 We'll call to order the regular select board. First up is public comment. This is anything that's not on the agenda. I'd like to say that there's someone who's attending the meeting by phone who's not muted and is making some distracting noises if that person might need themselves. It's 4315640. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Tamara? I'm just here for the update but the library is doing where has been doing in the last month or so. The grant will be talked about later on. That's on the agenda. But some of the federal COVID related and economy related funding for public libraries is coming down the pike and there was a web seminar meeting today that Amy Grasmick, the director went to. And there are kind of two streams, one to the Vermont Department of Libraries to disperse grants to libraries and to municipalities for capital projects. And we'd really like to be at the table for when the town is making decisions about spending priorities. We have a long list of capital projects that might be done because it's an old building that we have. Building America's Libraries Act is a work against the way through Congress now and Bernie Sanders had a round table discussion with Vermont Public Libraries today to discuss how the libraries might serve communities going forward. We are planning for summer services especially to youth who are gonna be out of school. We had a great showing for our People's Choice Awards. If anybody went by the library on Saturday. There were a whole bunch of peeps dioramas that were adorable based on books the kids had read. There was the Grandma Moses exhibit of public people who would take a piece of, it was very much like the Sira exhibit at Bell Main's this winter where everyone would contribute a piece of the art and it would be blown up. And it just, it was really nice to see. And then we're going to be having a free little art gallery put up by the ramp. And that should be in the next month or so that should be available for people to bring art to and to take art from. And I would say we've got a new awning being installed at the side door on 416 which I think we'll be welcome to those people who are needing to take the side door in. It makes it more accessible. It makes it more comfortable. And that's what I have. If anybody has any questions I'd be happy to answer them. Who's there liaison to the Capital Budget Committee? Is that you Pat? Yep. Could you take the list of projects that libraries has to that committee and see which ones they feel the town would be supportive of to push for these grants, maybe and put them in priority order, working with libraries? Yeah, if somebody can get that to me, yeah. Okay. Any other questions for libraries? If not, we'll move to approval of the agenda. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. If I can ask the board to consider one addition to under grants, it's just a grant in aid grant that was extended by a year, but the board had only previously accepted the three years as opposed to the four years. And we're hoping that the board can accept the fourth year that was added to our grant. Do we also need to add this VCDP grant for childcare? No, we have it on the agenda under new business. Yeah. Got it. Instead of grants. Tony, I'd like to also add one item, which would be about the town's pension system either tonight or next month. I have some discussion. This is Holly Sanders. I'd like to go back to the library granting. I chair the Capital Budget Committee. Anything that you want to transmit to us, we'd be happy to look at. Thanks, Holly. Pat, I think we can add it to next month's agenda if you want to get the information together that you want us to look at. What I wanted was a brief discussion and then see what we want to do, what information we want. Maybe add under other business. We might get Trevor involved in. Add that under other business, Pat. Is that what you're looking for? Sure. Move, we approve the revised agenda. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? I didn't see any positions. Consent calendar. This is meeting minutes, warrants and cemetery plot sales. I'll move, we approve the consent calendar. Second that. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. New business briefing on the town finances and investments. And the board we've got on the call, our finance director Cliff, who is going to provide a general briefing on where we are financially to the board. And we also have a representative from our investment bank that will provide a general briefing for the request of the select board. Yeah, Clay Bell is with us from Infinext. They're an arm of Northfield Savings Bank who handles our investments. I'm going to turn it over to him to talk about the investments. And then I'll give my briefing on the finances at the time. Okay, great. Thanks, Cliff. Hi, everybody. Clay Bell, Northfield Savings Bank. I'm a resident of Barry in a lifelong Vermont. Getting my COVID shot on Sunday. So looking forward to that. Hope everybody's well. I'd be happy to answer any questions I put together a presentation for everybody. If you can just bear with me here for just a second, I'm going to see if I can share my screen. I see it says host disabled participant screen sharing. Let's see, I could see if I could. I can, I mean, I can always run through the numbers too, but I'm not sure how I would be able to allow you to do it and not allow everyone else to do it, Clay. Sorry, I didn't know the answer would be doing a presentation. Okay, oh, I just, I was just going to show you to go through some numbers. I'll go over the numbers here on a high level and then follow up with any questions. So essentially, we took over these accounts April 2nd, 2019. And just to kind of give you numbers, money in has been 2.6 million. Today, the total value of all the accounts together is just a shade under 3 million. That's 2.98. For a total growth of 385,000, which equates to an annual yield of 7.84. We have a, we have a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds, all within mutual funds. We have a good cash position as well. I think that the true litmus test was a little over a year ago when we had, when we're in the height of the COVID pandemic, you know, this portfolio with the NASDAQ being down and the S&P being down 30% there through February and March, this portfolio was not quite down 7%. So it's done really well. It's a portfolio where we don't participate a whole lot in the downside and we participate up to 50% on the upside. So we have a nice portfolio. I think always a hot button as well is the fees and expenses. We don't have any overlaying management expenses. The overall expenses of the total portfolio is south of three quarters of 1%. So, you know, we manage this efficiently, cost efficiently and, you know, the performances has done extremely well. Didn't know if, I kind of summarized everything together. There's many different accounts. You know, we have the highway funds, the grant prior funds, landfill, you know, funds. So there's many different funds, but I put them all together here for the presentation. Thank you, Clay. I think the board was just mostly interested in a general overview to ensure that, you know, we didn't go from a million dollars to 20 bucks. So. Yeah, that definitely, that definitely didn't happen. You didn't invest in any Bitcoin for us? What's up with that? Yeah, yeah, we'll make a shift that, you know, Cliff will probably fall out of his chair if I told him we're thinking about Bitcoin, but yeah, no Bitcoin. No Bitcoin. Well, that overview sounds really great. It sounds like you have a lot more detail that is easily at your disposal to share. And so maybe we don't need to do that here at the meeting, but perhaps you can share that with Adolfo and he can then distribute it to the board sometime coming days. Okay, sure. I'll do that. I'll follow up and send that off. And I'd love to see that. So thank you. Great. I have one question, Clay. Do we have fossil fuel investments? Do we have fossil fuel there? I'm sure that there is within the funds. So the short answer would be yes, as far as what percentage I'd have to get under the hood a little bit more and look. You could answer that for us if we wanted to. Yeah, absolutely. I'd be interested in that. Okay. Any other questions for Clay? Thanks, Clay. Okay. Thank you very much. Next is