the board consider is looking at standing up a steering committee for this work I have a put a draft structure in the memo that the draft entails that would include a member of the select board a member of the library trustees a member of the recreation and parks committee and then four community at large members appointed by the select board and these committee seats can be further defined or left as community at large for discussion and how to create the best committees that fill the goals um and is charged during the interview process of anyone interested in serving this role and then the steering committee would be staffed by myself as town manager the library director and the recreation and parks director and I do the steering committee to really guide the consultants work and examine the possible alternatives for the spaces for a final report for the select board and library trustees to review and discuss and these committee members to be champions for community outreach on the project as I really feel that that's going to be key to hear from the community especially when looking at features and programmatic elements to consider in any such of a future community space here because that the component we need to study is the cost for these items then I'm sure there's a lot of great ideas and a lot of concepts out there but I I know the town looked at this and 2007 and reading meal report and I think that'll be helpful in getting this project started there's likely be a number of the same themes um but also understanding what what the cost is for for the boards to to look at here and understanding is there is a desire to move forward what what that scope and look like and understanding what those elements are and what costs come with with those elements that the community may be maybe looking for there um so I I shared this side of me I met with the library trustees last night so you get their thoughts on a steering committee concept that's shared with the select board um from from that discussion last night the trustees made a suggestion to make sure there's a balance in any community at large appointments to make sure there's voices with interest in library and community center and I imagine there'll be a number of folks um maybe interested in in serving on such a committee that that has some experience and um with both of these um services and if in the community um the message from the trustees is one to avoid appointing folks with just interest and say the community center and not the library and trying to find a balance that one passed on the select board and also wondered if um for these community members at large if that's the direction the board wants to go in if the trustees could play any role and perhaps you're viewing applications or offer any comments so should the select board want to look at this concept further the the question um is is how to fill these seats and whether we wanted to find further the criteria for each um or just leave the four community members at large or a different iteration and provide direction as as they're being reviewed for how the board wants to round out uh round out that group I also share the proposal with the members of the recreation parks committee to see if they had any comments to pass on the select board and I just heard from a couple members who were in support of the concept is is what they wanted to share so I can I can pause there for any questions and could I get a drink of water anyway so um happy to any any question anything to add jane um no thank you for summarizing that erica was nice meeting last night and um thank you know we're obviously very uh looking forward to moving forward and uh with the scoping study and thank you for considering the committee structure um the community engagement piece obviously is going to be really important in this and I think the committee structure recognizes that good thank you and so any questions from the board or concerns about the committee structure my question isn't specific to the committee structure um but I won't uh I know there's a kind of a groundswell of support in the town for a community pool or town pool and I just want to make sure because it's not explicitly outlined that that will be part of this process too because I think that that's what we had discussed previously including that in this process yep yeah good question gretta um I would include any discussion for for a pool um in any any configuration as part of that programmatic discussion for a community center um yeah certainly a big question will be what what the cost would be and if there's um we we find and we we've I've heard from other folks with interest there as well so I anticipate as part of this work that'll be uh something that's explored and then the financial aspect to to come up and be drilled out in this study a little bit more as well but yeah certainly that that would be a concept and I think the part of the challenge we'll be hearing from community members with ideas and helping to have a consultant help see what's what's viable and at what scale for uh for consideration as as we go here thank you any other comments here can you remind me how much was budgeted and how much is included in this year's budget the next year's budget yep the designation was a 60 000 in our funds for this um I tried to get the best estimate I I ran this by a architect who's worked for the town of the past to give me an estimate and that's the number they provided but that was also in November so I'm not exactly sure what we'll see through the RFP process um if we do have a variance from there I'll I'll speak with the board and also look at the budget to see uh see where the the gap maybe maybe filled in and keep the board posted on this on this process if there's no other questions or comments so we'll be discussing this again to formally start the process going and uh thank you Jane thank thanks serri thank you Eric moving on to the municipal tax rate tonight is the night we have to set that and there's some good news on this and uh Eric I think you and Shirley are going to be talking about this yep I'll um I'll let Shirley take take the lead on this and as she gets set up she'll we'll be sharing the grand list was was finalized and when we um worked with the town assessor back in October November to try to predict how it was going to grow we always take a conservative estimate here so our conservative estimate was uh three quarters of one percent and uh the good news is it grew to almost two percent so that that will affect um the uh tax rate recommended for the for the board consider this evening so I'll uh I'll turn over to Shirley to to walk through the calculation here okay see here we did part of the demo so thank you Eric so um in the the town budget that was passed by the residents of Williston was thirteen million one hundred and forty eight thousand five hundred and fifty four dollars um six million five hundred twelve thousand and eighty dollars is to be funded by property taxes so as um Eric noted we um used a grand list value um of just an increase of point seven five percent um working with bill at the time we were putting the budget together the grand list value now set at two million one hundred and twenty two thousand eight hundred and seventy three I'm sorry two billion one hundred and twenty two million eight hundred and seventy three thousand three hundred and fifteen thousand following readings hearings that ended last week um the twenty twenty one grand list value used in calculating the tax rate was the two million I've just been rounded off two million eighty four thousand dollars so uh increase of thirty nine million dollars or one point eighty one point eighty percent um so based on these calculations we work back into what the revised tax rate would be and it would be point three zero six eight um as compared to the fy twenty two tax rate was point two seven two one so on a hundred thousand assessed value that becomes three hundred and six dollars and eighty cents compared to two hundred and seventy two dollars and ten cents um for fy twenty two so an increase of thirty four dollars and seventy cents on a hundred thousand of assessed value um and then the memo goes on because in the budget um process we talked about the um medium assessed value of three hundred and two thousand so um looking at those calculations that would be a hundred and five dollars a year or eight dollars and seventy five cents a month um our original projection in the budget that was passed by the taxpayers was a rate of point three oh three point three one oh four so we happily had some increase or decrease in that rate um so um in comparison one cent on the twenty twenty one grand list raise two hundred and eight thousand and change and the twenty twenty two grand list raises two hundred and twelve thousand um and change or you know increase of four thousand dollars so not not significant um then I'll just go to the the calculation I just shortened this up quite a bit from what you used to see um so basically the grand list value was um twenty one million two hundred and twenty eight thousand seven hundred and seventy three dollars looking at a tax rate so our tax rate in two pieces one for the current use and veterans exemptions and then one we just say for general governmental activities so general governmental activities was point three zero six two and then to fund the current use in the veterans exemption we needed the point zero zero six to get to a total municipal rate of point three zero six eight and that is it and the first tax bills um similar to last year we'll go out around July by or before July 15 um with the first installment due August 15 questions for Shirley sorry I'll try to be quick Shirley I'm on page two well the first one is we had pretty extensive discussions about using the fund balance uh during the budget season so I guess there's no reason to have any further discussion at this point over that well like I guess maybe I'd look to Eric for protocol here but can we change that well because it's been voted on by by the residents good question yeah right so in the past we have used fund balance at this point correct me where it's been in the budget and it is in the budget yeah Jeff the um the amount to raise by taxes was part of the warning so um we work backwards from that calculation to come up with the rate so in other words we don't have the ability to do that now no but the um the correct the amount of taxes has to match what we uh what was good good all right the term estimate for the grand list I was just trying to make sure I understood that because when we're setting the tax rate we're setting a pretty specific tax rate but we're basing it on an estimate could I mean just how may I understand that Eric asked me the same question and I looked back at the last few years but it looked back at last year and there was some there was like a $10,000 change between this calculation and the final so the form 411 is what gets filed to the