the state evolving loan funds updated agreement. Trini, I just got a couple of things I want to go over before you move on. Okay. I just wanted to talk a little bit about our tax collections. Last year we were pretty concerned about what COVID was doing to our tax collections. We're about $60,000 ahead of where we were last year and money continues to come in since the tax deadline passed on March 31. So we've collected about another 70,000 since March 31. So we're still tracking about 30,000 ahead of last year and some of its timing. My guess is we're going to end the fiscal year at June 30 about the same place as we were last year and then we'll start our collection proceedings. On our utility side, it's been an interesting thing because the amount that we have in the overdue columns has migrated downward. We're usually in the 15 to 20,000 out past 30 days. We're down to about 10 to 11,000 right now. I think that's a pretty good thing. It seems that the stimulus money coming out of the federal government for everybody on an individual level has helped our delinquencies. I know that a lot of people are saying that they've gotten their stimulus checks and they're paying their bills with them. The other thing that I want to share is we are moving in investigating credit card payment, accepting credit card payments. I'm leaning to, eventually going to recommend that we go with a company called Munisipay. I reached out to four different companies and they're the only ones that responded. They gave me a demo online. It's really easy to use. The users pay the fees that are associated with the cards and there's a minimum fee for card use of $1.50 or 2.65% of the transaction, whichever is greater. So I hope to have a recommendation for the board next month. What other question about that? Yes, Perry. Is that going to be utilized for water sewer bills and tax payments? Yes, and we hope to be able to accept it for recreation department payments. Okay, so I mean, all those things across the board that you're taking money in from, you're hoping this system will give those users the ability to pay online and I think there was a lot of stuff floating around in front porch form a couple of months ago about this. So I'm hoping this is going to address that. While we've headed into works before the front porch forum discussion, it's just taken us a while to get there. Okay, great. Thanks. I think that's great that we can say we're working on it. Any other questions? Seeing none. Thanks, Cliff. Okay, thanks for the time. All right, state revolving loan fund updated agreement. The state has recently pulled together two separate loans that have been issued to the town. One was issued about three and a half years ago. Most recent loan was issued earlier this year and these loans are for the reservoir and well project. Rather than have two separate agreements, one for each loan, the state has asked us to accept a new agreement for both loans combined for a new total and that's the purpose for this item being on the agenda. So unless there were any objections, we'd love to have the board approve the new agreement so we can sign it and combine both loans into one agreement. I'll move to approve the new loan agreement. A second. Wait, before we... Go ahead, Larry. I'm just looking at the numbers. Is it just one of them says 221 and then the other says 220. Is the 221 number the proper number then Adolfo? It is, it's 221, it was a slip of hand when I was typing the sheet. So it's a total of $300,000. Okay, 320. 320, 320, I'm sorry. With the 221, it's 320. Okay. This will get paid back by however we fund the reservoir and wells, right? That's right. And it's all included in the total proposed amount for the project. So this is all not extra money. It's all already included in the total amounts. Any other discussion? Hearing none. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. There he goes. Thank you. Local hazard mitigation plan, five-year renewal. So the town is finally received. Well, let me start over. The select board had previously voted to approve our draft local hazard mitigation plan to submit to Vermont Emergency Management for approval. Vermont Emergency Management reviewed our plan, approved the plan and now requires the select board to essentially accept the fully approved renewal so that we can then go back to Vermont Emergency Management and say, the select board has approved the approved local hazard mitigation plan. I'll move that we approve the plan. Second that. Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Post. Motion carries. Go outdoor dining. In your packet, you should have a proposed outdoor dining area proposed by Taco Cat Contina. Josh has been working with Jennifer Bird from Taco Cat Contina. And then also Taco Cat Contina has been working with Black Creme Tavern for how to best use the new outdoor space once it's fully finished and maintain ADA compliance on merchant's row. In your packet is just an initial proposal by Taco Cat on how the seats would be arranged on the new sidewalk area that's being created outside of the current sidewalk space that exists in front of both restaurants. So Delfall, these would not be dedicated to any one restaurant? The select board can approve to say the area in front of Taco Cat Contina can be for that restaurant. The space closest to Black Creme's new area could be dedicated to Black Creme. So it really is up to the select board if it wants to split that space into two or make it a general, anyone can sit in these areas. So just general picnic tables where anyone can sit. And in dying. I struggle to let one restaurant have all the space just because it happens to be in front of them where we just did this project that creates more space. But if I remember correctly, when we were trying to give them space during COVID, we had to dedicate space for them to serve alcohol. It has to, yeah, Trini are correct. It has to be a defined area for each location so that if there is a complaint, someone can point to a designated zone and say, this is where I saw a violation and then report it to state linker control office. So there does have to be either a buffer zone or a clear boundary between seating areas from one restaurant to another. Or it's no alcohol. Or it's no alcohol. And both do provide alcohol. They can have designated seating areas but it doesn't have to be determined by the select board where those lines are, right? We could leave it up to them to work this out. And if they felt like they couldn't, then it could come back to us. That is correct. I believe for their outdoor dining permit, if they're serving alcohol, it has to be outlined on the approved permit for them to serve alcohol there. Cause we have to show where they got barriers between where they can serve alcohol where they can't serve alcohol. Or this is where we got into the mess with the chains on Main Street from Main. So I think we do have to approve that location whether it's tonight or not. I don't think it has to be tonight but somehow we got to approve it cause it has to be a map area on their outdoor consumption permit. Right. Trini, if it's helpful. I'm sorry, go ahead, Perry. I was going to say maybe Josh can weigh on in this. I had a conversation with Sarah here a couple of weeks ago when I knew this was coming down the pike. So it sounded to me and maybe Josh has got a little more information about this but it sounded like both parties had worked out what would work for them. And so we'll let Josh speak to that if he's got some info. Yeah. It sounds like Jennifer and Sarah had been communicating and they were in agreement that there would be a buffer between the locations. Taco Cat would take primarily the space that's in front of their location. I think we asked both of them to provide us a map but only Taco Cat did provide us a map if I'm correct at all. Yes, I haven't received anything from Black Crimp. But yes, they have been communicating with one another and they were in agreement of where their locations would be and I don't think either one of them had really fully decided where the tables would be but at least the barriers of what space they would be able to access with a buffer between them. I think part of that situation was it's one thing to put it on a plan on paper but it's a lot easier to figure this out once you actually see the physical space. And I know that both of them were addressing the needs of the computer store in the middle. So I'm pretty comfortable that they'll take and do this correctly. So I don't think we'll have to intervene as mediators. So I'm okay with moving this along. So... The problem is Perry, we've got to actually have the map in front of us and approve it because it has to go with their outdoor consumption permits. Yeah, I'm fine with that. I mean, we could do the Taco Cat tonight and Sarah could submit her plan next month. Or we could approve the use of it contingent on them submitting a plan to Josh that works. Yeah, I mean, that could work too. Yeah. What specifically do they need to show on a map for it to be approved? I think we have to... Other than the border that they've shown where the tables are gonna be. Well, I think Taco Cat's good. I think Sarah needs to get a plan together. I think it's more about the boundary not necessarily the table placement. Yeah, for the alcohol permit, Josh, they have to talk about what they're going to use as a barrier. So I remember when one main first started, they were gonna use some type of marking on the sidewalk and liquor control said, no, no, no, no, no. That's not enough. It's gotta actually be something that people have to stop. They can't walk into the area and you've got beer in there. So they wanted something and they came up with those chains that they didn't get any. My experience with that has been, it just needs to be something like, a movable post with a chain on it just so there's a designated area. Yep, it just has to be something that segregates. So we approved the outdoor consumption permit a few minutes ago. Those did not have any maps with that. No, but they need them before they can go up, they need them. Liquor control, throw them out. And I think this one that we have here, I think they're good if this map went in, as long as it discusses somewhere what they're gonna use to create that barrier, I think they're good to go. Black Crim's not good to go, but they just, as long as both of them submit the information to Josh and he's good with it, that it's not gonna impact neighboring businesses. I'm good with it. If it's helpful, we can reach out to Sarah tomorrow and just present her with the layout that Taco Cat submitted and say, okay, use your planters from last year that they use in the in the parklet area on the side or on the parking area. We can draw boxes between the two seating areas and say these are planters, clear barriers between two restaurants and even like another five foot buffer. And then just maybe have Sarah initial to say, yes, that's Black Crim's area and this is Taco Cat Continas area. Then we could submit a photocopy of each with each outdoor consumption application to the state. I think we can absolutely do that as early as tomorrow, even over the weekend. Yeah, I think that's easy. And right now, those guys were putting the curbing in today so it should be pretty clear as to what the space is gonna measure out to be and how easily it should be to make it. So I'm fine with moving that along and letting her or Sarah get that to Josh and I've seen no issues with this. Was that a motion, Perry? Yeah, it's a motion. I'll second that. Motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Pat, you're muted. Next up is Beanville Road Culvert Project and a guardrail add-on. Is that on your road? Yeah. The contractor has been working with me and with V-Trans since the award of the project. We have learned that the guardrail that's on site may be reused. But we've also been advised that it's probably best that we, since we are replacing the guardrail, I'm sorry, the culvert, that it's best to also replace the guardrail so that they're both new and they both have the start life. At this point, it's more of an aesthetics the way it was described to me by V-Trans and our contractor and also our engineering company that it would look like an old guardrail with a new road surface on top. So it looked a little weird. We can keep it and save the $14,000 or replace it and then have everything new starting now with a new life expectancy for both. So Adelpa, when Chris called for that conversation, did, was there any conversation with him about how much V-Trans would kick in for the aesthetics? No, they did not. They did mention unrelated to the guardrail that they had previously bumped up our grant amount from it was I think 157 to the current 175. So they've been using that card for the better part of the last year, but yeah, they didn't say anything about the guardrail. I mean, it'll be nice to have something that'll look nice, but I mean, $14,000 is still $14,000. And I think I can think of other things. I'd rather spend $14,000 on then beautify the guardrail. That's my first take on this. You buy a lot of paint for 14 grand. That's true. However, there are many municipal grants that leave remnants of money on the table. So if there's four or five of them that total $14,000 and we can scarf it up, I'm on it. Okay, you're on it. I will make that call. Good. You go right after that. That's your department. So maybe the approval is to go with new guardrail if we can get grant funds that cover it. If not, we'll paint it. Okay. Sounds like a good idea to me. See what I can. So was that emotion somebody? Sure. That's me. I move it. We do exactly what Trini said. It's on you, Trini. This one's easy. That's right. Motion to second. All those in favor. Hi. Opposed. Motion carries. Briefing on the designated downtown program. I saw Julie on here. I'm here. Yeah. Thanks. And listening in on all the. Fun stuff going on. Hi, everybody. Hi, everybody. So I sent you a letter. I'll just have, you know, some of the highlights and there's a couple of new things going on that. I thought I'd bring up as well. I'm trying to take too much time. So obviously last year was kind of difficult one for the plans that we had made the previous year for the downtown. So events pretty much were eliminated. And instead. We were able to, you know, We've regrouped to respond to some of the stimulus issues. And we were able to, as you know, do the restart Vermont stimulus grant with the town and to get some of these Randolph bucks and bonus bucks out into the community. So there are some stats about what happened with that. It went pretty well. I think considering the speed at which we had to unveil some of these things. So, you know, I think that some of the vendors felt about it. How, how some of the people use them felt about it and whether something like this in the future. Might be good for the community, either periodically or as a general rule. So we'll keep you posted on that. As you know, the. The public health system is still going on. We're still putting out messages about COVID, but we are starting to begin to pivot. We have a consultant who is offering pro bono services. To help us understand how best to turn this. Emergency response into a longterm community. Aid network that can respond to any and all future emergencies. So that is, we are still responding to requests. anticipate that that will continue at least for a while while while the pandemic sort of tapers but we have also had requests now starting to come in from sort of average emergencies or regular emergencies or areas where there just isn't any aid other than and this so if if the town's been involved in this project all along and we'd love to continue to have that involvement help us decide you know where those efforts should go we also with the town applied for two grants a better places that involve Chandler which I'll talk about in a little while and then the better connections grant to fund the downtown master plan we were not awarded that grant but I understand other options and opportunities are coming and I think a downtown planning effort especially one that connects the downtown to some of the trail systems and other outside the downtown sort of you know opportunities for recreation or other things would be a great thing to to do to sort of dovetail some of these things that are are bringing people to the community so I'm hoping that we get another crack at that and then another opportunity comes along so we are planning to you have an idea for us a spring or late spring early summer events now that it looks like the COVID restrictions are easing and we can begin to dream again