state of Vermont um in July I believe it is so there was a couple more small changes that went through so I said Eric I really didn't want to say it was final because there still might be a little okay change in it so hence the word estimate but I don't think it will change so can I ask you that's a question this is for my own information what is the grand list that we ultimately would use if we could it sounds like we can't because it isn't available yet but we ultimately would use it we could when is that estimate a staff not estimate when is that value established is it like June 30th you know so we have it's going into the new fiscal year you know what I'd have to get back to you Jeff on that don't it's it's it's a very nuanced question it is but I actually don't think they the listers file the final grand list until uh November or October so it's later in the year but when they actually file the final copy to the state of Vermont and that would be and I'll verify that for you but the final grand list for fiscal year 2022 22 23 so yeah yeah we're in the year before it gets filed we're in the current tax year before the final grand list is filed okay and and Jeff the the board will see the errors and omissions in the fall and and so that that becomes the you know the final number that the education rate um that that becomes the uh the final grand list per se at that point okay right because also important is how is the education rate yeah okay my last question is quick one the veterans exemption remind me what that is sure this state allows the $10,000 veterans exemption the town of Williston offers $40,000 so it's the difference between those it's the $30,000 difference that Williston gives to veterans in addition so it's a reduction of their uh appraised value okay yeah of their appraised value yes yeah which in turn affects their the tax they uh right correct okay all right good thank you you're welcome any other questions for Shirley I'm looking for a motion then move to set the fiscal um move to set the fiscal year 2023 tax rate at 0.3068 dollars is there a second second discussion on motion thank you hearing none allows in favor of the motion say aye aye opposed thank you Shirley and thank you Eric for uh getting this taken care of well I'm sitting here Eric has um the next thing on the agenda is the um questionnaire yes and even though Mary does that if you have any questions I could answer them this is one we've seen every year you do it's uh and nothing changed from last year yeah okay look the same to me so um it looked like we're handling our finances correctly so um thank you so you all copy of this in front of you and directly any more comments for your this this is just a uh looking at our internal controls it's a it's a good um self reflection practice for the time to look at with with Mary Grant and our treasurer um preparing this uh with working with Shirley so um there isn't any uh formal motion to um approve this for the board we just asked the board um consider a motion to acknowledge receipt of uh of this uh questionnaire annually so if there are no questions on this and be looking for that motion I'll move to acknowledge receipt of the financial management questionnaire for fiscal year 2022 for a second discussion on motion if that allows in favor of the motion to say hi hi any opposed all right we can come on to the manager's report which I think thanks Gary and what well Shirley is there still hopefully I'll help her to her um I just um Aaron helped distribute the May financials to um each of your seats this evening and Shirley can walk through those for you okay sorry about the late arrival of these um so as usual highlighted are the things that have changed so um the clerk rev rev the clerk recording revenue just bringing it to your attention we had budgeted 175,000 we have 124,000 currently I estimated about 15 more thousand for June um which will bring us um under budget by about 35,000 about 25,000 of that um will be offset by passport revenue which we only had budgeted at $5,000 and is 25 almost 26,000 right now and will take more in and um in June so with the with the exception of about $10,000 those two revenue uh favorable and unvery favorable variances will offset themselves um planning and zoning revenue 131 percent of budget the only thing I added was the UVM medical center new permit or 97 9725 dollars ambulance revenue has a budget of 360 we are now at $380,000 these are only for calls from um so because the number is high and we actually for several years haven't even been at budget with ambulance revenue and we have been bringing down that budget because we haven't met it and then looked at um the number of calls the number of billable calls so July of 20 to May of 21 we had 648 billable calls July of 21 to May of 22 we've had 819 so it goes to back up everything that she's been saying about how busy they are um but even though the number of calls has substantially increased the the revenue hasn't increased because you heard Erin talk about Medicaid Medicare and so many of our um calls or have that as uh the insurance provider so our our revenue doesn't jump by the same amount um and then just gave you the receivable balances so at 531 21 the the ambulance receivable was 147,000 um at 531 22 it's at 224,000 so that has grown by 77,000 um and at the end of the year we will also look at that um all the receivables and we looked at collectability and we have a reserve against what we don't think is collectable so that will change