and we are again working with the elimination collective that did our downtown the illuminated forest festival a couple years ago which we had planned again last year and so we hope to do at least two events this year if possible and to potentially as I understand the the arts and culture committee is also working on something that we might want to talk to them about working together on one of those events so I will be reaching out to them as well in some other news we also have been deferring some of the loans to some of the principally retail or or newer loan business revaling loan fund borrowers who are still having some issues keeping up due to closures and we're trying to respond whenever someone expresses a need there we did secure a $15,000 grant for CAD models to assist them in their east Randolph location to get that in better shape and then I wanted to talk about quickly about a couple of bigger projects one is the Randolph has project which is in the downtown we are anticipating that we are going to be able to finish our funding in this June round of state federal tax credits and to begin that project in the ground hopefully by the fall we did as you probably heard talk with Chandler about the possibility of them putting an outdoor event shell or some temporary and then permanent or semi-permanent structure and we have vetted this with our board with our development team with our attorneys and it does seem to be something that we could accommodate we didn't get the better places grant but this might be something that we could find other funds for down the road so we're keeping that option open we're certainly open to it and think it would be a sort of a great use of that back lawn provided that you know the devil's in the details and we don't have any details but we've got sketches and so far everyone we have talked to about it from the housing funders to the attorneys to the board all things it's a great idea to continue to think about going down the road so we'd love to work with folks about that too and then finally I wanted to just update you may I think seeing of the circular that a CCD is sharing with the legislature about the housing funds that are coming and their recommendations for some more flexible funding that some of that state money is put to and Salisbury Square was highlighted in that brochure that they put out to the legislature so the things are starting to pick up there we have also received a grant from the V light foundation to incorporate to do some planning around incorporating a pretty unique feature into this development which is a microgrid since all of the new homes and rentals are anticipated to be net zero buildings all electrical and energy generating solar buildings and car ports the concept of a microgrid would enable us to essentially have a resilient community that had its own backup power in case of emergency and reduce the grid jaw under normal circumstances so we are eager to see the results of that initial feasibility which will is ongoing now and shouldn't take more than a two to three month period and hopefully to build to work with our partners to build that into the development to you know just have another kind of unique feature to this so we are moving ahead with the fundraising starting with grants applications this June and wanted to also start to talk with the town about the timing for the VCDP from a development program grant schedule because that is one of the funding sources that we are targeting for a piece of the funding for that project so we may be time to sort of talk in more detail have another sort of team meeting group meeting about where we stand with that and what the next steps are and what other measures we have to take to the town about roads and permits and things like that but I wanted to just tell you where we were with that and obviously with the housing money that is scheduled or anticipated to come from state and federal sources now we are looking at multiple options and thinking that you know this is likely going to accelerate with Salisbury and other projects so looking forward to working with the town on that and also planning for what housing we need to do some little inventorying and a little planning around the future of that Randolph House benefited from a pretty large downtown tax credit award as well so so that project that program is also paying off dividends to some of these larger projects so with that I don't know if anyone has any specific questions but so I covered a lot of territory in a very short time so does anybody have any questions on the downtown designation program which was the actual topic okay thank you Julie hold on wait a minute so Julie what did you get on the radar going forward for that downtown designation thing and we've got some we're talking about some events any other grant possibilities you know for that program are there any projects that we need to be looking at to put on put in your radar screens that we could work on yeah I mean I think we need to have a pow-wow about what's on everybody's radar I know we had talked at one point about you know and we didn't have something ready for March for the downtown you know the next grant after the the sidewalk bumpouts are going to be done now there's the downtown transportation grant we had sort of thought about making Prince Street a target for that and and since there may be more you know there there may be more coming they may be enhancements to that grant program too we should definitely keep our eyes out but again you know the planning ahead I think we could get back on a regular quarterly schedule of meetings and start planning ahead for some of these grants we can keep an eye out and really you know it's you're at a disadvantage if you don't have things lined up and far enough along so that it's not you know a herculean jump to create you know a little design sketch or something which we're all we always seem to be doing on the fly so the better we can be about anticipating like start talking now about the next March and also also start talking about things we wanted you just because we don't really know yet and the funders don't really know yet in many cases what's coming so if we have ideas there's a possibility of us shaping what's coming or or helping you know them look for us for some projects that we might want to do that are are bigger and princely so we're talking about a sidewalk but print streets in rough shape on a lot of levels so if there's you know something we can do to plan you know for the development of sidewalks and the development of you know some other essential features like I think there's a hydrant issue down there and things and and maybe a trail along the river there I mean we may want to that's with the downtown master planning process would be great to be able to start doing some of this but also I think if we can start just identifying those areas that we no need help and start like putting together a little wish list and then little plans around those wish lists we talked to been talking to Mary Richter about some beautification sort of you know very low-hanging fruit beautification this year but really thinking about also longer term infrastructure and and you know facade improvement and the things that will really perk up the downtown as well and working with the building owners and the vendors but that's going to require some more I think you know joints collaborative meetings around that and I'd I'd like to start those you know right away so I'm not sure but but I think we've got to get the town and our CDC working together to identify those things and and you know decide who does what to get it to the next step yeah I totally agree I think there's you know there's some groups that you could probably entertain and you could brainstorm and come up with some projects I know that if your Salisbury Square situation comes to light you know a sidewalk down through there is going to be needed absolutely gonna take a little planning it's going to take a little a little bit of work to get that done so so yeah there's a bunch of things I think on the table that now that we can start hopefully getting back together in a couple months here you nice to be able to sit down and hash out some ideas well things like that sidewalk Perry can be included right in the grant yeah well that's the thing I mean it's like what can and what can after right right exactly and that's that's kind of where you know I'd love to know what you know what we think we can attach to a different grant versus this this particular transportation grant or something like that so you've got a number of different committees here that I think are heavily engaged enough in the downtown you know beautification process the arts and culture committee you got the economic development committee so the focus on the village is there we just need to get together and start figuring out what what's next here you know what can we what can we what's needed kind of like what we did with merchants row yeah exactly so I you know at the risk of adding a meeting to people's plates but maybe we could start small with just like a maybe just you know meeting a few people Josh me a couple other people just to talk about okay how do we want to attack this in terms of like who meets with whom on what on what level and then as things as we start to identify things that want to do then we can bring in other groups for specific things that rather than bringing everybody in for everything it might be more efficient but open to suggestions I just think we should start sooner rather than later yeah I agree any other questions or comments on the downtown designation not seeing any right let's move on to the townwide reappraisal in the office of the Lister's thanks folks by now the Lister's office has been working on commencing their townwide reappraisal process the Lister's released an RFP recently in search of a firm to actually perform the reappraisal in their effort to create the RFP and speak with firms that are potential bidders they've learned that it's going to take several years to actually perform this reappraisal so even if they have bids that are submitted this year and the Lister's office reviews them and accepts a bid they have been notified that it will likely take roughly about three years before the process in Randolph can commence so they're that far out so this was just an opportunity that the Lister's wanted me to take to share with you that they are releasing an RP or have released an RP or in the process of starting this multi-year process so Adolfo who has the authority to do the townwide reappraisal is it the select board or is it the Lister's well it's a bit of a mixed bag like like most things the select board has the authority to has it's a select board is the only body that has the authority to spend money in reserve funds so even though the Lister's put out an RFP and the select board does not approve the use of funds there's no way that we can pay for the work the Lister's as an independent body can commence the process to start the reappraisal but again they can't pay for it because they can't vote to release funds from the reserve account so it's it's a mixed bag one can't do it without the other so it's kind of premature to have released an RFP or are they just looking to see what it might cost which is more like an RFP well they put out an RFP and you know I don't know where they are now in terms of whether they've accepted bids or not I'd have to go back and speak with with our Lister's but the RFPs for my understanding is is out already Trini I think they're they're doing kind of exploratory to see who's available at what time and get an idea on prices and so forth so it's not really an RFP it's an RFQ looking for quotes what it might cost someday I think you're correct Trini I think that the document is titled RFP but it is more of probably requesting information on how to proceed been titled different and so this item is on here just to let us know they released it that's right okay anybody have any questions seeing none dog license renewal deadline is just to ratify the vote we took the other day to waive fees through Monday yes that's right through Monday April 5th I'll make that motion second all those in favor all aye motion carries bcdp planning grant resolution on the hearing that we had at the start of the night after we readjusted if the board is interested in authorizing count staff to apply for this grant it would have to vote to accept or vote to approve the resolution then staff can then fill in the blanks and submit it along with our application I'll make that motion all those in favor aye motion carries municipal civil citation appointees so we have we've had many conversations internally on how to ensure that our policies have the teeth that they need to have people who let's say for example people who have properties that have junk on them that they actually do something to fix the issue without forcing the town to go from zero to 60 and taking somebody to court and in the process we learned that we do have staff that are authorized to issue tickets at the moment what we would like to ask the select board to authorize that other staff members are also authorized to issue municipal citations and one of those being Chris chambers are water superintendent and wastewater superintendent so if there's a violation he can write a ticket and present it to this person and say you know you violated the ordinance and you didn't fix it here's your ticket now fix it or we can issue another citation this conversation to expand the number of people that are authorized to issue these citations really really started with the current issue that we're facing with a resident to constructed his own internal water system to bypass the water meter in his home essentially stealing water from the town this has been an ongoing issue we are in court with this person at the moment but it probably wouldn't have gone to this point if we were able to issue tickets beforehand and then really force the person to not steal water so if the board is is open to it we would like to expand the current list of folks that can issue citations to include Josh Jerome who is our zoning administrator so he can issue zoning tickets and then also Chris chambers are water superintendent so that he can issue water and wastewater and then also include our new incoming town manager Trevor Flashua so that he could also potentially so are there other areas that we need to be issuing citations like dogs and things like that or is that going to be falling on Trevor's shoulders no Milo is currently authorized to issue citations are animal officer so she already has the authority to do that good okay currently I am also on the list so I can issue citations but times wouldn't be much help in the near future yeah okay I mean I can issue them but yeah well maybe if that citation seminar comes up you know Delpho we should probably send somebody to that one yes yeah yeah yeah and with Perry makes a good point with the approval the approval would have to we would require anyone who is approved to issue these citations to go through the proper training so it's not just giving some of the authority to issue tickets but also the authority pending the proper training for issuing citations and even though if the board does authorize the staff members to issue approval we typically speak about the violations internally first so it's not just a first recourse of issuing a citation it's usually sending letters to the property owners asking them to comply they have seven days to cure the issue or at the very least respond to staff to tell us why they can't do it right now but are working toward it these citations are really for the folks that don't call us they bury the head in the sand they take the issue even further and then steal water so we've been making a motion right now to allow these three individuals to issue citations under this what the acknowledgement that they'd be undergoing this training if the board would want to do it now we can if it wanted more information we could certainly you know it's up to the board it could table it we could come back the next meeting and provide more specific information Delpho would these citations that we're issuing are our policies and what not very clear or are we going to end up in a swamp of legal battle I just want to make sure that they're black and white that what we're asking these people to issue citations on are black and white as much as they can be before we send it out there for interpretation or you know so that they're everybody's treated the same when they have an infraction or they're they're out there