that number a little bit um recreation revenue is now in 115 percent of budget I think a lot of that we can say is people are really have transitioned out of COVID plus it's a year-end timing thing this year in FY 22 we have two weeks of day camp revenue last year we had one um the um enrichment camps we have more of this year but there's 30 in all with 12 of them being in FY 22 so there's because we have two full weeks of camp in the current fiscal year it also affects the revenue because I do post it in the year it belongs that revenue belongs to um the other thing I wanted to just mention is that I think we brought it to your attention that we um have contract with a new collection agency for the ambulance and they've been doing a wonderful job their reporting is wonderful what a difference so that relationship is going very very well and they've done quite a bit of collections um we um placed our 2017 accounts with them we placed our 2018 accounts with them and then current um and we will probably go back and place our 2019 accounts with them um as well so they've been doing a great job and they charge us the fees are a little bit different for the older ones but um let's see now I'm going to jump over to interest in miscellaneous revenue I'm just pointing out the new piece of this is that that's going to be approximately 27,000 under budget for the year because nobody expected to enter interest rates to bottom out as they have um though we're starting to see them creep back with that 75 basis point increase last week um let's see police expenditures the only new piece of this is in the police budget we have the line for the community justice center of our support of actual expenses above um what the grant from the DOC provides so the budget is set at 16 error I'm sorry I didn't even write down the budget is set at $12,000 and we're looking at support to the tune of 28,000 so possibly 16,000 over budget so just the best projection for now um and then I'm going to move over to page three water sewer and storm water um water water maintenance we've been watching that through the winter and I I think Bruce may disagree with me what this point in the year and I looked into June as well and that 39 percent of budget is really coming from the fact that the week was very kind to us that we didn't have any major um water breaks um which also affects the main repair and maintenance so both of those things will be under budget for the year so we'll have a favorable variance to budget right now when you look at the water bond and principal payments that 43 percent of the budget the reason why is our share of the debt to the water district is paid in June and that's 55 that's and so it'll essentially be right on budget um at year end um and the same thing for the sewer pump station debt um is um less than budget right now but the final payment which is like 47,000 is for the industrial avenue pump station and also was made in June already so that puts us right on budget um sewer outside services um we have talked about the first part of that Senate's before because of passive billing and uh we'll only have two quarters um of which will be January through June of 22 in 22 but part of that is going to be offset by an increase in legal fees we had a budget of $500 and we'll be over by about 6,000 just a variety of issues that came up within the sewer department um you know part of it is legal related to the um new contracts with the um tri-town agreement that's just other minor issues that have come up and that is it just thank you any questions for surely you know thank you good thanks a lot okay thank you Eric we're back to you okay thanks Shirley um let's see just follow up on email I sent the board um for folks watching the repairs have started on the Talcutt Road culverts um issue that we were experiencing with the partial road closure so um thankfully we believe this the road should be opened in a couple of weeks here they started work on Friday and we should hopefully have that before uh by early July um for that repair um you'll you'll notice the blue rectangle behind Gordon and Greta on the wall so this is where we're thinking about as we continue to look at our hybrid meeting setups um any potential additional equipment for the for the town to purchase um so we thanks to Aaron for putting that rectangle on the wall that is what a 75 inch television screen would look like so I wanted to pose it to the select board before making any changes to the room if the board be interested in a type of screen like that on the wall in the meeting room to to be used to share um we would put it on a mounting bracket to come out and tilt for folks in the audience to um to see presentations um and and folks commenting on the hybrid meeting structure and it could also be used by the board as a larger screen to to be presentations we may need to finally want to put one on the other wall at some point as well but um before I made we purchased anything or made any changes I wanted to get the board's feedback on putting any type of additional screen in the room um there is some room in the FY 22 uh select board budget so we could consider a purchase before the end of the month or we can always wait and and just think about this more as we go so we wanted to see the board at any any thoughts on that this evening and we can certainly wait to discuss this more in the future as well. Totally in support I for some reason tonight I was thinking as we were having that presentation on the uh CUD and