addressing something they they citations are currently how to issue a citation are currently in both the zoning ordinances and then also in the on the water ordinance when we recently issued a citation for a water violation we consulted with our attorney to make sure that one we could issue the citation for this particular type of issue our attorney confirmed that we could so we issued the violation and it came from the water department however however our attorney then looked into it further and then found that the citation that we had issued was not valid because the person that issued the citation was not an authorized person to issue citations so the act of issuing the ticket was valid and within our ordinance however the ticket was thrown out because the person that issued the citation was not authorized to issue it and I'm good with appointing folks as long as what they're having to issue we've got them covered yeah can I just add a little bit you know we had this conversation last night's planning commission meeting so you know we in the planning commission asked josh to kind of just run that run run our you know our documents for land use regulations just by vlc or the attorney just to kind of get a feel to make sure we didn't have any holes in that system so pc is looking at that kind of stuff right now this is one of the Perry's right josh has been working with the pc on this we did use municipal citations over 10 years ago with a property on Dudley street um the citations that were issued to that property were I believe it was $200 daily until they cured the issue which brought the total cost that they owed to the town upwards of you know 15 I think it was $15,000 to $20,000 and that amount was upheld in court but it it was only possible because our then enforcement officer Marty was an authorized person to issue citations if she had not been authorized all of those tickets would have been thrown out so it is currently in our in our zoning ordinance and then also in our water ordinance we just don't have the appropriate people authorized to issue tickets do we have to issue the authority by name or can we issue it by position that's a good question I don't know we had only spoken with um our attorney about specific people who occupy the position helpful can I speak to that yeah it was the judicial bureau that threw out the ticket that Chris wrote and they said that you have to be registered with the judicial bureau so it needs to be an individual even even though Chris's position is named in the water ordinance as being authorized to issue the ticket it has to be a named person so that they're in their system so what we're looking for is for the select board to authorize a specific person to be registered with the bureau yes that is correct anybody have any questions concerns motions well it sounds like something that we need I've moved to authorize the how do we say this the specific people the specific individuals so Chris Chris chambers Trevor Lashua and um and Josh Jerome to be able to issue the civil citations what's second that oh thank goodness Trevor was hoping motion and a second all those in favor all right I opposed motion carries arts and culture committee fundraising fiduciary account do you want it Tom you want to go ahead sure this is just a request to authorize the town manager to disperse funds from the fiduciary account in this case for the current mural project which Adolfo and I are working on letters of agreement with both the artist and with the Jacobs is for putting the mural up on the on the barbershop north facing wall and Phil Godin Schwager the artist is ready to get started on the project this month so we just want to authorize the town manager to disperse funds from that fiduciary account for for the project do you want to add anything to that at all no no you covered it thank you do we need a motion on this or is there an actual form that has to be filled out on this like some grants have or you just need a motion in the minutes no there there's not an actual form that needs to be filled out with any of the organizations that have already dispersed the grand funds what what the contract where the letter of agreement we're working on that Adolfo and I are working on it'll spell out for payments over the course of basically three months that will be made to the artist for the purpose of his artist's fees and acquiring materials for the mural and and again Adolfo and I are working on that we're also working on a letter of agreement with the Jacobs is independent of independent of the contract with Phil Godin Schwager premium approval from the board would essentially just memorialize the and bridge the gap the relationship between the arts and culture committee having fundraised the money and town staff paying for the mural that is intended to be paid or purchased by the fundraised money so we wouldn't need a special form just just approval from the board memorialized to the minutes and in this video that says yes we recognize that money was fundraised it's not tax money it's private money and it's going to pay for this piece of art that we initially talked about fundraising for at the very beginning it just makes it a little more clean when we have our audit at the end that shows the fundraised 15 000 and we spent 15 000 for for the art project yeah i'm good i just wondered if there was a form a lot of grants have a very specific form no both of the grants that we about close to two thousand dollars of the twelve thousand dollars raised came from private donations in the community the remaining ten thousand dollars came from the lampson howl foundation and the burn foundation both of which have very minimal grant reporting um requirements it's not like for example some of the NEA arts council grants which have very detailed reporting mechanisms in place but when all is said and done we'll we'll you know simply report to the lampson howl foundation and to the burn foundation in a letter that the project has been completed and of course invite them to um any dedication ceremony there might be but that's about the extent of our obligation to them treanie we also have uh cliff our finance director on the call um cliff you want to jump in hi sure um the i think common adults are on the right page there um i've seen the grant paperwork and there's not um not much in the way of reporting i would counsel that um we get all the right paperwork from the um from the artist in terms of non-employee work agreements and insurance paperwork and also um w nine's before he starts work okay okay yeah adolfo do you want to talk a little bit about the discussion we've had um relative to um actually purchasing the work of art with the designated funds from phil uh sure uh there there have been a number of different avenues that we tried to to explore one of them uh was trying to essentially keep the town out of it as much as possible to try not to murky the waters as much making this between the artist and the building owner and the agreement between the two of them would essentially just include the town as the the agent that's providing the money to purchase the mural that's on private property we then quickly realized that um we had to have an owner of the art so you know fundraising for a private piece of art and then donating that art to a building owner was a little odd so that led us to the the realization that there needs to be more of the town purchasing so let us to a point where we essentially would need two agreements one the first agreement is that the town is purchasing a piece of art from an artist and so that agreement uh memorializes that relationship that money privately fundraised by a town committee is purchasing a piece of art that will be displayed in public the second agreement is between the town and a building owner and that the building owner agrees to have this piece of art installed on their building the installation of it would be covered by the artist and then also the insurance uh paid for by the artist would cover the installation and any potential damage that comes from the installation long term the town would be the owner of the art so any damage that would come that is unrelated to installation you know after an investigation we find that it's it's not related to installment it's just you know age or whatever it is then the town's insurance provider would cover damages to the piece of art so it's very similar to our current sculpture agreement that we have at the elm street garden area so that's kind of the path that we have kind of moved forward with the town is involved with two separate agreements that makes it as clean as possible and then also makes this piece of art property of Randolph taxpayers and if I could just add to that it also gives us control over in consultation with but not necessarily with the approval of designating a different location for the artwork further down the line for installation further down the line if for example the Jacobs is sell the building and the new owner does not wish to continue having the mural there the art and culture committee would work with the artist and the town to identify another public location to move the mural to sounds like the town has the ultimate authority because we own the work of art yeah he would can he fill would continue to own the rights to any reproduction of the work for example will say in the contract that the town wishes the right to publish a photograph of it on the cover of the annual report or in in the spring summer tourist guide that we're doing that kind of thing but any any money making reproduction of the work in any visual form he would retain the rights to that we would only own the physical piece of art itself we would want to retain the rights for town use for publicity and yeah exactly yeah yeah that's that's what I'm referencing things like the annual report annual town report any any kind of things we might do in terms of tourist publications or whatever but we couldn't sell prints of the work or you know photographs of the work for for our gain financial gain that result that resides with the artist trainee I would make a motion if you want me to share that we authorize the town manager to disperse funds from the arts and culture committee fund the town acts as a producer as well I'll second that if it's appropriate I have a motion and a second all those in favor hi hi opposed motion carries next up is a water wastewater allocation and committee recommendations the water wastewater committee met recently to consider requests for increase in an allocation for water and subsequently wastewater and they submitted their recommendations which are in your packet they recommended that the board approve the increased allocations in your packet you also will have a staff report that was pulled together by the zoning department by Josh that confirms that there is sufficient allocation available for what's being requested by the new properties this is Talman's right we skip over Gifford uh whether they're both in the same in the same agenda item both Talman and then also Gifford Giffords just asking to be disconnected from that all right that's right yeah they want to be disconnected and Talman wants increase in water allocation and wastewater allocation i'll move it we approve both of those request a second all those in favor hi hi abstained motion carries uh next up is grants we have libraries transforming communities grant award but before we move to that Larry can you take this over i just got to start the fire warden meeting for Jeff jar uh so we're doing grants libraries please continue the transition um this was a grant that had previously been approved by the select board uh for staff or the library to apply uh for funding uh the library received the grant uh and i believe it's the amount of three thousand dollars um so it would just be a vote to accept the grant what's it for dogma um the i believe it's for their um have to look at the packet here it is for uh performances within the grant i believe it's three thousand dollars for don't have the sheet in front of me see if i could find it here memory serves me correctly without finding it it is for hosting community events so that they could essentially turn the library more into a community hub i don't know the specifics of the grant because i can't seem to find the request itself i'll move the town except the grant i'll second have a motion and a second all in favor except accepting the grant hi hi hi posed motion passes the next item not on the agenda that was shared with you because it was added at the start of this meeting was the grant in aid year four uh this is a one-year extension to a grant that had previously been approved by the select board for staff to apply for and then also to accept we were given an extra year of funding through two rivers out of quichu who we have to work through for this grant um and it's called a grant in aid uh year four and again this is for what purpose and how much uh this is essentially um this grant is essentially to help municipalities control wastewater movement so it essentially pays for ditching and it pays for performing work so that storm water moves between hydraulic hydraulic hydraulicly connected roads the last project that we paid to complete through this grant was the the guardrail improvements on north randolph road so this next year is an additional increase and i believe it's for $12,000 12,000 plus it's roughly about 12,000 12,500 and it's going to help help us to really improve ditching on and i can't recall i can tell you the exact name of the road that i'm okay without that level of detail i just was curious as to yeah it really just pays for a lot of extra ditching and to really help the um water move did you say how much the grant is for yeah total maximum grant award is 23,440 in our matches five thousand eight hundred dollars i'll move we accept the grant second it i have a motion and a second to accept the grant all in favor say aye all right all right opposed motion passes sounds like trinie's back i am okay it's all you trinie all right are we on to old business uh yeah we're on to appointments i think yep on to old business yep so appointments we had a list that came in our packet yeah folks interested in a variety of committees i just want to make one amendment to that list that i just learned about today and i emailed all of you when i learned about it it's for the arts and culture committee the two open positions um jessica wilkinson is still interested but reby carlton has stepped back however woman named jenny uh albert who is the current director executive director of the arts bus has um stepped up in reby's place and i have shared um biograph biographies and statements of interest in an email with you this afternoon so we're substituting jenny albert g-e-n-n-y for reby carlton is there any issue with moving these all as one item with the member change up on arts and culture um fine with that i have i have a suggestion on the capital plan could we add a member to that committee and have both abby and john b full members they seem like very qualified people you're going to be at an even number then pat no we have five now and that would be seven thank uh at the moment there are four there are four seats filled on the committee at the moment with one vacancy um i this is holly sanders i reviewed the interest of both abby sherman and john caplan and found them to be quite useful for our committee in slightly different areas of interest and i hate to turn anybody away who has an interest in capital budgets um so i proposed uh that we increase the original proposal was that we have an alternate i proposed that we increase the committee to six members knowing it is a uh an even number but i don't see us having a problem with that at least uh immediately and uh have both of them join the committee the other members on the committee uh wish to continue being members of the committee holly uh when you run your committees do you do votes or do you just do consensus building everything we do is by uh the proper uh rubbish rules of order we do votes and uh generally we follow rubbish rules of order although a good percentage of our conversations is consensus talking about the the issue of discussing it and it's an open format um whichever member is a participant in and we invite anybody who wants to be a participant to join us if they put their two cents in if you will and um then at the end we do have a formal rubbish rules of order vote so the request is then to change the committee to a seven person committee um to keep it a not number if you're doing that would leave a vacancy still open yeah but it would give people