nobody in the audience could see the presentation unless they had a laptop with them and so I I really like the idea of the audience being able to see what we see um during the meetings and when the soccer world cup comes around pops and pops connections to uh from uh over there is that the dual one without okay yeah I support that I same note I many times I was particularly apparent to me the day that the AP Trayton did their presentation and we had all the the firefighters in the audience and they were all crowded around Shirley's laptop trying to to watch the presentation and so um I think this will only increase our accessibility um and encourage involvement from community members um when they're here so I think that's great. I think that's a really good question though about when it's mounted will the wires just hang down or will you you'll put them in the wall because I think that's important the aesthetics of this room actually is important um so you know the professional install where we aren't seeing you know the cables hanging down would I I think that would be kind of important. And we're going to be looking to at um you know substantial it's a smart tv and then just kind of the audio I know you're hearing me from a speaker on the floor right now in the room um and just kind of what that you know Bluetooth audio and the acoustics and I think we we've learned the last couple years with the the change in public participation in governance and and access and having department heads and folks join us remotely in the flexibility that that provides um trying to upgrade our our meeting room with additional hardware and tools to just make that experience better for people on both ends so um it's a it's a potential ARPA project for some additional hardware that working with staff on to to see what that may may be for the board to consider as as some other purchases later this year as well. So we will sounds like we we will work to get the television in here so thank you um and I after a two-year hiatus to return to the town tv show what's up Lilliston last week I filmed the return episode season three so I was able to just sit down with we did some zoom using zoom for that too now which is nice I went to the studio to film it live at 525 um we had a good interview with captain prescott natto of the fire department to go through um the training academy that that he led for our new fire firefighters and then I spoke with bonnie lord our youth services librarian in a preview summer reading chatting with jane today the summer reading kickoff on a cold rainy saturday had I think um 85 young people and 100 parents at the library lawn so it was a it was a very well attended summer reading event and I won't say they heard about all on what's up willis then but maybe a couple people did so that's back and then um one brief thing to share um debbie ingram served as our ccrpc alternate for a number of years she had expressed to me she um this has a lot on her plate and was not looking to be reappointed as the alternate um I've served in that role in the primarily for a period of time um I'm certainly willing to serve as the alternate um or if the board wants to advertise the alternate to the community I'm happy to do that as well but uh the board had any feedback on that um I could either advertise or consider an action item to fill that alternate seat next meeting I think it would probably be good to advertise it if we don't get any results of that so we'd be pleased to have you as the alternate but looking down the road uh to replace the current person serving if they decide not to um to continue it would be nice to have somebody waiting in the wings but if we don't get anybody we don't get anybody but so sounds good terry we'll we'll post that one and I know we have a number of openings and trying to encourage folks to to apply right now so we'll we'll add that to the list yeah it would be nice to get more people who takes the some of the positions that we have yeah so eric you moved off of the uh top cut road culvert before I could ask a question not your oh sorry yeah what is the price on that yep um I I got the final price today of the 112,000 okay and that's going to come out of the stormwater budget if I remember correctly yep it is I I check with Bruce um all color repairs we have a line item in in that budget um and with something like this with an emergency repair um we'll see where we end up for FY 22 but if we needed to use fund balance to cover that cost um the share of the board during the budget process we've we've got a good fund balance for for these unperceived circumstances right now yeah when if we did the muddy brook crossing on a shunt bike there was a question of whether that was a culvert or bridge yeah that this is really a culvert I assume yeah I thought of that Jeff and yeah this is uh this is that that pipe in the ground that that um yeah it's definitely I can I can say it's a culer which that's makes it appropriate to find under the storm water anything else sir uh nope that'll do it for this evening and I I hope to be uh back at the next meeting here thanks for uh hopefully the audio was good enough to hear me this evening so thank you a lot better oh thank you keep drinking the water other business are there any catering permits I forgot to ask you uh nope Aaron did anything come in today I didn't see anything okay nope nothing for this one any other business that people would like to talk about tonight all right then we are adjourned thank you all