that you want yes yep okay so we have a list of candidates uh with some changes including increasing the capital plan committee to by two seats taking us to a seven-member committee and appointing abby and john as full members that's what the committee would like the committee is removing rebe and adding jenny any concerns over any of the others or any changes we want to make if not does anybody want to move that i will i will move the uh the full roster of appointments as amended second all those in favor aye aye opposed motion carries propose bids for architect assessment for the east valley hall we received response a single response to uh the bid that was released by the select by the town a second time uh the bid that was received was from central line architects the amount that um is proposed in response to the bid is 30 000 which exceeds the 14 000 budget that had been set for the project um so at this point you know we have only one response to the second the second bid that we released for this project was that response uh it's probably attached to was that response from one of the previous bidders rebidding or is it from a new bidder uh no it was a previous bidder that was rebidding on the project uh sounds like we've got some fundraising to do i think john john or mark or on here are they john was on earlier i don't john was on he wants to uh basically step back and reevaluate things pretty much exactly what uh adult was recommending so i he sent an email pat to you and i both um a little after six tonight when he had to jump off um i told him i would chat with him tomorrow if he wanted to on how to proceed i would i would favor that approach table this is that what we're thinking sounds like that's what we should be doing i think we are in fine shape to just reject all the bids and regroup with the east valley group because of the amount i'm there's no no way to move that forward yeah i totally agree with that second that was a motion i made the motion that's also on the record yep okay okay all those in favor opposed motion carries next under other business um we have pat for pensions um i think what's happening with the pensions the teachers and the state retirement system which that our town is in the state retirement system not the municipal retirement system i would like to have kind of an expanded discussion of that at some point what the town's position if we can come to a position on that because i think we need to support town workers as much as we can are you going to put together the information pat on all that so folks understand what all the issues are what the challenges are and where the legislatures add and the administration and some type of briefing i would work with travel on that i think that's something probably he knows quite a lot about so that's what i was thinking in like if i could make one suggestion if pat it's not that i don't agree with you know the topic you'd like to raise if this could be something that the board can maybe take up later in the year just given the transition and everything really coming um onto trevers plate over the next few weeks that's not to say that pension reform isn't an important issue because town employees are in the state plan but um there are you know construction projects that we're working on now there's transition with one-on-ones with staff and ongoing budgets um uh maybe this could be tabled for later in the year well my concern is there's a study committee apparently it looks like what's going to happen is a study committee set up for the summer and we might want to have them put there it's probably the appropriate time is that study committee with um treasurer pierce uh heading it up or who who is setting up this study study committee or overseeing that is still unclear there's a proposal for what that committee is going to look like but the committee has not been formed officially so we have some time then before they'd be looking for input since they haven't been formed yet i would think so yeah seems that way i think the the immediate issue has kind of gone by following all the public hearings it sounds to me like they decided this probably wasn't something they need to act quickly on however the session hasn't adjourned yet so i'm not sure i would completely say that and and not worry about it um i think scott's still pushing to get something done this year so it doesn't look like anything's going to happen this year except there will probably be a bill out of the legislature for governance of the pensions but in terms of actually restructuring them financially and coming up with a plan um that doesn't that's that's what this this committee is about that study committee and um that's nothing's going to be um nothing's going to happen on that um during this legislative session you think they're gonna hold next year you think they're gonna hold over the hundred and fifty million until next year um the depends on how you talk to it sounds like the speaker is saying that that money is set aside for pensions and but it sounds like the governor is saying that that money um is not going to go to pensions unless we come up with a plan soon so i don't i don't know who's gonna come out ahead in that particular more words that's my understanding right now how would you like to proceed with that discussion um i like try to get an idea and come back to the next meeting with something i'm happy to work on it okay we'll put you on the agenda for next month okay okay managers report excuse me treanie yep this is betsey race i apologize but i lost connection when you were discussing the proposed bids for the architect assessment you just fill me in please uh we went with uh john pimenthal's recommendation and that was to deny the bids and regroup the bid there's only one bid that's only one yes um okay there's no i mean without some more money from the town we're not going to get an architectural assessment right okay well we gotta have a a new game plan going forward so i he's been emailing but i know i know and i know the discussion that we had um no tonight not an emailing tonight since he jumped off the meeting he wants to chat tomorrow on how to regroup and move forward okay thank you yep all right you're on adult oh uh just uh a few a few things we have um two court related conversations coming up uh that involve our attorney one is movement that is finally occurring on the road reclassification issue that was appealed uh several years ago uh that has still been ongoing and we're hoping it'll be resolved fairly soon um it had been paused for pretty much the better part of the last year and a half uh for a number of different reasons mostly on the side of the the residents that were appealing and their attorney so uh there's finally some movement there we're hoping that the issue will be resolved uh the other issue involves the property on Dudley street the homeowners have finally agreed to perform some form of cleaning so we're gonna have a preliminary call with our attorney in the court this upcoming week followed by a site visit so that we can physically point out the things that need to go to make the property um what it should be as opposed to what it is now uh the select board had previously uh authorized staff to apply to enter the branchwood property into the state's brella program uh we received notice that we were admitted so the branchwood lot is now in the brella program which is great um it'll help us as we move forward with potential cleanup and the last item is that I received today an unsolicited call from a local resident that may be interested in purchasing the branchwood property so um I'm working with that particular person shared information with them um I don't think it'll come too much it you know things like this with that particular person haven't really reached a conclusion on different occasions but you know I thought I'd share with the board that there is some interest uh out there on the branchwood lot and that is all I have for the manager's report great seeing nothing else entertain a motion to adjourn as we head into our next meeting I'll move we adjourn should we say welcome to Trevor before we adjourn yeah oh he's hanging out for the next one so we don't even think about missing this next one not so much huh all right we have a motion and a second on adjourn all those in favor hi hi